Church and State in America: The First Two Centuries (review)

Hutson, manuscripts chief at the Library of Congress, is a leading authority on the religious culture of America at the era of Revolution and independence. In this work, part of the Cambridge Essential Histories series, he examines links between church and state and the meaning of religious liberty (or liberty of conscience) from English colonial settlement through the adoption of the first amendment to the Constitution.

His story challenges much popular understanding of "separation of church and state" that haunts twenty-first century public life and continues to provide legal cases that plague the judiciary from the local level to the Supreme Court. People still argue about what the proper relationship between government and religion and about what the founders intended in the first amendment that forbade Congress from legally establishing religion or from restricting the "free exercise" of religion.

Hutson demonstrates that throughout the first two centuries of Euro-American life, there was no "wall of separation"—Jefferson's phrase—between church and state. Political and religious leaders alike ascribed to the view found in Isaiah 43 that called rulers "nursing fathers" of religion. Indeed, Hutson shows, virtually all agreed that government had a keen interest in religion, in order to protect the people by assuring their eternal salvation and to preserve the political stability by minimizing religious disputes.

Yet government's role was not to determine doctrine or practice. Here latitude could prevail, particularly after transitions in the mother country brought minimal toleration after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Folks of that era differed from those of today, Hutson shows, in claiming that liberty of conscience could flourish even when there was taxation to support religion, particularly if that taxation were general assessments rather than support for one denomination.

In other words, government could favor religion—even favor one religion. But if all could worship as they chose without recrimination, liberty of conscience prevailed. This understanding is quite different from questioning whether posting the Ten Commandments in court rooms and classrooms creates a de facto religious establishment. The nation's founders and religious leaders, even those adamant about assuring that government not interfere with worship and belief, would not appreciate today's concerns. All agreed, Hutson emphasizes, that friendly aid and support for religion was necessary because religion molded a moral citizenry that in turn sustained democracy.

Hutson also argues persuasively that in most of the colonies, a far greater religious pluralism prevailed than the standard story allows. That fed into the design of the Constitution as a secular document, with no direct mention of God, and left its framers uncertain that the first amendment was really needed.

Hutson writes in a captivating fashion. His tale abounds with direct quotations that cry out for citation so others can locate the sources for them. Otherwise this work has extraordinary potential for student use.