American State Papers on Freedom In Religion
Takoma Park, Washington, DC: Review And Herald, 1943. Third Revised Edition [stated] Presumed first printing thus. Hardcover. 688 pages. Frontispiece. Illustrations. Footnotes. Index. No dust jacket present. Previous owners mailing label on fep. Published for The Religious Liberty Association. Small (approximately 7 inches by 6 inches) sheet, folded in half, with printing on all four panels laid in--this ephemeral item discusses the American State Papers on Freedom in Religion. [This work was first printed in 1891 as: American state papers bearing on Sunday legislation]. Foreword by Thomas M. Cooley. The contents addressed the Colonial Period, Federation Period, National Period, Liberty Symposium, Early Efforts to Return to Religious Laws, Increasing Pressures for National Religious Legislation, Court Decisions, State Constitutions, Sunday Laws in the United States, Operation of Sunday Laws, Various Aspects of Sunday Legislation, and Religion and Tax-supported schools. About the author/compiler from the title page: "William Addison Blakely of the Chicago Bar, for Some Years Lecturer on Political Science and History in the University of Chicago, Member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. etc.". This revised edition reflects, to some degree, the national discussion of religious freedoms during the height of American involvement in the Second World War. In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. As stated in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". George Washington stressed freedom of religion as a fundamental American principle even before the First Amendment was ratified. In 1790, in a letter to the Touro Synagogue, he expressed the government “gives to bigotry no sanction” and “to persecution no assistance." Freedom of religion is linked to the countervailing principle of separation of church and state, a concept advocated by Colonial founders such as Dr. John Clarke, Roger Williams, William Penn, and later Founding Fathers such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. The way freedom of religion is interpreted has changed over time in the United States and continues to be controversial. The issue was a major topic of George Washington's Farewell Address. Several American states had their own official state churches both before and after the First Amendment was passed. Illegal religion was a major cause of the 1890–1891 Ghost Dance War. Starting in 1918, nearly all of the pacifist Hutterites emigrated to Canada when Joseph and Michael Hofer died following torture for conscientious objection to the draft. Some have since returned, but most Hutterites remain in Canada. The long-term trend has been towards increasing secularization of the government. The remaining state churches were disestablished in 1820 and teacher-led public school prayer was abolished in 1962, but the military chaplaincy remains to the present day. Although most Supreme Court rulings have been accommodationist towards religion, in recent years there have been attempts to replace the freedom of religion with the more limited freedom of worship. Although the freedom of religion includes some form of recognition to the individual conscience of each citizen with the possibility of conscientious objection to law or policy, the freedom of worship does not. Controversies surrounding the freedom of religion in the US have included building places of worship, compulsory speech, prohibited counseling, compulsory consumerism, workplace, marriage and the family, the choosing of religious leaders, circumcision of male infants, dress, education, oaths, praying for sick people, medical care, worshiping during quarantines, use of government lands sacred to Native Americans, the protection of graves, the bodily use of sacred substances, mass incarceration of clergy, both animal slaughter for meat and the use of living animals, and accommodations for employees, prisoners, and military personnel. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Religious Liberty, Religious Freedom, Sunday Laws, Civil Liberty, Blue Laws, State Constitutions, Religious Minorities, Persecution, Public Schools, Public Opinion, Blasphemy, Censorship, Discrimination, Thomas Cooley, James Madison, Separation of Ch
[Book #88599]
Price: $100.00