On June 26, 2026, President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission delivered a 224-page draft report claiming that an “originalist understanding” of the Constitution supports eliminating the concept of church-state separation. Commission Chair Dan Patrick declared that “separation of church and state” is “the biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding.”

This article examines what the 39 men who actually signed the Constitution believed about religion and its proper role in government — drawing on their own words, their documented actions, and the scholarly consensus across ideological traditions.

The findings are more complex than either partisan camp acknowledges. But they are far more damaging to the Commission’s thesis than the report lets on.

The Central Question the Scholars Ask

The leading scholarship on this topic — from evangelical historian John Fea (Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?, 2011), Catholic legal scholar Vincent Phillip Muñoz (Religious Liberty and the American Founding, 2022), church historian Edwin Gaustad (Faith of the Founders, 2004), and Princeton historian Frank Lambert (The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America, 2003) — converges on a critical distinction:

The founders shared a broad consensus on the basic meaning of religious liberty — that no one may be harmed on account of religion “as such.”

But they disagreed sharply on a subordinate question: what kinds of government support of religion are compatible with religious liberty?

Madison and Jefferson opposed most government support of religion. Adams, Washington, and majorities in almost every state favored some form of it. Roger Sherman believed government should actively sustain Christianity. Gouverneur Morris personally mocked religion but thought society couldn’t survive without it.

The Religious Liberty Commission report flattens this genuine, documented disagreement into false unanimity. That is not originalism. It is advocacy dressed in historical clothing.

A Note on Method

Three pitfalls complicate any honest account of the founders’ religious views:

1. Church affiliation is not belief. Most signatories were nominally Episcopalian — but 18th-century Episcopalianism encompassed everything from orthodox Trinitarianism to functional Deism. Membership tells us where a man sat on Sunday, not what he thought about God.

1. Public statements are not private convictions. Many founders spoke piously in public while expressing doubt in private correspondence. Washington systematically avoided Christian doctrinal language in his official communications while attending church regularly.

1. The “Founding Fathers” are not the “Planting Fathers.” As Lambert demonstrates, the Puritan settlers who came to build a “City upon a Hill” are a different group, with different goals, than the men who drafted the Constitution 150 years later. The latter chose religious freedom over religious purity. The RLC report repeatedly conflates these two groups.

Gregg Frazer’s rigorous study (The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders, 2012) argues that the key framers — Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, Wilson, Morris, Washington — were neither Christians nor Deists but adherents of what he calls “theistic rationalism”: a hybrid belief system combining elements of natural religion, Protestantism, and reason, with reason as the decisive element when these sources conflicted.

The 39 Signatories: Religious Affiliations

The following table lists every man who signed the Constitution on September 17, 1787, with his formal religious affiliation and, where documented, a scholarly assessment of his actual beliefs.

