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James
Madison, Veto Messages, February 1811
Quite
simply, these veto messages are significant, in addition
to their contents, because they demonstrate how Madison
has maintained his promise to avoid the slightest interferences
with the liberties of conscience and religion. Madison's
attitude toward the evils of religious establishment
remains unchanged. By incorporating the Protestant Episcopal
Church, the authority to make rules, govern proceedings
and select ministers would be removed from the general
church or society and placed in the hands of a few.
Furthermore, giving legal effect to church rules and
regulations would require submission to the state penal
laws for their violation. This the Constitution forbids.
On similar grounds, President Madison refused to appropriate
federal funds for the use and support of religious societies,
such as the Baptist Church in the Mississippi Territory.
RJ&L
Religious Institutions Group
VETO
MESSAGES
February
21, 1811
To
the House of Representatives of the United States:
Having
examined and considered the bill entitled "an Act incorporating
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexandria,
in the District of Columbia," I now return the bill to the
House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the
following objections:
Because
the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments
are limited by the essential distinction between civil and
religious functions, and violates in particular the article
of the Constitution of the United States which declares
that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious
establishment." The bill enacts into and establishes by
law sundry rules and proceedings relative purely to the
organization and polity of the church incorporated, and
comprehending even the election and removal of the minister
of the same, so that no change could be made therein by
the particular society or by the general church of which
it is a member, and whose authority it recognizes. This
particular church, therefore, would so far be a religious
establishment by law, a legal force and sanction being given
to certain articles in its constitution and administration.
Nor can it be considered that the articles thus established
are to be taken as the descriptive criteria only of the
corporate identity of the society, inasmuch as this identity
must depend on other characteristics, as the regulations
established are generally unessential and alterable according
to the principles and canons by which churches of that denomination
govern themselves, and as the injunctions and prohibitions
contained in the regulations would be enforced by the penal
consequences applicable to a violation of them according
to the local law.
Because
the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority
to provide for the support of the poor and the education
of poor children of the same, an authority which, being
altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result
of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious
societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect
a public and civil duty.
February
28, 1811
To
the House of Representatives of the United States:
Having
examined and considered the bill entitled "An act for the
relief of Richard Tervin, William Coleman, Edwin Lewis,
Samuel Mims, Joseph Wilson, and the Baptist Church at Salem
Meeting House, in the Mississippi Territory," I now return
the same to the House of Representatives, in which it originated,
with the following objection:
Because
the bill in reserving a certain parcel of land of the United
States for the use of said Baptist Church comprises a principle
and precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United
States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary
to the article of the Constitution which declares that "Congress
shall make no law respecting a religious establishment."
James
Madison, Veto Messages (Feb. 21, 1811; Feb. 28, 1811), in
8 The Writings of James Madison, 1808-1819, at 132 (Gaillard
Hunt ed., 1908).
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