On May 21, 1775, Charlotte, N.C. patriots issued the colonies’ first declaration of independence from King George III. That was more than a year before Thomas Jefferson’s declaration of July 4, 1776. The Scots-Irish chafed under the royal government for several reasons. To strengthen the Church of England, Gov. Tryon pressured the colonial legislature to enact measures to ensure that tax money would support the Anglicans and to require that to be legally married couples must pay a fee to the Church of England. That rankled the Scots-Irish Presbyterians, who disliked paying taxes to support the king’s religion. The king’s denial of Charlotte’s petition to establish a seminary because it would help “dissenters” further worsened relations. So did violent confrontations over collection of rents on land owned by Lord George Augustus Selwyn but settled by Scots-Irish squatters. Andrew Morton of the Church of England visited the Catawba-Yadkin region in 1766 and wrote to his superiors in London, “the Inhabitants of Mecklenburg are entire dissenters of the most rigid kind.”
This history is instructive, especially when we read the opinions of 5 lawyers beginning with those of Hugo Black through those of Sandra Day O’Connor and their misinterpretations of walls of separation and 14-point lemon “intermingling” of religion tests.
Thankfully, the Roberts-Alito court is about the business of correcting the court’s establishment of the secularist’s religion, and returning sovereignty to We the People in our localities and states.
Hearing and seeing the precepts of the religious values, prayers, and icons of others didn’t prompt colonists to take up arms.
Yet, the left files the legal equivalent when they get offended.
No.
The colonists went to war when their wallets were plundered to fund another’s church.
Funding = Establishment
Offending words? The First Amendment protects that.
For those with sensitive ears and eyes.
Grow up.
Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
Recent comments