hello. welcome to the national constitute and center and to today's convening of america's town hall. i'm rosen the president and ceo the ncc. and before we begin let's inspire ourselves for the discussion ahead by reciting

together the national our mission statement. here we go the national constitution center is the only institution in america chartered by congress to increase and understanding of the u.s. constitution action among the american people on. a nonpartisan basis. we have some great programs coming up on december 12th. we will have a discussion of the life and constitu tional legacy of gouverneur morris, and you can check that out. or on the rebroadcast on we the people, our weekly podcast. please check it out if you haven't yet. and so grateful to the lillian dormant for supporting tonight's discussion and for wonderful support of. the new first amendment gallery at the please come to philly. see it if you haven't yet it a marvelous exploration of the five freedoms of the first amendment, including religious liberty and i can't wait to share it with you. and i also am so eager to share

this discussion. we've convened three of america's great scholars of religious freedom, the founding for a and meaningful discussion on important question how religious were founders? let me introduce them and. we'll jump right in. jane calvert is director and chief editor of the john dickinson writing project. she's taught at saint mary's college, the university of kentucky and yale university. and she's the author of a superb book, penman of the founding biography of john dickinson, as well as quaker constitutionalism and the political thought of john dickinson. thomas kidd is research professor of church history at midwestern and the john and sharon yeates endowed chair of baptist studies. he's the author of many books including, most recently, thomas jefferson biography of spirit and flesh. we discussed on we the people

recently, and his other books include god of liberty a religious history of the american revolution, the great awakening, the roots of evangelical christianity in colonial america and a benjamin franklin religious life of the founding father. and patrick henry first among patriots and vincent phillip munoz is associate professor of religion public life in the department of political science at the university of notre dame. he is the author most recently of religious liberty and the american founding natural rights and the original meaning of the amendment religion clauses, which we also have the pleasure of discussing on we the people. his other books include and the founders. madison and jefferson as as religious liberty in the supreme court. thank you so much for joining jane calvert thomas kidd and philip munoz. thomas kidd. let me begin with you because of the scope of your book, god of a religious history of the american revolution, you've written about individual

religious views of benjamin franklin, patrick henry, among others, as well as the broader trends in your book on the god of liberty. how religious were the founders. well, that's a great question. and i think it gets confusing because the major founding fathers were sort of all over the map at least for 1776 as far as you know what they believed, what their relation was to institution or christianity. but lot of times the discussion does focus on, say, five or six of the major founders and what they believed. but you know, they ranged from know deist skeptics like, thomas jefferson and ben franklin to more traditional christians like patrick henry. but i still think that despite their diversity views, there were common principles that they still agreed that religious liberty, though there were some debates, the details of what

religious liberty entail, the danger of vice, importance of virtue in a republic the danger of consolidated power. you know that god had a providential role in human history, even even if that was a very generic kind of providential role, that there were these kind of public views that they shared that i think helped to give balance to the revolution and the framing of the constitution despite fact that the founding among themselves had deep divisions over their personal religious beliefs. thank you so much. introducing the topic. well and in your new book, you do argue that this shared commitment to what call public spirituality united the founders who had different degrees of religious observance and different private religious views. philharmonia and in addition to your important new book, religious liberty the american

founding, you've written a book on god and the founders. madison washington and jefferson. maybe starting each of them. how religious were madison and jefferson and how religious were the founding fathers in general? thank you for having me. and i'm a big fan of the national constitution center and a big fan of professor calvert's work and professor kidd's work. philip, me just ask you to speak up a little bit. i don't know if it's just me, the vikings. yeah, i hope that's better. is that okay? i think that's. that's great. thank you so much for saying thank you to. perfect. thank you. i admire the national constitution center and your recent book, which is really quite excellent, professor calvert and professor kidd. i've learned a tremendous from each of them, so i'm really pleased to be a part of this discussion. you asked about how religious were the founders? well, i'll just what professor kidd said, you know, jefferson was probably the most heterodox of the founders, a deist. he seemed to believe in a

divine, but he certainly wasn't an orthodox christian by any sort. washington. he's a member of the episcopalian. how frequently he attended church services himself. i mean, that maybe not as frequently as one might expect that deeply pious. but again, he had it very deep notion of providence. and certainly i think we could say as a believer. in a creator and a creator god and madison is just very difficult to know. you know, he went to princeton as, a young man, and he thought about he studied sort of thought about becoming a member of the clergy. but then sometime in his college years, he it just stopped talking about his religious beliefs. and he says so little it's hard to know what his personal beliefs are. but madison like all of the founders, they believed in a what we might call an objective moral law.

