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Very few Americans know much about the Bill of Rights, and even fewer know how this document came to be part of the Constitution. This is a long story, and it did not happen overnight. America declared its independence on July 4, 1776. What most do not realize is that the war went on for another five years. The Battle of Yorktown ended the fighting with the British surrendering in 1781. The Treaty of Paris ended the war in 1783, two years later, due to the complex politics and poor communication of the time. The new country was under the Articles of Confederation, which were drawn up during the war. There were serious flaws in the document, and in 1789 A New Constitution was drafted. Genuine questions followed by a group led by James Madison. He, along with the delegates from North Carolina and Rhode Island, refused to ratify the document without a specified list of rights. Madison proposed 19 rights, but the Senate reduced it to 12, and the states ultimately ratified 10. These are the ten we know today. The Constitution was completed in 1791. This was 15 years after July 4th, 1776. Considering the world at the time, it is a miracle that the young country survived long enough to produce the Constitution.
The First Amendment to the Constitution was the Freedom of Religion, Speech, and the Press, the Right to Assembly, and the Right to Petition the government. The government was not to endorse any specific religion nor interfere with anyone’s religious practice, which was a brand-new concept for its time. Most countries, and some even to this day, have a Church-state relation. Today, this usually boils down to a tax that citizens pay for the state church. Remember, King Charles III of England, the current monarch, is the head of the Church of England. What Madison had seen were the complications with the cozy union of Church and Government and the political problems it brought. Madison himself was an Anglican, but he kept his religious following private. He had also read Voltaire and other Enlightenment thinkers of his time, as many of the colonial landowning class had. Some were Deists, that is, they believed in a God who did not interfere with worldly matters. With all this said, the new Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but there is a long history of discrimination between religious sects in this country. As time passes, these issues, especially today, seem minor to a swiftly turning community that is abandoning religion altogether.
We in the United States must recognize the many issues our young country faced, but not only did it survive, but it also prospered. I often think of the many people wanting to come into the United States; why? Because of our freedoms, which allow a person to grow mentally, spiritually, and financially. The freedom to worship as we wish is a great gift we take for granted, but it seems that some in our country see the separation of Church and
State as a call to eliminate Church. That was not the intention of the Constitution; it was the Bill of Rights, guided by Madison, that allowed this freedom, knowing that people of Faith were citizens and their right to worship as they wanted was not to discriminate against religion, but to see religion as a value to the new government that needed a strong moral foundation.
You must realize that the founding of this country, in the historical sense, required divine grace to make the 250th anniversary possible. The United States, with all its difficulties and missteps, has overcome many problems. The Civil War could have pulled us apart, but the Union survived. Abraham Lincoln, being a guiding light to justice, forgiveness, and leadership, saved the Union. Slavery was finished, but Reconstruction took 100 years to get discrimination out in the open and allow Black America its civil rights.
But we did it; we saw the problem, and the solution was difficult, but we integrated schools, signed civil rights bills, and moved ahead. I think God has been with us every step of the way. The United States is a unique place. Somehow, we, the people, see our sins and turn to moral solutions. Often, this is a struggle, but we make it; we shall make it hopefully for another 250 years. With God's grace and guidance, as human beings with our dignity and freedoms, we shall make it.
God bless the United States of America. Amen, Amen