#	Name	State	Church Affiliation	Scholarly Assessment
1	George Washington	Virginia	Episcopalian	Theistic rationalist / Christian Deist; avoided all specifically Christian language in official documents
2	John Langdon	New Hampshire	Congregationalist	Devout; active in church governance
3	Nicholas Gilman	New Hampshire	Congregationalist	Limited evidence of personal views
4	Nathaniel Gorham	Massachusetts	Congregationalist	Limited evidence
5	Rufus King	Massachusetts	Episcopalian / Congregationalist	Later became strongly religious
6	William Samuel Johnson	Connecticut	Episcopalian / Presbyterian	Son of first president of King’s College (Anglican); active churchman
7	Roger Sherman	Connecticut	Congregationalist	Most devoutly orthodox Christian among all signatories; published theological works
8	Alexander Hamilton	New York	Episcopalian (Huguenot/Presbyterian background)	Religiously indifferent during Convention; devout at end of life
9	William Livingston	New Jersey	Presbyterian	Skeptical of dogma; advocated religious toleration
10	David Brearley	New Jersey	Episcopalian	Limited evidence
11	William Paterson	New Jersey	Presbyterian	Limited evidence
12	Jonathan Dayton	New Jersey	Episcopalian / Presbyterian	Limited evidence
13	Benjamin Franklin	Pennsylvania	Episcopalian (self-described Deist)	Self-described “thorough deist” in youth; evolved toward belief in active Providence
14	Thomas Mifflin	Pennsylvania	Quaker / Lutheran	Disowned by Quakers for military service
15	Robert Morris	Pennsylvania	Episcopalian	Limited evidence of theological views
16	George Clymer	Pennsylvania	Quaker / Episcopalian	Limited evidence
17	Thomas FitzSimons	Pennsylvania	Roman Catholic	One of two Catholic signers
18	Jared Ingersoll	Pennsylvania	Presbyterian	Limited evidence
19	James Wilson	Pennsylvania	Episcopalian / Presbyterian	Natural law theorist; grounded rights in divine law accessed through reason and conscience
20	Gouverneur Morris	Pennsylvania	Episcopalian	Theistic rationalist; personally irreligious but believed religion essential for social order
21	George Read	Delaware	Episcopalian	Active churchman
22	Gunning Bedford Jr.	Delaware	Presbyterian	Limited evidence
23	John Dickinson	Delaware	Quaker-influenced / Episcopalian	Deeply shaped by Quaker theology; never formally joined Friends
24	Richard Bassett	Delaware	Methodist	Converted after hearing Francis Asbury; one of the most evangelical signers
25	Jacob Broom	Delaware	Lutheran	Limited evidence
26	James McHenry	Maryland	Presbyterian	Devout; later president of the Baltimore Bible Society
27	Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer	Maryland	Episcopalian	Limited evidence
28	Daniel Carroll	Maryland	Roman Catholic	One of two Catholic signers; Jesuit-educated; supported separation to protect Catholic minority
29	John Blair	Virginia	Episcopalian	Limited evidence
30	James Madison	Virginia	Episcopalian	Theistic rationalist; strongest separationist among all signatories; First Amendment architect
31	William Blount	North Carolina	Presbyterian	Limited evidence of theological views
32	Richard Dobbs Spaight	North Carolina	Episcopalian	Limited evidence
33	Hugh Williamson	North Carolina	Presbyterian / Deist	Former minister turned scientist; hybrid views
34	John Rutledge	South Carolina	Episcopalian	Limited evidence
35	Charles Cotesworth Pinckney	South Carolina	Episcopalian	Active churchman; later president of the Bible Society of Charleston
36	Charles Pinckney	South Carolina	Episcopalian	Proposed the no-religious-test clause; Enlightenment rationalist
37	Pierce Butler	South Carolina	Episcopalian	Limited evidence
38	William Few	Georgia	Methodist	Converted to Methodism; active in church
39	Abraham Baldwin	Georgia	Congregationalist	Former minister (ordained); later moved toward liberal theology

Sources: usconstitution.net demographic data; modernrepublic.org signer data; Frazer (2012); Hall (2014); Gaustad (2004).

Patterns in the Data

By denomination: Approximately 54% were Episcopalian (21 signers), 21% Presbyterian (8), 13% Congregationalist (5), 5% Roman Catholic (2), with Methodist, Quaker, Lutheran, and Deist minorities.

The Episcopalian problem: The single largest group — Episcopalians — encompassed the widest range of actual belief. Washington (avoided all Christian doctrine in writing), Hamilton (joked about forgetting God in the Constitution), Madison (vetoed church incorporation bills), and Morris (mocked religion openly) were all nominally Episcopalian. So were devout men like Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who led a Bible society. The label tells us almost nothing.

The theistic rationalism thesis: Frazer argues persuasively that the most influential figures at the Convention — Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris — held beliefs that were neither orthodox Christianity nor strict Deism, but a rationalist hybrid that privileged reason over revelation when the two conflicted.

Gaustad’s seven perspectives: Edwin Gaustad identified at least seven distinct and sometimes contradictory perspectives on religion’s relationship to government among the founders. The RLC report acknowledges none of this diversity.

The key scholarly distinction: The founders agreed that no one should be harmed for their religion. They disagreed — genuinely, sharply, and documentably — on whether government should actively support religion. That disagreement is the historical reality. Any account that presents a single “originalist understanding” is not doing history; it is doing politics.