some of the founders ascribed the creator or the biblical god as the author of that, but they all believed in objective right and a moral wrong. they believed that we're endowed by it, by our nature and and nature and nature's god, that we have certain moral rights, natural by nature. so they believed in a moral order to the universe if i can use that language and. they saw that as part of the created order that we ought to respect where we're all created equal and we ought to respect one another's rights when a powerful way of putting it they all believe in a creative creator and a moral order to the universe that informed their vision of national rights and equality. jane calvert i've got to enthusiastic recommend your wonderful new biography of john dickinson. i had a great pleasure of discussing it at. dickinson college recently with trip founded in tribute to john dickinson and was so struck by

your insight that dickinson's inspired the that he was the founding father who was most fervent in his opposition to slavery and his devotion to women's rights, among other views. tell us about how religious was john dickinson and how did his quakerism inform his constitutional vision. so yeah, was very his entire life and i should make it very though he was he was not a quaker. that's big misconception. and sort of a myth. i have to constantly correct because he was born into quaker family. he was raised a quaker and then he married into the most prominent quaker family in pennsylvania. and over the years. he gravitated, increasing towards quakerism, but he never

actually joined the meeting, never actually became a formal quaker. and that was because he said that every religion had aspects of it, that he didn't agree with and with quaker, as it was that he believed in the lawfulness of defensive war, as he put it. and so he was a big proponent of militias and as a citizen, militias. and so he never let that go. but so when he was younger, his his faith was still in evidence, especially in his with his mother, who was a great to him. and she was she was a quaker. and so you know we start to see his religiosity as early as you in his early twenties when was studying law in england and and we we see it in his. determination that one of the main reasons i would say the main reason he wanted to become

a lawyer was so he could protect the innocent and and the injured, defend them and this was very, very much a quaker early purpose of being a lawyer and a lot of a lot of the most prominent early early lawyers were quakers. so so then as we as we go along and we start see him expressing his ideas for resistance to britain first during the stamp act congress we we see that was advocating quaker methods of resistance and actually even before that in in 1764 he was trying to protect pennsylvania constitution, which was the only major only pennsylvania was the only major colony that had religious religious liberty

built into its written constitution. and when benjamin franklin and joseph galloway were wanting to abolish the pennsylvania government and the constitution along with it, dickinson spoke up against that. and on the grounds that if the quakers, if gave up that constitution, then religious liberty would go away and they might not get it back. and so so even in his very know earliest sort of public public activities, we see him coming out expressing these quaker and and then as the as the resistance to britain goes forward and then the revolution begins at each step, he he he really came out became a spokesman not just for america, but also for the quakers. and in trying to protect their

religious liberty, the religious liberty, women which do to his mind and to quakers also included the freedom of public speech. and so he wrote the first gender inclusive language in a constitution to protect women's religious liberty and their the freedom of public speech. of course, this was from from his early his draft of the articles of confederation. but but then he went on and at the first opportunity after independence was declared, he he conditionally freed his enslaved people. and then over the years wrote other manumission deeds that granted them unconditional freedom and and then going on into later years his his philanthropic endeavors were very much focused quaker priorities not just the abolition of slavery but also

education and and in religious for that matter. but he was actually at odds with quakers about because they wanted what was called a guarded education which he sort of protected and protected children from the influence of influences of the world and and sort of you know sheltered them because quakers didn't believe in original they believed in inevitable sin, but they wanted to protect children as long as possible from the world that would cause them to sin. and dickinson, very much a proponent of liberal arts education. so he he wanted not just religious education, also education and science and the classics and and and so he brought with the quakers a little bit on. but but they still really saw him as an advocate for their their principles and their beliefs. so this was sort of the sort of a big the big the big picture of his life. and we can, if you want, get

into some more specifics later. but yes, he definitely was an an exemplar. ah, although an imperfect exemplar of of quaker principles, a perfect exemplar of quaker principles, such a great way to put and also many of the details are wonderful. i noted you do in your book that he refused to donate to dickinson college after they eliminated the classics requirement. and since i was speaking at the invitation of the dickinson classics department were all cheering you on for that that plug for their own endowment? thomas kidd in your history religious liberty in america you begin by saying the notion that natural chief among them liberty derives from god becomes widely adopted in the lead up to the revolution. john adams is the chief proponent of that view but then your second chapter examines the work of jefferson and madison on of conscience in religion before

revolution and introduced the idea of natural rights and. how jefferson and madison viewed them. sure. i mean, i think there was a very broadly shared idea that human equality comes from our common creation, by god. i mean, this doesn't require even any kind of specific christian belief. but but that there was a created order and, that people's rights come from the way that god made us most profound, that we have equal together compared to one another, because we're all created by god. so there's a sort of horizontal equality because of our vertical relationship to god. that was very, very widely shared and routinely sided as a sort of common sense principle about equality rights among the founders.

