Religious test and the Constitution
Contrary to popular belief, the Constitution is a plain text document. Due to a colossal failure of the formal education system in the United States, Americans consider the document an enigma because they were denied an early opportunity to study its efficient prose and simple construction. However, a few short hours of remedial study would correct the deficiency if people studied the document instead of listening to lawyers, the press, and politicians.
The Framers of the Constitution had only three things in mind when they cautiously gathered to form a union: (a)Common defense; (b)Foreign and domestic commerce; and (c)Common and uniform justice (see Preamble). To meet those goals, the proposed constitution was put together as a "check list" of delegated authority for a central government. The colonies surrendered only the bare minimum of powers necessary to meet pre-determined objectives so that the federal government would have specific powers, but no more. Some delegates and other colonial leaders were pessimistic that the central government would stay within the bounds of "original intent" and, therefore, insisted that certain rights be enumerated in the document as a condition of ratification. Assurances were given and, after ratification, the states quickly approved ten amendments that are known as the Bill of Rights.
Two hundred years later, politicians (hungry for more power) and many others (through ignorance) have convoluted views of the power structure of our political and legal systems. Politicians pretend to perceive (and citizens actually believe) that the nations power structure is like a pyramid with the Constitution at the top, delegating power downward to a federal government, and on to the states, and then the people. That perception is inverted: exactly upside-down and not in the proper order. The U.S. power structure is like a pyramid, but the people are at the top, delegating to their state and on to a central government. An instruction manual (Constitution) is sent along for guidance. Due to ignorance and incorrect views on how the system was designed to work, the public is regularly duped by its own leaders.
Two recent situations have produced glaring examples of how the general public is hoodwinked on constitutional issues by public people, including the press. In most cases, the press is guilty of deception due to its own blathering ignorance. With politicians and lawyers, it is a conspiratorial fraud designed to satiate their own greed for power, money, and advantage -- at the expense of the public.
One of those occurrences was the election-2000 debacle in Florida. In a democracy, a tied vote is messy but not a crisis. In Florida, the tie was with the presidential vote. Public officials used the ignorance of the press corp and the low IQ and constitutional ignorance of Florida Supreme Court justices. They combined those with the public's lack of constitutional knowledge to whip the population into a maniacal frenzy.
There is a well defined legal plan in this country to resolve such matters. In Florida, a small group of moderately trained election officials could have settled the argument with copies of the U.S. Constitution, Title V, U.S.C., and the Florida election statutes. Protests over recounts would have moved forward until the deadline for protests was reached, then the legal contest within Florida would have begun. If the matter was not settled by midnight, December 12, the legal contest would have become moot and the Florida legislature would have stepped in to name a slate of electors for the Electoral College. In Florida's case, the legislature was predominately Republican so they would have named a Republican slate. IF the legislature had been controlled by Democrats, then Al Gore could have become President.
But wait! If an election is close enough, could not the trailing candidate create and drag out legal contest so that a legislature of his own party could turn the election for him? ...Yes. And that's exactly the way the system is designed. BUT, if a candidate pulled such a prank, the U.S. Congress is supposed to be honest enough to correct the problem by rejecting the electors appointed such shenanigans. But, if congress happens to be dominated by the same party as the prankster, then the prankster wins, and that settles the matter until the next election. ... Remember, the election was a virtual tie anyway!
Is it unfair if Gore had prevailed even though Bush won the popular vote in Florida? Life is unfair. So is politics. But that's not the point. The point is that there was a legal plan in place and it should have been followed without all the side shows. The people who created the farce (Gore's men, led by Bill Daley) to bring political questions to the Florida Supreme Court BEFORE the recounts were conducted did the country a great disservice. They are not leaders, public servants, or statesmen. They are scoundrels! AND THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT. Now, some people are trying to blame the other side (Bush) for using the U.S. Supreme Court to shut down the scam and to expose the fallacies of the Florida legal system.
Not content with the shambles created in Florida, the hate mongers continued to work hard on the airways and throughout the system.
Lets review what happened over the weeks following the Florida fiasco.
To keep and bear arms is one right... Religion is another.
Constitution of the United States: ARTICLE VI; Cl. 3
"The Senators and Representatives..., and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." [Emphasis and bold added.]