Key Framers: Their Own Words on Religion and Government

James Madison (Virginia) — Architect of the First Amendment

Madison is the single most important figure for understanding the Constitution’s religion clauses. He drafted the First Amendment. He championed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. He authored the Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), arguably the most important American document on church-state relations.

On religion’s exemption from government authority:

“We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no mans right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.” — Memorial and Remonstrance, Point 1 (1785)

On the incompetence of government in religious matters:

“If Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body… Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?” — Memorial and Remonstrance, Point 2

On separation as constitutional principle:

“Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.” — Detached Memoranda (c. 1817–1832)

Actions as President (1811):

Madison vetoed a bill incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church in Alexandria because it “exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are limited by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions, and violates in particular the article of the Constitution of the United States which declares that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.'”

He vetoed a bill granting federal land to a Baptist Church because it “comprises a principle and precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution.”

He also pocket-vetoed a bill encouraging the importation of Bible stereotype plates.

What this means for the RLC report: The report cites Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance but quotes only his premise (religion is a duty to the Creator) while omitting his conclusion (therefore government has no authority over it). This is not oversight — it is misrepresentation of the First Amendment’s own author.

Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania) — The Convention’s Deist Who Believed in Providence

Franklin is the only signer formally identified as a Deist in historical sources. His Convention prayer speech is frequently cited by those claiming the founders intended a religious government. The full story is more revealing.

Self-identification:

“I began to suspect that this doctrine [deism], tho’ it might be true, was not very useful.” — Autobiography

Convention prayer speech (June 28, 1787):

“I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?”

What happened next: The Convention did NOT adopt Franklin’s prayer proposal. Franklin himself later noted: “The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayer unnecessary.”

On Jesus (letter to Ezra Stiles, 1790):

Franklin affirmed many traditional moral teachings but admitted “some Doubts as to his Divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.”

What this means: Even the most religiously expressive moment at the Convention — Franklin’s prayer speech — was rejected by the delegates. The 81-year-old deist who proposed prayer was the outlier, not the norm. The Convention’s actual decision was to proceed without divine invocation.

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Alexander Hamilton (New York) — “We Forgot”

Hamilton’s religious biography tracks from youthful piety through midlife indifference to late-life devotion.

On the Constitution’s silence about God:

When the Reverend Dr. John Rodgers said to Hamilton, “I am grieved to see that you have neglected to acknowledge God in the Constitution,” Hamilton replied: “My dear sir, we forgot to do it.”

The Farewell Address he wrote for Washington:

Hamilton drafted the Farewell Address’s famous passage on religion — but framed it pragmatically. Religion matters because it produces moral citizens, not because it is doctrinally true. “The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.”

Late-life evolution:

In 1802, dismayed by what he saw as Jacobin anti-Christianity, Hamilton proposed a “Christian Constitutional Society.” On his deathbed in 1804, he requested and received Communion from an Episcopal bishop.

What this means: During the period when the Constitution was actually drafted and ratified, Hamilton was religiously indifferent — admitting the omission of God was simply something the Convention forgot. His late religious turn occurred fifteen years after the signing.

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Roger Sherman (Connecticut) — The Orthodox Dissent

Sherman represents the strongest counter-argument to a strictly secular reading of the founding. He was the most devoutly orthodox Christian among all 39 signatories, and his views deserve full, honest representation.

Personal creed (White Haven Church, 1788):

“I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. That the Scriptures of the old and new testaments are a revelation from God and a complete rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.”

On government support of religion (Connecticut religious liberty statute, 1783):

“As the happiness of a People, and the good Order of Civil Society, essentially depend upon Piety, Religion and Morality, it is the Duty of the Civil Authority to provide for the Support and Encouragement thereof.”

At the Convention: Sherman seconded Franklin’s prayer motion. He opposed Gouverneur Morris’s appointment as minister to France because of Morris’s “irreligious nature.” John Adams described him as “that old Puritan, as honest as an angel.”

On the no-religious-test clause: Sherman said it was “unnecessary, the prevailing liberality being a sufficient security against such tests.” He did not oppose it — he thought it redundant.

What Sherman’s views reveal: Mark David Hall argues that Sherman represents 50–75% of Americans at the time who were Calvinists and supported some form of government encouragement of Christianity. Connecticut maintained its established church until 1819. Sherman’s position was legitimate and widely held.

