To the Editors:
Reading the editorial pages of The Dartmouth over the last week reminded me of the New York Times editorial pages. I wish The Dartmouth's editors were more like the Wall Street Journal's -- but that's just me. I also wish that the editors would refrain from making comments like the following, referencing the Supreme Court's decision to allow states to withhold funds from students enrolled in religious studies: "It does, however, allow states to keep public funds from going to 'devotional study' -- a prospect at which the founding fathers, would cringe" (The Dartmouth, Feb. 27).
I somehow feel that the editors fail to understand some of the basic principles upon which the Founding Fathers formulated the Constitution. The Founders were extremely religious people. James Madison, leader of the Constitutional Convention and drafter of the First Amendment, has said, "We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." Thomas Jefferson, a frequent critic of organized religion, said: "The God who gave us life gave us liberty." This quotation is even carved into his memorial. Jefferson also allowed church services to be conducted in the chambers of the Supreme Court. No doubt Jefferson wrote that the American people voted to build "a wall of separation between Church and State," but the separation of Church and State is not explicitly stated anywhere in the Constitution. George Mason, another prominent Framer has said, "My soul I resign into the hands of my Almighty Creator, whose tender mercies are all over His works to the justice and wisdom of whose dispensations I willingly and cheerfully submit, humbly hoping from His unbounded mercy and benevolence, through the merits of my blessed Savior, a remission of my sins."
The evidence of the importance of religion can be found everywhere. The Ten Commandments are depicted in two places in the Supreme Court chamber in Washington, including a figure of Moses clutching the Ten Commandments above the words "The Guardian of Liberty." The Lincoln Memorial has that president's declaration: "This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." And atop the tallest monument in Washington, D.C., is carved the Latin phrase "Laus Deo," which means "Praise be to God." "In God We Trust" is the American national motto and "One Nation under God" is included in the Pledge of Allegiance. I could go on, but you get the point.
Coming back to the Framers, they firmly believed that democracy would collapse without the support of religious ideals. Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1830s: "I don't know if all Americans have faith in their religion but I am sure they think it necessary for the maintenance of republican institutions."
This is not to say that America should have any one religion as the state religion. The Founding Fathers of this nation immigrated to the New World to escape religious discrimination in Europe, which is one of the most important reasons behind the inclusion of the First Amendment and Article VI of the Constitution. Madison himself has said: "The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate." But to say that the Founding Fathers would have cringed at the prospect of the government funding a student, who wishes to study a religion out of his own free will as part of a program that funds almost every other field of study, including something like a Religion major, is absurd.
The Editors further write: "The Court's decision does not infringe upon the First Amendment's promise of freedom of worship." Of course, it does not infringe upon the freedom of worship, but it absolutely infringes and outright denies freedom of choice for students.
