Church And State Quotes - Page 8

• Justice O'Connor was the fifth vote to uphold the time-honored principle, which bears repeating, of separation of church and state. There was real wisdom in the decision of our forefathers in writing a Constitution that gave us an opportunity to grow as such a diverse nation, and we should never forget it.

  Dick Durbin

  Real, Writing, Opportunity

  U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court, www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

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• I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church-an equality in the teacher of Religion, and a dependence on the people, are republican sentiments-but if the Clergy combine, they will have their influence on Government

  Rufus King

  Teacher, Government, People

  Rufus King (1971). “The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King: 1755-1794”

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• As you know, the separation of church and state is not subject to discussion or alteration. Under our Constitution no church or religion can be supported by the U.S. Government. We maintain freedom of religion so that an American can either worship in the church of his choice or choose to go to no church at all.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Government, Choices, Presidential

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• Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Truth Is, Left, Ifs

  "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom" (1779)

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• I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Father, Religion, Dignity

  Benjamin Franklin (1836). “The Works of Benjamin Franklin; Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author”, p.2

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• The public schools shall be free from sectarian influences and, above all, free from any attitude of hostility to the adherents of any particular creed.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Attitude, School, Presidential

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• We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion both suffer by all such interference.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Religious, Party, Believe

  Rutherford B. Hayes' Speech in Marion, Ohio, July 31, 1875.

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• All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their belief

  Jeff Miller

  Believe, Practice, Pluralism Is

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• Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

  John F. Kennedy

  Religious, Attitude, Believe

  Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, delivered 12 September 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX

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• Let it be henceforth proclaimed to the world that man's conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God.

  John Tyler

  Religious, Men, Presidential

  Funeral oration for Thomas Jefferson, July 11, 1826.

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• It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and a usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

  James Monroe

  Wise, Mean, Exercise

  George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, James Knox Polk, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama (2017). “Inaugural Speeches from the Presidents of the United States - Complete Edition”, p.35, e-artnow sro

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• Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.

  James Madison

  Successful, Perfect, Presidential

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.89, University of Virginia Press

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• God has appointed two kinds of government in the world, which are distinct in their nature, and ought never to be confounded together; one of which is called civil, the other ecclesiastical government.

  Isaac Backus

  Religious, Father, Government

  Isaac Backus (1773). “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty Against the Oppressions of the Present Day”, p.9

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• The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn't interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Religious, Vision, Church

  Source: www.hrc.utexas.edu

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• I can't tell Black people to fight a war that is Israel's war. What kind of leader will you be, or should I be, to allow these babies Black, white and brown, to fight Israel's war, because Zionists dominate the government of the United States of America and her banking system.

  Louis Farrakhan

  Baby, Religious, War

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• Strange a God who mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness, then invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none Himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon Himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship Him!

  Mark Twain

  Atheist, Responsibility, Men

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• It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Believe, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States”, p.209

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• Creeds have been the bane of the Christian church ... made of Christendom a slaughter-house.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Religious, Father

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• No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance.

  Hugo Black

  Religious, Church, Attendance

  Writing for the court, Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 1947.

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• It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Jesus, Sides, Doctrine

  Thomas Jefferson (2002). “Democracy”

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• It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

  George Washington

  Exercise, Rights, Class

  George Washington, John Clement Fitzpatrick, David Maydole Matteson (1792). “The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799”, p.93

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• The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature. . . . [In] the formation of the American governments . . . it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven. . . . These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

  John Adams

  Simple, Government, America

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• The civil Government, though bereft of every thing like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State.

  James Madison

  Government, Religion, Atheism

  "Letters and Other Writings of James Madison".

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• I believe in an America ... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source.

  John F. Kennedy

  Believe, America, Church

  Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, delivered 12 September 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX

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• Christianity is part of the Common Law of England.

  Matthew Hale

  Christian, Law, England

  In 'Historia Placitorum Coronae' (ed. Sollom Emlyn, 1736)

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