The body of the U.S. Constitution contains only this one single reference to the word "religion" or to any variation of the word. There are no other usages in the main document. "Freedom of religion," is guaranteed in the First Amendment which was added after the Constitution had been ratified (adopted) by the states.
The First Amendment is:
That is the entire Amendment."Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The "no religious test" mandate of Article VI," along with the "Freedom of Religion" clause of the First Amendment, were not included by accident. Each was adopted only after long debate and deep consideration. Madison was an important instigator for the "no religious test" clause and his feelings were well grounded from his study of European history and his own personal experiences in the Virginia legislature. The two clauses, in context with contemporaneous writings, provide a sound basis for the Supreme Court's long held rulings that the Constitution dictates a "separation of church and state." There are no other references to religion anywhere in the U.S. Constitution or in any of its Amendments.
Therefore, the original intent was, and still is, that "...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
As with ALL elements of the Constitution, the "no religious test" must be parsed carefully to fully grasp its meaning, especially the unusual insertion of the adverb "ever." The Framers were not prone to include extraneous and superfluous words... Each word in the document was evaluated, re-evaluated, and hotly debated as may be seen in the transcripts of the Constitutional Convention. The adverb "ever" in the text has a special emphasis and literally means: never, not under any conditions, in no case, no matter what the circumstances, not in any form, etc., etc. In fact, this is the ONLY use of the adverb "ever" in the entire Constitution including all Amendments. There are instances of the adjective "every" as in -- every year, every bill, every state -- but no other use of the emphatic adverb "ever." There are usages of compound conjunctions, pronouns, and adjectives such as "whenever," "whatever," "whatsoever," but no other use of "ever."
The Bill of Rights does not emphasize one right over another, yet we consider each absolute. Some scholars suggest that the order of appearance, i.e., (1)religion, (2)speech, (3)press, etc., signifies an order of importance but there is no documented basis for such reasoning. If enumerated rights without emphases are considered absolute, then it is reasonable to conclude that a Constitutional mandate prefixed with an explicit, emphatic, adverb means exactly what it says: "...no religious test shall EVER be required..."
Well, then why. ...
During the week ending Friday, January 19, 2001, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held confirmation "hearings" on President George W. Bush's nominee, John Ashcroft, to become U.S. Attorney General. Throughout the first two days of hearings, Ashcroft's religion, faith, and ideology WAS tested, questioned, pilloried, and ridiculed by committee members and by witnesses before the committee. Early in the first day Ashcroft warned a Democratic Senator about the restriction in Article VI but the caution was ignored. There was not a single instance where a witness was interrupted, cautioned, or warned that a religious test was off-limits. Instead, Democratic members and adverse witnesses joined in incessant harangues against Ashcroft's faith.
Then, on Friday, much time was consumed by both Republican and Democratic Senators making speeches that what had transpired was not a religious test, but instead, was an examination of Ashcroft's record and political views. With this twisted logic, Article VI, Clause 3, has no use and may as well be stricken from the Constitution. The questioning did not follow political lines... It was specific, into religious beliefs, especially on the points of how Ashcroft would conduct himself in matters where his religion and public policy came into conflict. This point was questioned, re-questioned, and re-re-questioned. In many cases the Senators stated flatly that they didn't believe him (Ashcroft), that he could be impartial, and asked what his religion would dictate under certain hypotheticals. -- Democrats wanted to know what his religion would dictate for: abortion; school vouchers; birth control; death penalty cases; drug addiction; gun control; flag burning; freedom of speech; etc.; etc.
In an effort to mitigate the obvious unconstitutional conduct, Democrats later hit the airways with "spin doctors," some of whom took the posture that Article VI means that a test may not be made as to whether a person has a religion or is an atheist. This Clintonesque spin assumes that the rest of us can read only at First Grade level. The Founders and Framers were not intellectually challenged; they knew how to write and how to express themselves quiet well. The Constitution says what it says... "...no religious test shall EVER be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." If the Framers intended something else they would have said so.
It is certainly a legitimate question to ask if a potential office holder can separate religious beliefs from public policy, but the Constitution makes it clear that a detailed test, point-by-point, of that religion is far out of bounds. If the Supreme Court can find "separation of church and state" in the few words of the First Amendment, it is much simpler to see that Article VI completely bans any test of religion. The Judiciary Committee had before them thirty years of Ashcroft's public record to test his qualifications, yet they choose to delve into his religion as the primary area of inquiry. According to the Senators, Ashcroft would have great difficulty enforcing laws that conflicted with his religion. If that reasoning is correct, we could not have police officers, judges, lawyers, teachers, etc., until they were subjected to a religious test.