now, of course, the implications of that were debated, obviously early on on slavery, but also women's rights, that, you know, scripture is clear that male and female, he created them. and so this is not just a male issue, but the devil was always in details about, well, if we're equal before god, then does that mean politically? but but certainly when you're talking about the the the view of the rights of british american is, as jefferson put it, in a pre declaration writing that he did i mean you have to start with that idea that we are all created by god and that god you know gave us our inalienable rights as the declaration says and therefore that that that's where you start when there were cases of political oppression or denial of basic liberties that this is unjust because of our equal standing god.

and so that's one of those ideas that i mean, if heard that kind of talk today, you would think, oh, well, this person must be some sort of devout christian, a devout -- or something like that to make these kinds claims. but even some, like jefferson, took that for granted despite the fact that he is quite in his personal beliefs about the details of christian doctrine, such a important thing to emphasize that all of the founders accept the idea of natural rights from god, our nature, not government and even jefferson and deist insists that it is central to what makes rights unalienable so munoz in your marvelous book on rights and religious liberty, have clearest explanation for why freedom of conscience is an unalienable rights that i've seen. this was a question that just consumed me ever since law school and you explain that it's

because our rights come from god our nature and we can't surrender to others. the power to control thoughts even if we want to. and yet at the same time you note that madison and jefferson have different views of why conscience is unalienable. tell us. and i know can do it so well. what was jefferson and what was madison's views about why freedom of conscience is an unalienable right? and what are the consequence of their views? well, thank you for the kind words. i hope my audio is fixed. i'm sorry the problems earlier. i hoped my writing was better than my audio. the idea of a inalienable or unalienable as the founders would say. they said the worship according to conscious as a unalienable right. what they meant by that in simplest terms, and to oversimplify somewhat, is that it's we owe those obligations, our obligations to worship according to conscience, to the creator and and we don't cede

over control over how we ought to worship to the government. and this is why government cannot legitimately tell us how must worship or punish us not worshiping. government license preachers. government can't say you may or may not be a preacher. and the reason is because we don't give that authority to the government. we don't alienate authority over our religious beliefs and our religious practices or religious opinions to the government. so the government can't penalize for those beliefs or practices so inalienable liberty is a jurisdictional term. think about it. looking government legitimately. do. and the founders are saying we're going to create a government for our common welfare for a common defense to foster the common good, the common political good. but not every human good is part of the government. we're not going to turn authority over our religious worship to to the government. and colloquially, we talk about the separation of church and

state separation. church and state is really to limit the state and to allow churches and authorities to be separate from the government. but they have their own authority, which some understand comes directly from god. and so that's what the founders in general, i think, all agreed about the concept of enabling ability, where the differences come in and i'm not sure if our scholars would agree with this, but maybe i can put it this way. all the founders thought that moral character was necessary a republican government, a public good government requires a moral citizenry. and i think most of the founders thought religion was necessary to help cultivate morality where they disagreed was whether was government support necessary to religion. did religion actually need the help of government? and some, like john adams and george washington, thought it was perfectly legitimate for government to aid religion because religion helped cultivate the moral necessary for good government. but others like madison and

jefferson thought, you know, religion be necessary for government. but government isn't necessary for religion. and government support actually tended to corrupt or harm. religion. that's not difference in fundamental principles, but a difference in. and practical application of those principles. such a powerful and crisp way to put it to founders agreed that religion was necessary for good, but disagreed about whether government was necessary. religion and we'll explore that deep implications of that distinction in moment. jane calvert one of our audience members asks, does enslavement fit in? and for dickinson it fit in as a violation of natural right and the creator's law? he as you explain so, was among the most committed abolitionists among the founders. tell us the relationship between his religious views and his to

slavery. i'm glad for question because it lets me go back to the topic of natural rights and most people don't know very about dickinson and i hope to change that. but he was actually one of the earliest proponent of natural rights. it was it was a dangerous proposition an early in the resistance to it was generally assumed you know rights came that that americans by virtue of being english had their rights you know as as englishmen and it could be seen as subversive to government to talk about natural rights, things that were, you know, coming from god would maybe take away from the authority of the crown or parliament. but in as early as the stamp act resistance. dickinson drafting documents

that ended up in the stamp act, congress where he was invoking the concept of natural rights. and and as as you know decrees from providence and nothing written on parchment that but decrees from providence and and so this this meshes very nicely with quaker idea of of of well, i guess. right but but it's an extension of how quakers. understood who who would be saved or who could be saved. and so most most other anglo-americans. well, a lot of them i should say, sort of, you know, subscribe to more of a calvinist view of the world where were there was such a thing as predestination. and now that that had changed with with the advent of

evangelicalism. but still there were there were, you know calvinist types who believed that that god had preordained who would go to heaven and who would go to hell. and quakers never believed they always believed in universal so that anybody, anybody race, gender or socioeconomic status, anybody could find in their consciences and and be saved. and so this meant that black people as well as white people, native women, anybody, you know, the criminal criminals, the poor, anybody could be saved. and so they were the quakers were the first group to to begin agitating for a to abolish slavery. and first, they did it within their own society. and then when they had that, they looked outward and started to abolish it in the society.

