Amendment I (Religion)

Document 51

Virginia Ratifying Convention, Proposed Amendments

Nineteenth, That any person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms ought to be exempted upon payment of an equivalent to employ another to bear arms in his stead.

Twentieth, That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by Law in preference to others.

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 5, Amendment I (Religion), Document 51
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions51.html
The University of Chicago Press

Dumbauld, Edward. The Bill of Rights and What It Means Today. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957.

© 1987 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2000
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/