David Souter Quotes

The applicability of the Establishment Clause to public funding of benefits to religious schools was settled in Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, which inaugurated the modern era of establishment doctrine.

The point is that knowledge of God is not prohibited under the First Amendment.

I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state. It was not written into the Constitution.

It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state.

The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.

When Pat Robertson says there is no constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state, I say he is wrong.

The tenet of the separation of church and state is an unconstitutional doctrine.

Religious freedom is already protected in the United States. It's in our Constitution. It's in most state constitutions.

The irony of the Supreme Court hearing on these cases last week and of the outright hostility that the Court has displayed against religion in recent years is that above the head of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a concrete display of the Ten Commandments.

Perhaps these Ten Commandments cases will be the turning point in the legal war against religion.

I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church.

In the instant case, it is undisputed that the Cobb County School Board used the money of taxpayers to produce and place the Sticker in dispute in certain of the Cobb County School District science textbooks. This Sticker aids the beliefs of Christian fundamentalists and creationists. In light of the prior interpretation of the Georgia Constitution provision challenged by the Plaintiffs and given the Court's conclusion above that the Sticker violates the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, the Court likewise concludes that the Sticker runs afoul of the Georgia Constitution.

The 1st Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.

Every American has the constitutional right not to be taxed or have his tax money expended for the establishment of a religion.

[The line] cannot be too strongly drawn between church and state.

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness, the answer on both points must be in the negative.

I am opposed to the Federal Government spending any money to sustain church schools ….

There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In the strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation? …. If Religion consist in voluntary acts of individuals, singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be proper that public functionaries, as well as their Constituents should discharge their religious duties, let them like their Constituents, do so at their own expense. How small a contribution from each member of Congress would suffice for the purpose! How just would it be in its principle! How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to the genius of the Constitution; and the divine right of conscience! Why should the expence of a religious worship be allowed for the Legislature, be paid by the public

The Constitution has never treated religion as merely another private opinion that government can order people to keep to themselves.

The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rathe, it studiously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other. That is the common sense of the matter. Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other.

The Constitution does not require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.

The "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history.

Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the States.