Congressional Chaplains, Madison and Context

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has responded to the Hindu prayer in the Senate.

In response to an AFA statement; “…we took prayer and Bible-reading out of school” ,

Brayton stated, “One should also note the distortion of history in his statement. We did not, of course, take either prayer or Bible reading out of schools. We took mandatory, government-required prayer and Bible reading out of schools.”

But in reading these articles, it’s clear that not too many of these Admins, Principles and teachers received or understood the memo.

Bible-Reading Student Gets Lesson in Litigation

Banned Bible Reader Sues Del. Co. School District

Lawsuit claims students not allowed to carry Bibles

ADF Lawsuit Claims High School Censoring Christians

Further down…

“Indeed, Madison argued that the very fact that Congress had chaplains was a violation of the first amendment:”

In 1789, Madison served on the Congressional committee which authorized, approved, and selected paid Congressional chaplains.
Debates and Proceedings 109 (1834 ed.) (April 9, 1789)

Additionally, a complaint was filed with the Congress in 1852 challenging the constitutionality of Chaplains in Congress.
The Committees on the Judiciary in both the House and the Senate each delivered a report pertinent to this discussion.

In the House Report on March 27, 1854;

There certainly can be no doubt as to the practice of employing chaplains in deliberative bodies previous to the adoption of the Constitution. We are, then, prepared to see if any change was made in that respect in the new order of affairs. . . . On the 1st day of May [1789], Washington’s first speech was read to the House, and the first business after that speech was the appointment of Dr. Linn as chaplain. By whom was this plan made? Three out of six of that joint committee were members of the Convention that framed the Constitution. Madison, Ellsworth, and Sherman passed directly from the hall of the [Constitutional] Convention to the hall of Congress. Did they not know what was constitutional? . . . It seems to us that the men who would raise the cry of danger in this state of things would cry fire on the 39th day of a general deluge. . . . But we beg leave to rescue ourselves from the imputation of asserting that religion is not needed to the safety of civil society. It must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests. Laws will not have permanence or power without the sanction of religious sentiment—without a firm belief that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices.

- [Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session of the Thirty-Third Congress (Washington: A. O. P. Nicholson, 1854).]

The House Judiciary Committee therefore concluded:

Whereas, the people of these United States, from their earliest history to the present time, have been led by the hand of a kind Providence and are indebted for the countless blessings of the past and present, and dependent for continued prosperity in the future upon Almighty God; and whereas the great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it eminently becomes the representatives of a people so highly favored to acknowledge in the most public manner their reverence for God: therefore, Resolved, That the daily sessions of this body be opened with prayer and that the ministers of the Gospel in this city are hereby requested to attend and alternately perform this solemn duty.

On January 19, 1853, the Senate Judiciary Committee delivered its report:

The whole view of the petitioners seems founded upon mistaken conceptions of the meaning of the Constitution. . . . If [the use of chaplains] had been a violation of the Constitution, why was not its character seen by the great and good men who were coeval with the government, who were in Congress and in the Presidency when this constitutional amendment was adopted? They, if any one did, understood the true purport of the amendment, and were bound, by their duty and their oath, to resist the introduction or continuance of chaplains, if the views of the petitioners were correct. But they did no such thing; and therefore we have the strongest reason to suppose the notion of the petitioner to be unfounded. . . . They had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people; they did not intend to prohibit a just expression of religious devotion by the legislators of the nation, even in their public character as legislators; they did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy.

- [The Reports of the Committees of the Senate of the United States for the Second Session of the Thirty-Second Congress, 1852-53 (Washington: Robert Armstrong, 1853).]

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

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

1 The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States 451, 1st Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, D. C.: Gales & Seaton 1834) (June 8, 1789).

He restated the same several times during the debates…(Debates and Proceedings 758-759 (1834 ed.) (August 15, 1789).

That, inspite of the fact that it was George Mason who advocated for a Bill of Rights to be added to the Constitution, while Madison and the other Virginians opposed a Bill of Rights.

“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.” [See, for example, Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 617 (1992); Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 791 (1983); ACLU v. Capitol Square Review, 243 F.3d 289 (6th Cir. 2001); Sherman v. Cmty. Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437 (7th Cir. 1992); American Jewish Congress v. City of Chicago, 827 F.2d 120 (7th Cir. 1787), and others.]

“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.”

“If critics of public religious expression believe that only a Virginian may speak for the nation on the issue of religion (they usually cite either Madison or Jefferson), then why not George Mason, the “Father of the Bill of Rights”? Or Richard Henry Lee who not only framed Virginia’s proposals but who also was a Member of the first federal Congress where he helped frame the Bill of Rights? Or why not George Washington? Perhaps the reason that these other Virginians are ignored (as are most of the other Framers) is because both their words and actions unequivocally contradict the image portrayed by the one-sided picture of Madison given by those who cite only his “Detached Memoranda.” ”

Of course, context, does make a difference!

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