But — and this is critical — Sherman’s position did not prevail in the Constitution itself. The document the delegates produced contains no acknowledgment of God, no preference for Christianity, and an explicit prohibition on religious tests for office. Sherman signed it anyway. The Constitution represents the compromise between Sherman’s maximalist position and Madison’s separationist position — and that compromise produced a deliberately secular document.

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Gouverneur Morris (Pennsylvania) — The Constitution’s Irreverent Penman

Morris wrote the final language of the Constitution, including the Preamble. He gave more speeches at the Convention than any other delegate (173). His religious views illuminate the gap between the drafters’ personal beliefs and the document they produced.

Roger Sherman on Morris:

“He is not a hypocrite. He never professed religious principles. He makes religion a subject for jokes and he is sacrilegious in his speech.”

Morris on religion’s social necessity:

“Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God… But each one has a right to entire liberty as to religious opinions, for religion is the relation between God and man; therefore it is not within the reach of human authority.”

What this means: The man who polished the Constitution into its final form — who wrote “We the People” — was personally irreverent about religion while philosophically convinced of its social necessity. He kept religion OUT of the document’s language by deliberate choice. Morris illustrates a position common among Enlightenment statesmen: religion is useful for society but government has no business directing it.

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James Wilson (Pennsylvania) — Natural Law Without Theocracy

Wilson was the most important legal theorist among the signatories and one of the first Supreme Court justices.

Lectures on Law (1790–91):

“Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants.”

“The law of nature and the law of revelation are both divine: they flow, though in different channels, from the same adorable source.”

What Wilson’s framework reveals: Wilson grounded natural rights in divine law — but accessed through reason and conscience, not through institutional churches or government-directed religion. His jurisprudence locates God’s authority in individual human reason, not in ecclesiastical power or state endorsement. This is compatible with robust separation.

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John Dickinson (Delaware) — Quaker Constitutionalism

Dickinson was raised Quaker, married into the most prominent Quaker family in Pennsylvania, and was deeply shaped by Quaker theology — though he never formally joined the Society of Friends (he disagreed with their pacifism).

The Quaker principle informing his constitutionalism: Quakers believed that “God’s Light could shine in any properly prepared soul regardless of race, sex, or socioeconomic status.” Religious liberty was therefore a prerequisite to finding God — not a concession to secularism but a theological imperative.

“In government, as well as in religion, ‘The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.'”

What this means: Dickinson championed religious liberty not from skepticism but from deep theological conviction: you cannot coerce the conscience because God works through individual souls freely. Government interference with religion is not merely bad policy — it is blasphemy against the divine process.

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Daniel Carroll (Maryland) — The Catholic Minority Voice

Carroll was one of only two Catholics to sign the Constitution. His brother John became the first Catholic bishop in the United States.

Context: Before 1776, Maryland law excluded Catholics from holding public office. The Revolution enabled Carroll’s political career.

Why this matters: Carroll supported church-state separation from the minority position. Catholics NEEDED separation to protect themselves from Protestant establishment. In the First Congress, Carroll explicitly supported the First Amendment as essential for “conciliating the minds of the people” and securing conscience rights.

Carroll demonstrates that support for separation was not anti-religious — for Catholics in 1787, it was a matter of survival.

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Charles Pinckney (South Carolina) — Author of the No-Religious-Test Clause

Pinckney proposed the only religion-related provision in the original Constitution: Article VI, Clause 3.

“The prevention of Religious Tests [is] a provision the world will expect from you, in the establishment of a System founded on Republican Principles, and in an age so liberal and enlightened as the present.”

The provision passed nearly unanimously. It explicitly opened all federal offices to people of any religion or no religion — a deliberate break from most state constitutions of the era.

What the Convention Actually Did

Before evaluating the RLC report’s claims, five documented facts about what the 39 signatories collectively chose must be established:

1. The Constitution contains zero references to God, Jesus, Christianity, or religion — except to prohibit religious tests for office (Article VI).

This was deliberate. The Library of Congress notes: “The Constitution was reticent about religion for two reasons: first, many delegates were committed federalists, who believed that the power to legislate on religion… lay within the domain of the state, not the national, governments; second, the delegates believed that it would be a tactical mistake to introduce such a politically controversial issue as religion into the Constitution.”

