Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ulysses.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!smb
From: smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.politics,net.legal,net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: religion and public life: texas
Message-ID: <960@ulysses.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Aug-84 20:29:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: ulysses.960
Posted: Thu Aug  9 20:29:57 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Aug-84 02:50:59 EDT
References: <235@mit-athena.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 9

Martillo is right about the mixed attitude towards freedom of religion
among the framers of the Constitution.  They were a mixed bag, with
opinions all over the spectrum.  Jefferson, for example, had said many
nasty things about Christianity in his youth, and was an ardent defender
of full religious freedom.  Most of the other prominent Virginians were
with him on that issue.  But the New Englanders still had state-paid
clerics, which Virginia had abolished quite some time before.  And yes,
some states did restrict the franchise well into the 19th century -- Maryland
and Delaware come to mind, though I'm not certain about that.