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Virtually all of the original state Constitutions embraced Christianity:
CONSTITUTION OF VIRGINIA, June 29, 1776 (written by James Madison and
George Mason): BILL OF RIGHTS, SECTION 16. That religion, or the duty
which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be
directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and
therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of
religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the
mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and
charity towards each other.
CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, June 15, 1780
(written by John Adams): ARTICLE 3. The people of this commonwealth
have a right to invest their legislature with power to...make
suitable provision...for the institution of the public worship of
God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant
teachers of piety, religion and morality...And every denomination of
Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of
the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law:
and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall
ever be established by law.
NEW HAMPSHIRE CONSTITUTION, 1784: PART 2-THE FORM OF GOVERNMENT,
SENATE: That no person shall be capable of being elected a senator
who is not of the Protestant religion...HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES...Every member of the house of representatives...shall be of the Protestant religion.
CONSTITUTION OF VERMONT July 8, 1777, (claimed by New Hampshire and
New York at the time of the Revolution): SECTION 9...And each member,
before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following
declaration, viz. "I ____ do believe in one God, the Creator and
Governor of the Universe, the Rewarder of the good and Punisher of
the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament to be given by divine inspiration, and own and profess the
Protestant religion."
CONSTITUTION OF MARYLAND, November 11, 1776: ARTICLE 35. That no
other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any
office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to
this State, and such oath of office, as shall be directed by this
Convention or the Legislature of this State, and a declaration of a
belief in the Christian religion.
CONSTITUTION OF NEW JERSEY, 1776: ARTICLE 19: That there shall be no
establishment of any one religious sect in this Province, in
preference to another; and that no Protestant inhabitant of this
Colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right, merely on
account of his religious principles; but that all persons, professing
a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean
themselves peaceably under the government...shall be capable of being
elected into any office of profit or trust.
CONSTITUTION OF PENNSYLVANIA, September 28, 1776 (Signed by Ben
Franklin): PLAN OR FRAME OF GOVERNMENT, SECTION 10. And each member,
before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following
declaration, viz: I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor
of the Universe, the Rewarder of the good and the Punisher of the
wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration. And no further or other
religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer
or magistrate in this State.
CONSTITUTION OF DELAWARE, 1776 (written by George Read and Thomas
McKean, both signers of the Declaration of Independence): ARTICLE 22.
Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or
appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or
entering upon the execution of his office, shall...make and subscribe
the following declaration, to wit: "I, A B. do profess faith in God
the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost,
one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy
scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine
inspiration."
CONSTITUTION OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1776: ARTICLE 32. That no person, who
shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion,
or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who
shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and
safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place
of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.
CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH CAROLINA, March 19, 1778: ARTICLE 12: And that
no person shall be eligible to a seat in the said senate unless he be
of the Protestant religion, and hath attained the age of thirty
years..
CONSTITUTION OF GEORGIA, 1777: ARTICLE 6: The representatives shall
be chosen out of the residents in each county...and they shall be of
the Protestant religion.
CONSTITUTION OF CONNECTICUT, 1662 till 1818: PREAMBLE. The People of
this State being by the Providence of God, free and independent, have
the sole and exclusive Right of governing themselves as a free,
sovereign, and independent State; and having from their ancestors
derived a free and excellent Constitution of Government whereby the
legislature depends on the free and annual election of the people,
they have the best security for the preservation of their civil and
religious rights and Liberties. And forasmuch as the free Fruition of
such Liberties and Privileges as Humanity, Civility and Christianity
call for, as is due to every Man in his Place and Proportion, without
impeachment and infringement, hath ever been, and will be the
Tranquillity and Stability of Churches and Commonwealths.
CONSTITUTION OF RHODE ISLAND, 1663 till 1842: That they, pursuing,
with peaceable and loyal minces, their sober, serious and religious
intentions, of godly edifying themselves, and one another, in the
holy Christian faith and worship as they were persuaded...to hold
forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may
stand and best be maintained...with a full liberty in religious
concernements; and that true piety rightly grounded upon Gospel
principles, will give the best and greatest security to
sovereignty...Now know ye, that we being willing...to secure them in
the free exercise and enjoyment of all their civil and religious
rights...and to preserve unto them that liberty, in the true
Christian faith and worship of God...and because some of the people
and inhabitants of the same colony cannot, in their private opinions,
conforms to the public exercise of religion, according to the liturgy,
forms and ceremonies of the Church of England, or take or subscribe
the oaths and articles made and established in that behalf; and for
that the same, by reason of the remote distances of those places,
will (as we hope) be no breach of the unity and uniformity
established in this nation.
CONSTITUTION OF NEW YORK, April 20, 1777: 38. And whereas we are
required, by the benevolent principles of rational liberty, not only
to expel civil tyranny, but also to guard against that spiritual
oppression and intolerance wherewith the bigotry and ambition of weak
and wicked priests and princes have scourged mankind, this convention
doth further, in the name and by the authority of the good people of
this State, ordain, determine, and declare, that the free exercise
and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without
discrimination or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed,
within this State, to all mankind: Provided, That the liberty of
conscience, hereby granted, shall not be so construed as to excuse
acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the
peace or safety of this State.
After examining the Constitutions of the original States, it becomes
clearer that the initial purpose of the First Amendment, and for that
matter the First Ten Amendments, was to limit Federal Government
jurisdiction, not the States, as Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,
1833:
"The whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to
the State governments, to be acted upon according to their sense of
justice and the State Constitutions."
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Permission granted to forward, email or reprint, provided credit
given to William J. Federer, "THE ORIGINAL 13-A Documentary History
of Religion in America's First Thirteen States" ISBN 0977808521