First Liberty: America's Foundation in Religious Freedom / Edition 2 available in Hardcover
First Liberty: America's Foundation in Religious Freedom / Edition 2
- ISBN-10:
- 0878408991
- ISBN-13:
- 9780878408993
- Pub. Date:
- 03/28/2003
- Publisher:
- Georgetown University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 0878408991
- ISBN-13:
- 9780878408993
- Pub. Date:
- 03/28/2003
- Publisher:
- Georgetown University Press
First Liberty: America's Foundation in Religious Freedom / Edition 2
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Overview
Though many claim the United States to be a "Christian Nation," Miller provides a fascinatingly vivid account of the philosophical skirmishes and political machinations that led to the "wall of separation" between church and state. That famous phrase is Jefferson's, though it does not appear in the Declaration of Independence nor in the Constitution. But Miller follows this seminal idea from three great standard-bearers of religious liberty: Jefferson, Madison, and Roger Williams. Jefferson, who wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the precursor of the First Amendment of the Constitution; James Madison, who was politically responsible for Virginia's acceptance of religious liberty and who, a few years later, helped draft the Bill of Rights; and the even earlier figure, the radical dissenter Roger Williams, who propounded the idea of religious freedom not as a rational secularist but out of a deeply held spiritual faith.
Miller re-creates the fierce and vibrant debate among the founding fathers over the means of establishing public virtue in the absence of established religion—a debate that still reverberates in today's passionate arguments about civil rights, school prayer, abortion, Christmas crèches, conscientious objection during warfare—and demonstrates how the right to hold any religious belief has dynamically shaped American political life.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780878408993 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Georgetown University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/28/2003 |
| Edition description: | Expanded and Updated |
| Pages: | 296 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
| Introduction | vii | |
| Part 1 | Bill Number 82 | 1 |
| Part 2 | The Vocation of James Madison | 69 |
| Part 3 | This Conscience Is Found in All Mankind | 127 |
| Part 4 | A Fixed Star in Our Constitutional Constellation | 187 |
| Part 5 | Concluding Notes on Liberty Shaping a Culture | 233 |
| Appendix A | Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777 | 255 |
| Appendix B | James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance | 257 |
| Acknowledgments and Sources | 265 | |
| Index | 271 |
What People are Saying About This
William Lee Miller combines the narrative skill of a novelist with the knowledge and critical acumen of a first-rate scholar. In these fast-moving pages the ideals, stratagems, and frustrations of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Roger Williams come alive. Miller's tale gives the lie to modern demagogues who, for self-serving purposes, wrongly associate the separation of church and state with hostility to religion.
At a moment when issues of religious liberty assume ever greater importance in this country, a new and revised edition of William Miller's The First Liberty could hardly be more timely or more welcome....Never has there been greater urgency about recognizing the uniqueness of our dual First Amendment guarantees of religious liberty—and nowhere can the curious reader find a better resource than in William Miller's superbly organized and written account of The First Liberty.
Professor Miller's volume is a vivid scholarly rebuttal to the sloppy historical mythology of the 'Christian Nation' advocates and anti-separationist jurists. It is a remarkable examination of the complex intellectual giants of religious freedom—Jefferson, Madison, and Roger Williams—coupled with a crisp analysis of the Supreme Court jurisprudence which came to buttress the moral foundation of separation of church and state.This work clearly and unequivocally documents the clarity of vision of Jefferson and Madison as they convinced Virginia and the nation to adopt the boldest political idea in modern history: genuine religious freedom for believers and non-believers alike.This is one of the most lucid and engaging examinations of the genesis of religious liberty in American intellectual and legal history.
"Professor Miller's volume is a vivid scholarly rebuttal to the sloppy historical mythology of the 'Christian Nation' advocates and anti-separationist jurists. It is a remarkable examination of the complex intellectual giants of religious freedom—Jefferson, Madison, and Roger Williams—coupled with a crisp analysis of the Supreme Court jurisprudence which came to buttress the moral foundation of separation of church and state.
This work clearly and unequivocally documents the clarity of vision of Jefferson and Madison as they convinced Virginia and the nation to adopt the boldest political idea in modern history: genuine religious freedom for believers and non-believers alike.
This is one of the most lucid and engaging examinations of the genesis of religious liberty in American intellectual and legal history."—Barry Lynn, executive director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
"At a moment when issues of religious liberty assume ever greater importance in this country, a new and revised edition of William Miller's The First Liberty could hardly be more timely or more welcome....Never has there been greater urgency about recognizing the uniqueness of our dual First Amendment guarantees of religious liberty—and nowhere can the curious reader find a better resource than in William Miller's superbly organized and written account of The First Liberty."—Robert M. O'Neil, founding director, Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and professor of law, University of Virginia
"William Lee Miller combines the narrative skill of a novelist with the knowledge and critical acumen of a first-rate scholar. In these fast-moving pages the ideals, stratagems, and frustrations of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Roger Williams come alive. Miller's tale gives the lie to modern demagogues who, for self-serving purposes, wrongly associate the separation of church and state with hostility to religion."—Vincent Blasi, Lamont Professor of Civil Liberities, Columbia Law School and Massee Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
"William Lee Miller's The First Liberty is an admirable elaboration and updating of a book first published in 1985. No better introduction can be found to what is perhaps the most monumental achievement of the American Revolution: the establishment of freedom of religious conscience together with the necessary complement of separation of church and state as an inalienable human right. Miller's book is at once a history of that idea and a penetrating discussion of its vicissitudes in the American experience. While scholarly the book is also a reaffirmation of the tradition in which Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, too, united on the metaphor of 'a wall of separation' between church and state."—Merrill D. Peterson, professor of history emeritus, University of Virginia, author of John Brown: The Legend Revisited and Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation
William Lee Miller's The First Liberty is an admirable elaboration and updating of a book first published in 1985. No better introduction can be found to what is perhaps the most monumental achievement of the American Revolution: the establishment of freedom of religious conscience together with the necessary complement of separation of church and state as an inalienable human right. Miller's book is at once a history of that idea and a penetrating discussion of its vicissitudes in the American experience. While scholarly the book is also a reaffirmation of the tradition in which Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, too, united on the metaphor of 'a wall of separation' between church and state.