and so so dickinson fit very much within this and. you know, early in his when he was when he was younger he did inherit a lot of slaves from his father and he he he was sort of of of the slave owners at that time who would say, well, you know, it's a necessary evil and and, you know, we don't we don't like it and and it's as bad for the the enslaver it is for the enslaved. now we we we laugh at that today because slavery is so horrible. but there was this idea slavery tainted the enslaver as well and debauched debauched him morally and. that one could not be one could not believe in equality and or enact equality and enslaved people. the enslaver would be would would be a tyrant to his inferiors, a sycophant to his

superiors. and so dickinson fit within that. but then over the he came to see that there was no way that one could own other human beings and and also, you know, believe that you know, be a good. and so he he he joined with quakers on on abolition. so but but it really stemmed quakers idea that all human beings could be saved regardless of their worldly condition condition. what a powerful way to put it all human could be saved regardless of their worldly condition. and that led dickinson to be among the most fervent abolitionists. thomas kidd many of our questioners are asking about the relationship the founders religious and their views about religious liberty. and this raises the question of to what degree government should promote religion. you describe the embrace a

vision of a christian sparta, samuel adams and others that allowed the founders to reconcile the puritan view some of original sin with the idea that possible for citizens actually to the self discipline that is necessary for self-government. tell us about that notion a christian sparta and then the different views among the founders about. what kind of public virtue was necessary and possible. you know, this goes back to what professor munoz said a minute ago, that the founders all that religion was good for your good religion is good for a republic. but that left open the question about what the relationship is between the and churches or a denominate. and so you know people new englanders among the founders tended to believe that the model

that they inherited from england which was if religious is if religion is important then it deserves state support. and that's model that england has carried through today with the church of england being the established church there and many of the founders. john adams, samuel adams, george believed that there should continue to be at least at state level a, role for the state, promoting the interests religion, hopefully not persecute anyone but, promoting the interests of. and it was widely assumed it would be some christian protestant denomination would would be the denomination that received favorable treatment. but there were others, madison and jefferson most obviously who believed that religion and christianity would do better and flourish better if there was no

state involvement, and that that was coming from traditions of the enlightened that was that arguing for religious people like john locke. but it was also coming from. the council of religious dissenter in the american going back to people like roger williams, the founder of rhode and in the revolutionary era. it was definitely coming from baptists who had been persecuted by many of the state churches, especially early in places like virginia and massachusetts and the baptists were sort of, you know, the the most fervent evangelicals can imagine. and they were adamant that they wanted the state to get out of the business of because whenever the state got involved with religion it ended persecuting dissenters like. the baptists or like the quakers. and so they they argued just they were kind of a free market

of religion type of group where they just said just leave us alone and let us preach the gospel and let us plant churches and do the lord is calling us to do and we'll do fine. we need government support. just leave us alone. and. and madison jefferson found in that argument a sort of on the ground a sort of gritty version of religious liberty that i think they hadn't quite experienced before. but in the early 1770s, there were dozens of baptist preacher as being put jail by the virginia government for illegal in madison. and one of my favorite letters to a friend he writes you know where you pray for us this terrible spirit of persecution is abroad in the land in virginia. you know, these okay, maybe these baptist are nuts, but but we shouldn't persecute them just because they have different ideas about christianity. and so this leads up finally to, madison making his great

argument for religious liberty and saying that christianity will flourish best in freedom and that that will also be best for the republic. oh, that is an inspiring letter and. how how and how illuminating to bring together madison's views about the importance of keeping the government out of religion with his views about the flourishing of the republic. philip in really important book, you sum up many of your themes by noting the consensus among the founders all held that the right to according to conscience was a natural and unalienable right. they reached an overlapping consensus about the character of that right. but you say they disagreed about how far their rights extended and you distinguish between narrow republicans like washington and henry who saw the scope of the right as more limited and were more disposed state funding of religion and expansive liberals like madison and jefferson, who took a more

expansive view of religious liberty. that track the distinction that thomas just offered between the competing views of adams in washington and jefferson, madison and tell us about how those different founders viewed state support of religion. yes, i think i think i agree with professor kidd. i didn't i didn't hear anything disagreed with. i think well, a couple of things just to note the outset that the founders thought if if the government were to support religion, that should be done at the state level that this was not the business of the national government. in the logic there is that citizens will have more control their local governments or state governments. and therefore, if government is going to support religion, it should support the religion of the people locally. so everyone against the national establishment, no one wanted the the national government involved in supporting the church. it was to be a the local level.

