The Birth of Religious Freedom
Today, June 8th, Americans and freedom-loving people everywhere commemorate one of the most momentous moments, not only in American history, but in human history.
On June 8, 1789, two-hundred and twenty-seven years ago, U.S. Representative James Madison of Virginia introduced a list of proposed amendments to the newly ratified U.S. Constitution. In fact, Madison presented these amendments in the first session of the first Congress elected under the new Constitution. These proposed amendments were finally adopted in revised form on December 15, 1791 and became known almost immediately as the "Bill of Rights." In proposing these amendments, James Madison was fulfilling a political pledge.
When the new Constitution was being proposed, there was fierce opposition by figures as prominent as Patrick Henry to replacing the Articles of Confederation with a new, more powerful federal Constitution. Why? The opponents feared too much federal power, and many were particularly, concerned about the possibility of a federal, government sponsored, national church under the new federal government that would discriminate against religious dissenters, as was already being done by official state churches in nine of the original thirteen states.
