The American Constitution and Religion

1. The Regime Principles of the Constitution

1 1 THE REGIME PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION c Meeting in Philadelphia from May to September 1787, the Constitutional Convention drew up an instrument of government for submission to the thirteen states. Rhode Island sent no delegates, and two important leaders of the American Revolution and future presidents of the United States were absent: Thomas Jefferson was in Paris as ambassador to France, and John Adams was in London as ambassador to Great Britain. Two fiery patriots, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, refused to attend. Nevertheless , the Convention included illustrious participants, such as Alexander Hamilton of New York, James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, and especially James Madison of Virginia. Benjamin Franklin was present, and George Washington , the victorious commander of the army in the Revolutionary War, presided. The delegates were commercially minded, lawyerdominated , and intent on establishing a central government with independent powers to raise taxes, regulate commerce, and govern foreign affairs. The views of the framers of the Constitution on society and government, like the views of the framers of the Declaration of 2 Regime Principles of the Constitution Independence, reflected the philosophy of the British Enlightenment in general and John Locke in particular. Their religious views ran a wide gambit, from the skepticism of Franklin to the Catholicism of Daniel Carroll. Many were Deists, but most of them probably believed in the immortality of the soul and attended church services at least periodically. In fact, during the Convention’s sessions in Philadelphia, the delegates occasionally attended church services, including once at a nearby Jesuit residence . By the time of the Revolution, the colonists had laid the foundation of self-government and the framework of their legal systems. All the colonies had a bicameral legislature, the lower house of which was a popularly elected assembly that controlled the purse and participated in legislating. In New England, local officials were elected and local ordinances adopted at town meetings. Although the Crown appointed governors in the royal colonies and proprietors in the proprietary colonies, Rhode Island and Connecticut elected theirs. The governors in most colonies appointed the executive council, but Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut voters elected theirs. The Crown—that is, the British government—appointed the judges in most colonies , but the legislatures of Rhode Island and Connecticut appointed theirs. The division of executive, legislative, and judicial powers was modeled on the British Constitution. But suffrage in the colonies was restricted. Women were excluded, and voting was in several states limited to freeholders. The colonists also adopted the principles of English law, including codes of criminal and civil law, trial by jury, and the writ of habeas corpus. It is important to note that the framers, despite their philosophical convictions and British heritage, were engaged in practical statecraft. The pragmatic need to overcome the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation was their driving motivation for governmental reform. The Confederation required unanimous 3 Regime Principles of the Constitution consent of the states to regulate domestic commerce, to establish a stable currency, to collect taxes, to pay foreign debts, and to negotiate with foreign powers. The primary object of the framers was to remedy these deficiencies with a strong national government . Four basic principles underlie the U.S. Constitution. First, the Constitution grants limited powers to the federal government, and the federal officials have only the powers the Constitution explicitly or implicitly grants. Second, the powers of the federal government derive from the consent of the people. Third, the Constitution provided for separate executive, legislative, and judicial powers, and those powers checked and balanced one another . Fourth, the Constitution provided for a federal system of government in which both the federal government and the state governments had legitimate powers. Constitutionalism The expression “government of laws, not of human beings” signifies the essence of constitutionalism—that is, limited government . Law can mean customs and conventions, statutes, judicial decisions, or higher law. If we accept some or all of these as constituting a fundamental framework of government, then the word constitution denotes the body of rules, written and unwritten , that constitute the character of a particular government. Unlike the kingdom of Persia, whose rulers were despots and subjects were slaves, the Greek city-states had largely unwritten constitutions that specified the roles of rulers and citizen-subjects. But the Greek city-states were internally unstable and ultimately subjugated by the Macedonians. Rome had a largely unwritten constitution embodying aristocratic...