how was that to take place? there is a interesting shift in in the in the rhetoric of those who advocate for government support. again these are figures like washington and and john and you see this in the massachusetts constitution of 1781 or maybe most famously, the the rhetoric in support of government support of religion is they take civic rationale. it's the language of we need a good character and we're going to be a free people and a free people must able to govern themselves. they must respect the rights of others, and that religion will help cultivate the the good character of the people. it's it's not because this is the one true religion and the state must support the one true religion. even the arguments for government, support of religion are not like the old establishment. we must establish the one true,

correct religion and therefore, in practice, what you see is at the town level in new england, the towns will pick whatever pastor they want to support and government will support. the religion of the local. i mean really at the town level. so even when you have support of religion, it's different from the old throne in altar or. there must be one denomination and only one denomination. it's much more mild and democratic type of establishment now. madison jefferson thought even that was too much, but it again, this is a practical difference, a difference in public policy. maybe the the closest equivalent today would be we can all be in favor of education. but do we do it through public schools, traditional public state sponsored schools, or do we do through school choice and just privatize? and i mean that sort of the type of argument that's going on we can all support religion, we should keep government out or,

let the people who supported themselves or well, we can do it, but, you know, let's support schools at the local level. i think maybe that's the closest equivalent in our contemporary politics. absolutely fascinating. jane, tell us about, john adams and calvinism. i know studied the relation ship there. and you note adams was not a puritan because there weren't any left. but but a reformed calvinist ethos did shape his thinking in way. was was calvinist thinking relevant to in the way quakerism was for dickinson yeah. so it it it's a really interesting relationship between john adams and calvinist, him and dickinson and quakerism so it's a it's a big it's a big it's a big theme. so basically it comes down to. the major question.

at the time of the american revolution was what is a people supposed to do if the government is oppressive. and the decade before the declaration of independence americans trying to figure that out and they had three models in front of them. one was tory ism, which was sort of the small c conservative approach. and that was sort of based on on the established church of england anglicanism and the idea was that the the the king was god's vice regent on earth, and he should protect the people's rights. but if he didn't, it was his prerogative to do what he saw fit as god's vice on earth. so if he oppressed the people,

the people only had the right to pray and petition as. they put it so they would they would send petitions to him beg for relief and hopefully he would grant it. but that was as far as things could go. on the other extreme was the the whigs. and these were sort the the the, the, the radicals and they said, well, yes, we start with praying and petitioning. and i should say that whigs were there. there's a sort of a secular version of calvinism. and so they said that yes, you begin with praying and petitioning, but if that doesn't work and the oppression continues is then eventually the people have the right and the duty to overthrow roe the the government and put a new government in place. and and so that that's what ended up being dominant in the

american revolution. but quakers a third way that was kind of in between two those extremes and quakers said well we you know we don't believe in that there should be oppression. but we also don't believe that the the king should be able to do whatever he wants, nor do we believe the that the that he should be overthrown. they believed in protecting the unity, the polity, the small c constitution of the people. and so they invented the new theory and practice of resistance that we now civil disobedience. there wasn't a name for it when they invented it and it didn't really get a name the maybe early 20th century but it was basically where you break unjust laws but you do with you know

peacefully, with love in your heart and you accept consequences come at from the government and thereby you raise public awareness for the injustice and. all the better if you are executed it because then you are a martyr for your cause. and if this sounds extreme. it's exactly what martin luther king preached during the civil rights movement. and he wrote the the best, most succinct explaining of quaker civil disobedience in letter from a letter from a birmingham jail in 1963, he did so at the behest of quakers and quakers published the first 50,000 copies of it. so this is what dickinson offered and it's one of the reasons that he and john adams clashed so mightily during the founding and in if i could just continue for a moment one of the major reasons dickinson did not want independence and refused to sign the declaration of

independence was that he was very afraid that the quakers would be denied their religious and persecuted and so dickinson did not so he went off and he the battalion he he founded after independence declared. and then a year later what he feared happened did happen. and so after americans basically, you know, excised his provision for religious liberty in the articles of confederation and they they then turned on quakers and and instituted the most severe persecutions quakers and since the 17th century and they and it was at the behest john adams by the way, and that a group of quakers in philadelphia were rounded up, they were denied habeas corpus and held charge and shipped off to virginia for months and some

