countryclubjoe
Regular Member
The First Amendment didn't abolish or prohibit any state sponsored religions.
It just prohibited Congress from making any laws in respect to religion. At the time of the Constitutions signing and for many years thereafter more than one State had an official state religion. Even years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank (1876) still held that the First and Second Amendment did not apply to state governments. Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and South Carolina funded their churches from the public treasury when that amendment was written and continued to do so for years afterwards.
Cruikshank, was one of the worst Supreme court decisions in American jurisprudence, and had very little too do with religion..
Read the case again, the SC ruled that the federal government had no duty too protect citizens, that it was the States duty too protect its citizens therefore implying that the 14th amendment protections did NOT apply to citizens.
This after over 100 innocent african Americans were massacred, aka, the Colfax massacre.. Bear in mind that the white murderers were all released, and for a long period of time, no white person was ever convicted of a crime against a black person in the south. Which eventually lead to the civil rights act of 1866.
Please be advised this horrible decision was over-turned with, Dejonge v Oregon ( 1937) and Mc Donald v City of Chicago (2010)..
Two cases again, that support the " living Constitution'.
My .02
CCJ
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