2. Franklin’s prayer proposal was rejected.

The most religiously invocative moment at the Convention failed. Franklin himself noted “The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayer unnecessary.”

3. The no-religious-test clause passed almost unanimously.

Pinckney framed it as an Enlightenment expectation for a republic. Only Roger Sherman questioned its necessity (not its substance).

4. The Treaty of Tripoli (1797) declared:

“As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…”

Ratified unanimously by the Senate without debate. Signed by President John Adams. Many Constitution signers were still serving in government. No one objected.

5. Contemporaries noticed and complained.

“Many pious people” complained that the Constitution “had slighted God, for it contained no recognition of his mercies to us… or even of his existence.” Benjamin Rush expressed “the more restrained view that many pious people wish the name of the Supreme Being had been introduced somewhere in the new Constitution.”

The secular character of the Constitution was not accidental, and it was not uncontroversial. It was a choice — made by the 39 men who signed it.

The Report’s Claims vs. the Historical Record

Claim 1: “Religious liberty is the bridge between God and government”

Report’s argument (pp. 34, 43–45): The report cites Washington’s Farewell Address and Commissioner Anderson quoting Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance to argue that government and religion should actively support each other.

Full record: The Memorial and Remonstrance actually concludes that “in matters of Religion, no mans right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.” Madison vetoed bills granting ANY government support to churches. His Detached Memoranda explicitly endorsed the “separation between Religion & Govt.”

Assessment: The report selectively reads Madison. He argued that because religion is a pre-political duty to God that PRECEDES government, the state has no authority to direct it. His conclusion was the opposite of the report’s: because religion is so important, government must not touch it.

Claim 2: The “wall of separation” is “one belabored metaphor” from a single private letter

Report’s argument (pp. 21, 41–43): The phrase came from Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists and was “repurposed” by Justice Hugo Black (a “former Ku Klux Klan member”) in 1947.

Full record:

• Madison used similar language independently: “Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt” (Detached Memoranda)
• Madison vetoed bills as president on separation grounds (1811, 1816)
• The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), drafted by Jefferson and championed by Madison, established full separation as Virginia law
• The Constitution’s own text is separationist: zero religious content, explicit prohibition of religious tests
• The Treaty of Tripoli (1797) declared the government “not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion”

Assessment: The separation principle was articulated by multiple founders, in multiple documents, across decades. It was not one man’s one-time metaphor.

Claim 3: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People” — John Adams

Report’s use (p. 30): Cited to suggest the founders intended government to promote religion.

Full record: Adams also submitted and signed the Treaty of Tripoli, which states the government “is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.” The Senate he oversaw ratified it unanimously. Adams believed religion produced good citizens — he did NOT believe the government should establish or promote religion.

Assessment: Adams consistently held both positions simultaneously: religion is privately important for civic virtue AND the government is not founded on Christianity. These are compatible. The report presents only half.

Claim 4: The First Amendment only prohibits “actual legal coercion” — establishing a state church

Report’s argument (pp. 42–43): Citing Justice Thomas, the report argues the Establishment Clause only prevents the narrow act of creating an official state church.

Full record — Madison, the First Amendment’s author:

• Vetoed a bill merely INCORPORATING a church (not establishing it) — 1811
• Vetoed a bill granting a parcel of land to a church — 1811
• Pocket-vetoed a Bible distribution bill — 1816
• Criticized paid congressional chaplains as unconstitutional
• Criticized presidential religious proclamations as unconstitutional

None of these involved “coercion” or “establishment” in the narrow sense. They were non-coercive government support for religion, and Madison found them ALL unconstitutional.

Assessment: The report adopts a narrower reading of the Establishment Clause than the clause’s own author held.

Claim 5: “No Founding document supports” the exile of religion from public life

Report’s argument (p. 21): The report frames the debate as between religion in public life vs. exile of religion.

Assessment: This is a straw man. No serious scholar or court has ever argued that the First Amendment exiles religion from public life. Free Exercise protects religious practice. The real question is whether GOVERNMENT should promote religion — and on this, the founders were deeply divided.

