Religious Holidays Quotes
This absurd law was in existence for 22 years. But its vestiges lasted for over 100 years. It was not until the 1880s that it became fashionable to celebrate Christmas in Boston. The founding fathers were well aware of many early American laws interfering with religion and many religious laws interfering with those who did not believe a particular doctrine. The separation of church and state evolved from years of European abuses and American abuses as well.
Not only was the month of Christ's birth propably erroneous, but the year certainly was. See Quotation 644128. The reason shepherds watch flocks of sheep at night during the lambing season is that the newborn lambs are prey to foxes and other animals what would not attack a full grown sheep.
The debate was on the concept of a National Fast Day. Thomas Jefferson, who rarely spoke or debated made an exception and strongly opposed the proposal of which Adams was a prime supporter. Jefferson carried the motion but Adams had sharply rebuked Jefferson’s lack of piety to the degree that he feared that he had insulted and angered Jefferson with whom he agreed on most issues. Jefferson, however, appeared not to be insulted at all, and after the debate took the chair next to Adams. The incident was the subject of a famous letter from Benjamin Rush to Adams years later. It is not clear whether Jefferson was being particularly magnanimous and forgiving or as some suspect did not regard being accused of a lack of religiosity as an insult at all. Later, of course, the two became major political enemies, and then became friends after they both were out of politics.
Throughout the United Kingdom, there have been major traditional forces prohibiting the celebration of Christmas as a holy day or holiday. This carried over to America where Christmas was never a commonly celebrated day until modern times. The reason that this is important is when there were many legal battles of public schools and municipalities celebrating Christmas and exhibiting crèches and Christmas trees, several of the proponents argued the doctrine of originalism—namely that we should not declare unconstitutional anything that was common and accepted at the time of the Constitution’s writing, debating, and ratification. They argued that the First Amendment was not intended to cover celebrations of Christmas as the founding fathers would not have made unconstitutional that which was common. While the principle of originalism has advocates and critics, the originalism theory does not hold regarding Christmas because Christmas was not commonly celebrated in early America. In no state was Christmas a holiday, and there were jurisdictions that had actually outlawed the celebration of Christmas which was associated with Catholics and not all of them. See {629845}, {629843}, {629842}, {629844}, and {629845}.