of them died there. their their livelihoods were destroyed, much of their property was destroyed. and and this is exactly. dickinson worried about if independence went forward, that there would be no protection for religious dissenters. it is an amazing story that you tell that dickinson's so principled in his devotion to religious liberty, that he refuses to sign the declaration, knowing he'll be tainted in history yet in a principled way, enlists, serves with great courage and is persecuted by john adams. also the author, of course, of the alien and sedition acts. it's an amazing story. well, thomas kidd lots of our audience are asking, what is the relevance of the divisions? we've been talking about among the founders for supreme court doctrine today? you've told us that washington and adams, on the one hand, disagreed with, madison and jefferson about the under which state support for religion

appropriate. what does that tell us about? the supreme court's approach to the free exercise of religion, maybe taking one concrete example of the rights of religious dissenters to get exemptions from generally applicable laws, right? well, i mean, that that is a big ticket issue. i mean, it's how we live in a different world now and circumstances have changed in terms of religious pluralism and rise of more public role for secularism and all that. but i still think that that the principle of free exercise religion on the question of dissent and controversial religious views still will do a lot work for us. and think that that you do even built into the constitution notion of sort of instances of of exemptions of for cases clear

religious conscience and and this is for instance when when the constitution even allows people to swear or affirm if they have conscience issues with with oaths which quakers and certain groups did. and so the framers of the constitution following longstanding precedent, knew that the way to get around this is that, you know, oaths are really important because most people believe that if you promise to do something before god, you better do it. but but the bible it read literally says you should not swear oaths. so so, you know, what do you what do you do for people scruples about this? well, it's really simple. you just make an an exemption for an exception for who have those kind of conscience issues. and i think that that is something that is to today, you know, not that you allow people certainly we've always drawn the

line at you know, clearly criminal acts done in the name of religion that that gets no exemption. but if you have your questions that come up where people could clearly have a held religious belief that would prevent them from you know, complying with a law or regulation. i that the founders would certainly say that the government should give strong to giving exemptions when and you know assuming that they're not just some flaky claim made up in the moment but that this is an actual belief that have held sincerely for a long time. i think that that's there's a sort of generous spirit, the constitution, the affirmation of free exercise of religion and, you know, even in the case of of the oaths or affirmations, you know, an exemption within the body of the constitution itself.

in the founding, there's a presumption that we should create religious exemptions when possible. is a powerful and subtle way. put a firm up. you argue previously you've got a lot attention for it, that although the founders believed in create religious exemptions as a statute, a matter exempting quakers, for example, from a religious service, they did not believe that the constitution required exemptions. tell us about that. and then tell us more about your conclusion that the framers desire and the free exercise clause to recognize and protect the principle of religious liberty. does that apply in practice? yeah. well, it's a very big issue and i should say there are very distinguished, far more distinguished scholars and justices on the court, for that matter, who disagree with on this. so i don't presume be the be all and end all on this issue.

i don't, as you correctly summarized, i don't think the constitution was meant to guarantee constitutional right to exemptions religious exemptions from burdensome laws. i do agree with what professor kidd said. the founders were deliberate about trying to craft the laws that they did pass in such way that they could be more inclusive to use our own language today. so you didn't have to swear an oath could swear or affirm an oath that was clearly meant to be inclusive of quakers and quakers and a few others at the time. but we can't, for religious reasons, swear an oath. but we can. and and this is a way you don't have an exemption because you draft a law more broadly or more inclusively. and so i fully agree the founders also did say for like military for pacifists such as quakers legislatively there could be exemptions, but there was no right to an exemption. and the reason is, well, there's

an obligation to follow the. that's one of the primary, if not the obligation of citizenship. we create a government and we agree to follow the laws. and to be an equal citizen means i'll follow laws of being part of this government. and so there can be no right to be exempt from the laws, though the lawmakers, the people should try to be as generous as they can be when framing the laws. if they if they legislate an exemption, then the law provides an exemption. the second part of your question. well, well, what then what the purpose of the free exercise clause. the purpose of the free exercise clause is to make sure that let me refer back to something professor kidd said about madison in baptists and these baptists being arrested in a colonial virginia. you know what their crime was, were preaching without a license. you had to have a license to

preach. and they were itinerant preachers. they were preaching without a license and with a free exercise was meant to meant to do is government can't issue things like preaching licenses. the government can't pass a law saying you must and catholics you must go to confession once a month or you must attend this religious or you're penalized if you don't attend that religious service to. take these questions, these theological questions where people have long disagreed off the political table that you can a believer or you can be a nonbeliever, but we can all be friends and fellow citizens. the same law, the free exercise clause was meant to take those theological questions and legacy leading certain theologies and religious practices, preach free exercise was meant to say no the government's not going to do that. and so it's narrower.

