Article 6, Clause 3

Document 18

Luther Martin, Genuine Information

The part of the system, which provides that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States, was adopted by a great majority of the convention, and without much debate,--however, there were some members so unfashionable as to think that a belief of the existence of a Deity, and of a state of future rewards and punishments would be some security for the good conduct of our rulers, and that in a Christian country it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism.

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 4, Article 6, Clause 3, Document 18
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a6_3s18.html
The University of Chicago Press

Storing, Herbert J., ed. The Complete Anti-Federalist. 7 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

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