Those who jumped in the streets with joy during the Ashcroft hearings must consider the other side of the coin. What happens when there is an all conservative Judiciary Committee that wants to examine a Hindu, Buddhist, an atheist, a Jew, or a different branch of the Christian faith. Is that the time to step in and restore the Constitutional mandate of hands-off?
A few of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee were so upset with the possibility of Ashcroft serving as Attorney General that they lost all common sense and common decency. Members revealed an ignorance of the tenets of the Constitution. Notable among these was Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.
In one exchange between Kennedy and Ashcroft, Kennedy accused Ashcroft of "treason" because Ashcroft, at one time, had stated that the right to bear arms was a guard against the "tyranny of government." Kennedy, red-faced and shouting, denounced such an utterance as "that is treason!" No one corrected him, demonstrating that the committee's capacity for Constitutional enlightenment was largely untapped.
How does the Constitution define treason? ARTICLE III, Section 3., First Clause:
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
That is the entire constitutional definition of treason.
Notice the word "only." Again, the document means what it says: "...ONLY in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." That's it. It does not say that a Senator from Massachusetts may dream up new grounds for treason or extend the meaning of the words used in the document.
Jane Fonda traveled to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War and provided considerable "aid and comfort" to an enemy of the United States. THAT was treason, but Senator Kennedy was completely silent at the time on the subject of treason and in fact, consistently support her efforts and METHODS to end the Vietnam War.
The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary decided that two days of religious testing was insufficient to serve their purposes and demanded that the "hearings" be dragged out for another two weeks. They unabashedly admitted that Ashcroft had the votes for confirmation but wanted to have the weekends to make their "case" on TV talk shows and to conduct a "fishing expedition" into Ashcroft's record. In other words, to see if they could find something to use against him.
On Wednesday, January 31, Joe Biden of Delaware, decided that he would not allow Kennedy to win the ignorance award, and repeated his announcement that he would not support Ashcroft by saying, "I wish he had been nominated for the Department of Transportation, or Energy, or the Department of Defense, where his beliefs wouldn't matter. Then I could vote for him." Probably among the most bigoted statements ever uttered in a public hearing by a member of the Senate. -- Undoubtly, Biden and his Democrat cohorts believe that the Christian faith and justice are incompatible.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, (D-Conn.) Vice-Presidential running mate of Al Gore, is an Orthodox Jew. Jews in America generally abide by the Jewish faith in one form or another but orthodoxy is practiced by a minority and considered extreme by many Jews. MOST Americans consider Lieberman's faith extreme, yet his VP candidacy was accepted without public animus. On Thursday, February 1, Lieberman took to the Senate floor to denounce Ashcroft with a speech of open and frank hostility. Lieberman's words were tortuous as he attempted to correlate, twist, and otherwise explain his objections to Ashcorft's public record but he was unable to make his true objections coincide with Ashcort's public service. It became clear that his primary problem was Ashcroft's faith. Certainly, Lieberman will expect public tolerance for his own faith to continue.
Senator Charles "Chuck" Schumer (D-NY), also a Jew, exhibited pure unabashed hatred throughout the "hearings." He didn't even try to hide his distaste for Christians of any ilk. Schumer has openly stated that he has an agenda to outlaw private ownership of guns and he despises anyone who does not hold the same philosophy, especially gentiles. Schumer is a bigot of the highest order. Also he embraces the ultra liberal notion that -- pro-life, right to bear arms, anti-busing of students, parental choice for students -- are all extreme views; out of the mainstream. In short, as with Ted Kennedy, if one does not agree with Schumer, they are extreme.
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We are not alone in our conclusion that an ignorant Judiciary Committee should take lessons to understand the U.S. Constitution, although we strongly believe that the extreme socialist ideology of many of them would inhibit their ability to absorb the concepts contained therein.
See Professor Walter E. Williams' opinion.
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See The History Professor, for timeline-oriented original documents and factual materials of historical figures and events that led to the founding of America, the evolution of the Constitution, and the political system of the USA.