Warren G. Harding Quotes
There is no relationship here between Church and State. Religious liberty has its unalterable place, along with civil and human liberty, in the very foundation of the Republic. I hold it [religious intolerance] to be a menace to the very liberties which we boast and cherish.
Harding, Warren G. Quoted in The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in His Times, by Francis Russell, McGraw-Hill, 1968, p. 535.
Williams was the first theologian who not only advocated religious toleration but argued that Christianity demanded it and the separation of church and state.
The Senate was presented with James Madison’s Language for the First Amendment. These three alternatives were proposed and rejected. The rejected versions turn out to have been very important. Some have argued that the First Amendment does not prohibit Congress making laws regarding religion as long as it doesn’t favor one religion over another—for example pay for clerics of all religions. However, that was the third proposal and it was rejected in favor of the high wall of separation proposed by Madison.
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular U.S. presidents to that point. After his death, a number of scandals, including Teapot Dome, came to light, as did his extramarital affair with Nan Britton; those eroded his popular regard.
