Amendment I (Religion)

Document 55

Tench Coxe, Notes concerning the United States of America

The situation of religious rights in the American states, though also well known, is too important, too precious a circumstance to be omitted. Almost every sect and form of Christianity is known here--as also the Hebrew church. None are tolerated. All are admitted, aided by mutual charity and concord, and supported and cherished by the laws. In this land of promise for the good men of all denominations, are actually to be found, the independent or congregational church from England, the protestant episcopal church (separated by our revolution from the church of England) the quaker church, the English, Scotch, Irish and Dutch presbyterian or calvinist churches, the Roman catholic church, the German Lutheran church, the German reformed church, the baptist and anabaptist churches, the hugonot or French protestant church, the Moravian church, the Swedish episcopal church, the seceders from the Scotch church, the menonist church, with other christian sects, and the Hebrew church. Mere toleration is a doctrine exploded by our general condition; instead of which have been substituted an unqualified admission, and assertion, "that their own modes of worship and of faith equally belong to all the worshippers of God, of whatever church, sect, or denomination."

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 5, Amendment I (Religion), Document 55
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions55.html
The University of Chicago Press

Stokes, Anton Phelps, ed. Church and State in the United States. 3 vols. New York: Harper & Bros., 1950.