but fundamentally important. what the free exercise closed us you. i'm going to repeat it because it's so important. the government can't say you must attend this religious service and be penalized. you don't attend. you can be a believer, a nonbeliever. but the government is not going to put its thumb on the scales. jane calvert do you agree with that notion of the free exercise clause as being neutral between believers or nonbelievers and prohibiting the government coercing behavior or beliefs in any kind? was there a connection between that and quaker constitution and the quaker notion of religious liberty and the light within and pick up on a question a lot of our audience is asking about how would john dickinson viewed deists and religious -- and other non non-christian americans?

yeah, do agree with munoz's characteristic of the free exercise clause. and well it's a little bit. well to talk about quaker constitution nihilism because it that existed in a particular historical moment and in that moment is gone and and i and what i mean by that is so quakers they built religious liberty into the pennsylvania constitution. but for quakers religious liberty basically what they believed that a if they gave if people had religious liberty, they would eventually find their way to quakerism and. they didn't have to become quakers. the quakers who controlled the government wanted, the people of pennsylvania, simply to act like quakers. so they even though they did not

have an established church, they actually had the most robust in the in the colonies. and what i mean by that is that the government was controlled by the quaker meeting and the the the quakers controlled the economy and they controlled the society and so they didn't need they didn't actually need laws they could basically control society sort of from the top down and the bottom up. and and they of thought, well, you know, we'll just sort of guide people to to at least act like quakers. so as far dickinson is concerned about this, there are a couple of things that are interesting. one is that i want to just sort of also agree with what professor kidd was talking about with. that the you couldn't you know,

you couldn't build an into the into the constitution. in fact, the quakers really wanted dickinson when he was the president of the delaware constitutional convention, 1790 192. really really wanted him to to get religious exemptions for quakers serving in the militia written into the delaware constitution. and he said, no, that is for a statute that's not not for our constitution and that that also echoes what james james initially had a conscious conscientious objector clause in the second amendment, but there was a of pressure to take it out because among other reasons people, just sort of thought, well, you if you have that, everyone's going to become quaker. and and they didn't they didn't trust people in that regard. but apart from that when dickinson was president. first delaware and then

pennsylvania he in the beginning of both presidencies he he put out a presidential proclamation that was called an a proclamation on suppressing vice and immorality. and in it he called for basically reformation of manners. and this something he'd been thinking of since he was his, you know, in his twenties. and he said in proclamations that every person, every inhabitant, every of the state should be attending some religious service. so he's kind of harkening back to to the days of early quakerism in pennsylvania and wanting sort of shape the populace and and, you know. inculcate a sense of morality and respect for for for and and generosity and love towards

towards one's neighbors. and he said every every person should be going to some religious service. he didn't care what service as long as they were going to some service. and and i think he he would have been okay with people who didn't go to a service as long as they were, you know, moral, moral persons and and were living good lives that took into account the well-being of their of their neighbors and those less fortunate. but it's just interesting that he he sort of became much more about education and moral reformation that put religion at the than he had been when he was younger. that is such an interesting that. and that's all of them focusing that emphasis on civic education playing a role that religion for some them had played in

different contexts. it's time to for closing thoughts in this superb discussion, which is just as deep and rich as i knew it would. there's so much to ask of thomas kidd in summing up the points on which the founders agreed, you note several of agreements, including agreement of a creator, god, belief in human sinfulness, a belief in the necessity of a republic being sustained by virtue. the belief that god was raising america for special purposes. but the first of your principles was the alliance with about the this establishment of state church. so i think i'll close by asking you to tell us was the alliance between leland and jefferson about the disestablishment of state churches and what does that have to tell us about what the establishment clause of the first amendment means today, john leland was of the really most radical baptists and he was operating in virginia and got to

know jefferson and in madison and. leland is not a great evangelist and committed, you know, preaching the christian gospel, but he is an inveterate foe of the state establishments of religion, certainly in virginia. but then spent a lot of his later career, new england and a lot of people don't know that connecticut and massachusetts and knowing what states outside of rhode island kept to an official state church after the adoption of the first amendment, which which shows, again, that that first amendment in the bill of rights applied to the national government, it not not the states. and so, again, the baptist are clamoring for an end to the state established roots of religion. they found it obnoxious even to you know have to sign exemption from religious taxes. they could get exemptions but they had to do paperwork get it

