| One of the most enduring yet enigmatic themes in American history is the notion of America as a Christian nation. Since the colonial period, claims have been made that the American nation, and its system of laws and government, are specially ordained by God. In particular, people have claimed that the Constitution and other founding documents are based on Christian principles, such that government has the authority and duty to protect and advance Christianity. A corollary to this theorem is that Christianity was incorporated into the common law--that Christian principles underlie and inform the law and, in turn, that judges are authorized to rely on Christian norms in legal decision-making. Throughout the nineteenth century, but most particularly during the antebellum era, the Christian nation maxim was a competing theme to the Jeffersonian paradigm of government neutrality toward religion and separation of church and state.; The Christian nation maxim has served as a handy weapon for critics of modern United States Supreme Court church-state jurisprudence. Relying on a handful of nineteenth century legal decisions embracing the maxim, critics have urged that Supreme Court decisions prohibiting religious exercises in public schools and aid to religious institutions are inconsistent with an earlier understanding of an interdependence between church and state. However, the legal record reveals no such consensus understanding. Nineteenth century judges and lawyers who affirmed America's Christian nationhood could not agree on the meaning of the term or on how it was to be applied in the law. Far from representing a unitary concept, the maxim encompassed various perspectives about the interrelationship between Christianity and the Constitution, republican government, and the law. Moreover, as the century progressed, judges moved away from relying on religious justifications in their decisions and, in turn, embraced secular rationales for heretofore religiously based laws. By 1900, the Christian nation maxim was dead as a legal organizing theory, having been replaced by a secular view of the Constitution and law. |