Claim 6: The founders “recognized that religious liberty is… a public good for the nation”

Report’s argument (p. 12): Religious liberty benefits society, not just believers.

Assessment: Broadly true as stated. But the report uses this truth to justify a conclusion (government should promote religion) that contradicts what many founders — including the First Amendment’s own author — explicitly argued. Madison’s entire framework is that religion is so important it must remain FREE from government, not supported BY it.

What Honest Originalism Reveals

Drawing on Muñoz (2022), Fea (2011), Gaustad (2004), and Lambert (2003):

The spectrum among the 39 signatories ranged from Roger Sherman (government SHOULD support Christianity) to James Madison (government must NEVER support religion) to Gouverneur Morris (personally mocked religion but thought it socially necessary) to Benjamin Franklin (self-described deist who believed in an active Providence).

The First Amendment’s author was the strongest separationist. If originalism means understanding the drafter’s intent, the evidence overwhelmingly supports a robust separation.

The Constitution’s penman deliberately kept God out of the document while being personally irreverent about religion.

The no-religious-test clause shows the Convention’s actual consensus: The signers collectively agreed that religion should have NO bearing on fitness for federal office. This was the only religion-related vote at the Convention, and it went nearly unanimously in the secular direction.

Muñoz’s key finding: Adherence to the founders’ actual political philosophy yields “a minimalist church-state jurisprudence that would return authority from the judiciary to the American people” — neither the RLC report’s maximalist pro-religion position nor a strict-secularist exclusion of religion from public life.

The diversity itself is the point. The 39 signatories included orthodox Calvinists, theistic rationalists, a self-described deist, functional deists who attended church, Catholics who needed separation for their own protection, Quaker-influenced thinkers, and at least one man who “made religion a subject for jokes.” No single religious vision animated the Constitution because no single religious vision could have achieved ratification.

Conclusion

The Religious Liberty Commission’s historical chapter engages selectively with the founding record. It cites Washington’s Farewell Address and Adams’s “moral and religious People” quote while ignoring Madison’s vetoes, the Treaty of Tripoli, the Constitution’s secular character, and the rejection of Franklin’s prayer motion. It cites Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance but quotes only his premise while suppressing his conclusion.

The most honest scholarship — from evangelical, Catholic, and secular historians alike — acknowledges that the founders genuinely disagreed about government support of religion. They agreed on free exercise. They disagreed on establishment. The Constitution they produced reflects that compromise: a deliberately secular document that protects religious practice while declining to endorse any faith.

An honest originalism would acknowledge this complexity. The RLC report does not.

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Sources and Further Reading

Primary Sources

• Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785). Online Library of Liberty.
• Madison, Detached Memoranda (c. 1817–1832). University of Chicago Press, Founders’ Constitution.
• Madison, Presidential Veto Messages (Feb. 21 and Feb. 28, 1811). American Presidency Project.
• Washington, Farewell Address (1796). Founders Online, National Archives.
• Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport (1790). Founders Online.
• Franklin, Convention prayer speech (June 28, 1787). Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, Vol. 1.
• Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 (1796/1797). Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
• Sherman, White Haven Church Creed (1788).
• Pinckney, “Observations on the Plan of Government” (May 28, 1787). ConSource.

Core Scholarly Canon

• Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of the Founders: Religion and the New Nation, 1776–1826 (Baylor, 2004).
• Frank Lambert, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America (Princeton, 2003).
• Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Religious Liberty and the American Founding (Chicago, 2022).
• John Fea, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? (Westminster John Knox, 2011).
• Gregg Frazer, The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Kansas, 2012).

Focused Studies

• Gaustad, Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson (Eerdmans, 1996).
• Daniel Dreisbach, Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (NYU, 2002).
• Dreisbach & Hall (eds.), Faith and the Founders of the American Republic (Oxford, 2014).
• Brooke Allen, Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers (Ivan R. Dee, 2006).
• Steven K. Green, Separating Church and State: A History (Columbia, 2022).
• Harris & Kidd (eds.), The Founding Fathers and the Debate over Religion in Revolutionary America (Oxford, 2012).

The 2026 Report

• Department of Justice, Religious Liberty Commission Draft Report (June 26, 2026). 224 pages.