and they thought this is this still a violation of our religious liberty? they even have to do that. and so, i mean, one really illustrative is when jefferson writes baptists in connecticut about the wall will separate and between church and state and, he's talking about the established church in connecticut and the baptists said to him as president and. oh one 1802 you can't you do anything, get rid of this stinking establishment. and jefferson said, you know, i'm just the president of the united states. i can't touch the state churches. but art we glad that the first amendment builds a walls separation between church and state. i mean, that's been interpreted different ways then, but that is so to understand jefferson is writing a group of baptists when he that point and that shows that ongoing alliance between kind of evangelical dissenters and jefferson the ideas really

fascinating, fascinating and inspiring. absolutely. philip munoz, you so much rich insight on the establishment clause in your book. you two rules that you derive from the history congress will make no law erecting religious establishment and congress shall make no concerning state level religious establishments. you have a really chart which helps us think through how would you call them natural rights would deal with questions ranging from state chaplains, state supported religious displays and how the supreme court justices would approach it. it's now time for a three minute closing statement. so i'm asking you to do a lot. but what's the what are the big lessons of history that you want our listeners to take away from about the establishment religion? and how do you think that the establishment clause should be interpreted in light of that history here? that's a big question. well, maybe maybe i can it this way and also answer a few of the questions that have been coming in on the chapter to answer some directly. the state can't act like a

church, state can't say this is what you must believe. these are official tenets. you know, you must believe that god must be worshiped in this way, on this day and this form so the state can act like a church, and then the state can't delegate. its power to churches. this is actually part of the establishment clause. the original understanding that we we missed today really what an establishment was was state giving its power delegating its power to churches who then the churches could collect taxes using the law as a course of mechanism. thankfully, that doesn't happen too much so. but it doesn't happen too much today because the constitution prohibits it. so that's a short answer to a very broad question it doesn't really answer to many of the difficult questions, but ten commandments in public schools and things which are tough questions. one thing i might include in my summing up, and this reflects a lot of the questions that have come in and my question is, what about --? what about non-christians?

does religious freedom do the founders understanding of religious freedom include non christians as well? and here i point the viewers to washington's letter to the hebrew congregation of newport, rhode island. this is august 1790. i mean, to my mind, one of the most beautiful and important letters in american and this is washington and knew what he was doing. he was writing a letter to this congress just to the --, but writing a letter. he knew that it was really to all americans, for all americans, see. and it says, look, for all those of any religion who all abide by the principles of human equality, the government by consent, we can all be fellow citizens. so america is the can be a home for the jewish people. and this is the spirit of the founding and that goes for non as well. we can agree on the principles of human on natural rights and then i said before that makes us fellow citizens and we can agree on the principles of religious

freedom and. i think that's the very best of america and it really is inclusive. i'm not sure. jeff? jeff, are you still there? i've lost you. perhaps i'm not me. i'm just here. forgive me for a glitching, jane, last word to you in this great discussion. what can our listeners take from the legacy of john dickinson and how can he inspire them in their about religious. well, maybe the biggest takeaway is that dickens often was very much in keeping with the quaker spirit.

as someone who tried his best to his faith, he like quakers or like like actual quakers would really, you know, walk in the way of christ and he he he did this by always trying as a lawyer to defend those who were the weakest the poorest as a legacy. later he did the same, you know, passing laws to the weakest and the poorest. and and he stood up for for america as as weak against british oppression. and and then in his philanthropy he did the same thing founding schools giving money to all all kinds of different religions and founding the first prison reform society and that kind of thing and so i mean, he he he is really, i think, inspirational

as someone who tried to try to live his faith as honestly and thoroughly as he possibly could without, without and believing that god demanded that man be happy and the way man would be happy would be by serving others and taking care of least among us. beautifully put. thank you so much, jane calvert, philip munoz and thomas kidd. inspiring discussion of religious liberty and the founding and the question of how religious the founders and thanks to you great and cc and c-span viewers for joining us and taking an hour to learn about american and our founding principles. it is so important in these challenging times for all of us to. be lifelong learners and to the primary sources and to continue your learning. begin by the books of our great

you, which are so full of learning and light. read the ones we've discussed and. others, including thomas kidd, has a whole source book on religious liberty primary texts, then go to the national constitution center is interactive constitution. read documents from the founders library. listen to them. we the podcast and check out the amazing new constitution one on one horse that we've launched, khan academy, which brings america's greatest constitutional scholars, including several of them who are here to teach you about the constitution. the founders believe that we all have only a right but a duty to learn so that we can up our own minds to for ourselves and speak as we think. and that's exactly what we're doing together. thank you all jane calvert munoz kidd. thanks to all of our friends. goodnight and we'll