What were some examples of religious establishments at the Founding?
About this video
The video explains what an establishment of religion looked like at the founding, using the Church of England in colonial Virginia, where church attendance and a religious tax were required and other religions were suppressed. It explains why the founders didn't want a national church, and how the First Amendment applied only to Congress while states with established churches dismantled them by 1833.
You'll be able to
- describe the legal obligations of an established church in colonial Virginia.
- explain why the founders didn't want a national church.
- explain that the First Amendment originally limited only the national government and describe how state establishments ended.
Key words
- establishment of religion
- An official church supported and required by the government.
- Church of England
- The established church in England and colonies like Virginia.
- free exercise
- The right to practice your religion freely.
- dismantle
- To take apart or end something, like an official state church.
Transcript
Video Title: What were some examples of religious establishments at the Founding? Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMseylHjKoQ Transcript generated by YouTube Transcript Generator - Extract transcripts from any YouTube video instantly at https://transcriptgenerator.org ======================================== [MUSIC] An establishment of religion is an established church, and the most commonly understood established church at the time of the founding was the Church of England. There were a number of legal obligations attached in Virginia, for example, Colonial Virginia, you had to go to church. Now, if you were sick, you didn't. There were various excuses, but essentially, a church attendance was mandatory. You had to give to the church. Now
give is the wrong word, since give sounds like a gift. It was more like a religious tax than a religious gift. You had to contribute, you had to attend, and practice in other religions other than the Church of England was suppressed. Only a few other religions were permitted to conduct worship services in Colonial Virginia. This is a whole system under which the established Church was the only one for most people, and it was legally obligatory.
There was a particular concern that we didn't want a national church, and that was because different religions tended to be predominant in different parts of the country, and they knew that if we tried to have one national church, it would lead to probably even Civil War, but it certainly would be a mess. The First Amendment is specifically about Congress, that is say about the national government, but at the same period of time, at the founding, almost every state, I believe every state that had a state Constitution had some form of free exercise clause.
This is an almost universally recognized right. Then, although at the time of the Bill of Rights, several states, almost half of the states continued to have a form of establishment of religion, these were debated on a state-by-state basis, and between the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1791, and several decades later, the last one being 1833, each of the states that had an established church dismantled it, most of them incorporating their own mini establishment clauses in their own state constitutions.
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