Ulysses S. Grant Quotes
Declare Church and State forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres, and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation.
Grant, Ulysses S. "Seventh Annual Message." A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, compiled by James D. Richardson, Vol. 7, Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1898, p. 334.
Carter was personally one of the most religious of our Presidents.
The same phrase was used by Count de Montalembert at a Catholic conference in Malines, August 20, 1863, and is sometimes attributed to him.
At the time Kaunitz was a young lawyer and diplomat who had abandoned the church career that his parents had hoped for him.
This is a critical quotation on the government establishment of religion issue. There are a few people who have argued over the years that the Founding Fathers and their culture was religious and where they were careful to avoid favoring one religion over another, they did NOT intend to put atheism on the same equal plane as religion as far as government action is concerned. However, some of the Founding Fathers were atheists, and some others like John Adams were deists—they believed in a God but not in the Trinity or in Judaism or any organized religion. So this quotation makes it clear that the First Amendment does NOT favor religion over non religion or secularism. Atheism must be on an equal footing but not on a higher plane.
Ulysses S. Grant was an American military leader who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As president, Grant was an effective civil rights executive who created the Justice Department and worked with the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction to protect African Americans. As Commanding General, he led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War in 1865 and thereafter briefly served as Secretary of War.
