James Madison’s religious views and activities are numerous, as are his writings on religion. An understanding of Madison’s religious views is complicated by the fact that his early actions were at direct variance with his later opinions. Those who would use Madison as an authority in secularizing the public arena misrepresent his historical role in framing the First Amendment and ignore the views and importance of other prominent Founders.

Madison’s proposed wording for the First Amendment demonstrates that he opposed only the establishment of a federal denomination, not public religious activities. His proposal declared:

” The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established.”

In 1789, Madison served on the Congressional committee which authorized, approved, and selected paid Congressional chaplains.

In 1812, President Madison signed a federal bill which economically aided a Bible Society in its goal of the mass distribution of the Bible.

Throughout his Presidency (1809-1816), Madison endorsed public and official religious expressions by issuing several proclamations for national days of prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving.

These were the early actions of Madison. In later life Madison retreated from many of these positions, even declaring in his “Detached Memoranda” his belief that having paid chaplains and issuing presidential prayer proclamations were unconstitutional. Recent Courts have made a point of citing Madison’s “Detached Memoranda” in arguing against public religious expressions.

Significantly, the “Detached Memoranda” was “discovered” in 1946 in the papers of Madison biographer William Cabell Rives and was first published more than a century after Madison’s death by Elizabeth Fleet in the October 1946 William & Mary Quarterly. In that work, Madison expressed his opposition to many of his own earlier beliefs and practices and set forth a new set of beliefs formerly unknown even to his closest friends. Since Madison never made public or shared with his peers his sentiments found in the “Detached Memoranda,” and since his own public actions were at direct variance with this later writing, it is difficult to argue that it reflects the Founders’ intent toward religion.

There were fifty-five individuals directly involved in framing the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention, and an additional ninety in the first federal Congress that framed the First Amendment and Bill of Rights. Allowing for the overlap of nineteen individuals who were both at the Constitutional Convention and a part of the first Congress, there were one hundred and twenty-six individual participants in the framing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The records of the Constitutional Convention demonstrate that James Madison was often out of step with these Founders. The other delegates rejected Madison’s Virginia plan in preference for Roger Sherman’s Connecticut plan and voted down 40 of Madison’s 71 proposals (60 percent). Nevertheless, today Madison is cited as if he is the only authority among the Founding Fathers and the only expert on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.

Was Madison responsible for the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights? Definitely not. In fact, during the Constitutional Convention, it was Virginian George Mason that advocated that a Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution, but the other Virginians at the Convention – including James Madison – opposed any Bill of Rights and their position prevailed. Consequently, George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, Edmund Randolph, and others at the Convention refused to sign the new Constitution because of their fear of insufficiently bridled federal power.

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The cornerstone of the Capitol was laid by President George Washington in 1793.

Then, on December 4, 1800, Congress approved the use of the Capitol building as a church building.
The approval of the Capitol for church was given by both the House and the Senate, with House approval being given by Speaker of the House, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, and Senate approval being given by the President of the Senate, Thomas Jefferson. Interestingly, Jefferson’s approval came while he was still officially the Vice- President but after he had just been elected President.

Jefferson attended church at the Capitol while he was Vice President and also throughout his presidency. The first Capitol church service that Jefferson attended as President was a service preached by Jefferson’s friend, the Rev. John Leland, on January 3, 1802. Significantly, Jefferson attended that Capitol church service just two days after he penned his famous letter containing the “wall of separation between church and state” metaphor.

However, regardless of the part of the building in which the church met, the rostrum of the Speaker of the House was used as the preacher’s pulpit; and Congress purchased the hymnals used in the service.

The church services in the Hall of the House were interdenominational, overseen by the chaplains appointed by the House and Senate; sermons were preached by the chaplains on a rotating basis, or by visiting ministers approved by the Speaker of the House. As Margaret Bayard Smith, confirmed: “Not only the chaplains, but the most distinguished clergymen who visited the city, preached in the Capitol” and “clergymen, who during the session of Congress visited the city, were invited by the chaplains to preach.”

This does not look like the “separation of church and state” that we hear so much about today.

It’s not a matter of being offended or not. It’s a matter of living in a country that does not in any way endorse any religion over another. It has nothing to do with being offended but has everything to do with citizens feeling like they are subject to equal treatment and equal understanding under the law. When anything official from any level of government — be it a law, be it a resolution, be it a public building, be it printing on legal tender — defines the concept of god or seems to promote or value one religion over others, that’s an obvious violation of Madison’s vision of separating government and religion.

As for Jefferson… Was Jefferson trying to convert Indians as some sort of missionary, which is how you make it sound? Hardly. He utilized his Jefferson-ized verion of the Bible, which removed the miracles of Jesus, and tried to civilize the Indians as part of his domestic policies on land expansion and signing treaties with the Indians, who he wrote many times needed “civilizing.” It was a political maneuver, not a religious one.

Key words: OVER the ACLU.

“Let’s not forget that Thomas Jefferson went out of his way to write about how the 7th ammendment in no way allows Christian views/morals to be established as law just because they came from English Common Law prior to the Revolution and that religious freedom trumped that.”

Lets also not forget how he then turned around and spent government funds on converting Indians to Christianity. Let us also not forget that each time a President is sworn in he is made to swear on the same Holy Bible George Washington did PUBLICLY, a ritual established by the Framers of the establishment clause.

“BUT why they will also defend a little Christian girl’s right to say a prayer to herself or with a small group of her friends at the lunch table at school.”

And they will sue to keep R.A.’s on college campuses from holding private Bible studies in their own dorms and on their own time. They will also sue to keep little girls from wearing red white and blue beaded necklaces in support of the troops in school. (Gang related you see) Removing a Ten Commandments display is not defending anyone’s civil liberties anyway. There is nothing in the Constitution that says people have a right not to be offended.

That attitude was also shared, of course, but the non-Christian founding fathers and thinkers of the time, people like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and so on.