religiously-motivated political strife
Paul Finkelman
paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu
Wed Aug 3 15:08:48 PDT 2005
I agree with Doug that there was more than I set out. His correction is
important.
Douglas Laycock wrote:
> More bad stuff went on the in the 19th and 20th centuries than Paul's
> posting may imply, although the executions and tortures that he
> describes in the 17th & 19th centuries were not repeated so far as I
> know.
>
> There was much private and some public violence against the Mormons,
> and after the Civil War an organized campaign by federal and
> territorial governments to suppress polygamy at whatever cost to
> religious liberty -- criminal prosecutions of church leaders, test
> oaths to prevent Mormons from voting (upheld in Davis v. Beason, a
> decision implicitly overruled in Torcaso v. Watkins, but which
> supports of Smith still seem to rely on), and forfeiture of the
> church's corporate charter and seizure of most of its property.
>
> Protestant-Catholic conflict, principally over Protestant religious
> instruction in the public schools, flared off and on for a century
> from the 1820s, with occasional mob violence, church burnings, and
> people dead in the streets. Catholic children were whipped for
> refusing to read the King James Bible, and there is at least one
> reported acquittal of a teacher who administered such a whipping.
>
> Private violence against Jehovah's Witnesses in the 30s and 40s,
> especially after Gobitis upheld the flag salute requirement in 1940.
> At the same time, an sustained effort by local governments to suppress
> proselytizing by Witnesses, with many ingenious and facially neutral
> ordinances enacted to get them. Most of these ordinances were struck
> down in nearly two dozen Supreme Court decisions from the late 30s to
> the early 50s.
>
> There are many accounts of these episodes, a few comprehensive,
> most dealing with one small piece of the story.
>
> Douglas Laycock
> University of Texas Law School
> 727 E. Dean Keeton St.
> Austin, TX 78705
> 512-232-1341 (phone)
> 512-471-6988 (fax)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
> [mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman
> Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 4:43 PM
> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
> Subject: Re: religiously-motivated political strife
>
> I assume Kevin is interested in pre-1787 religious strife that the
> framers knew about and wanted to avoid repeating. Without offering a
> full history, here are some "greatest hits of religious strife"
>
> In 1657, Stuyvesant refused to allow a boatload of Quakers to land in
> New Amsterdam. This was the beginning of the longest and most brutal
> religious suppression in the colony's history. Over the next six
> years, officials jailed, expelled, fined, placed at hard labor, and
> tortured numerous Quakers for preaching in the colony. Non-Quakers
> were also jailed and fined for aiding or harboring Quakers. <!--[if
> !supportEndnotes]--> In 1657 Dutch authorities in New Netherlands
> tortured the Quaker Robert Hodgson in a variety of ways, including
> dragging him behind a horse cart, placing him in a vermin filled
> dungeon, and severely whipping him and "chaining him to a wheelbarrow
> in the hot sun until he collapsed." He was later hung by his hands in
> a prison cell and "whipped until he was near death." After two days
> in solitary confinement, he was again whipped until near death.
> Hodgson's ordeal ended when Stuyvesant's own sister convinced him to
> release Hodgson from prison and expel him from the country. He had
> earlier tried to expell Jews and Lutherans from the colony
>
> Mass. Bay Colony hanged 4 Quakers -- 2 men and later 2 women -- for
> returning to the colony after they were expelled and preaching.
> Earlier Mass. Bay colony expelled Roger Williams for his heresies (be
> later founded the Baptist Church) as well as Anne Hutchinson for hers.
> Massacusetts colony executed 19 people for witchcracft, pressed one
> man to death for refusing the plead to the indictment and sent
> hundreds to jail (where some died) and also hanged two dogs for
> witchcraft, all of which were religious crimes
>
> About 19 others were executed in various colonies for witchcraft.
>
> Plymouth Colony, imposing Biblical Law, hanged Thomas Granger for
> beastiality after first killing all the animals he had had sex with
> (they symbolically killed 3 wild turkeys to atone for the turkey he
> had sex with).
>
> The Md. "Toleration Act" allowed for the execution of Jews and anyone
> else who did not accept the divinity of Jesus; one Jew was sentenced
> to death but commuted to expulsion.
>
> Virginia savagely mistreated Baptists in the 1770s and 1780s; jailing
> and whipping Baptist ministers.
>
> While there was some religious persecuation after the colonial period,
> it died down a great deal and certainly the Free
> Exercise/Anti-Establishment tradition (even if it was not legally
> applicable the states, helped create much greater religious tolerance,
> despite persecution of Mormons in the 1830s and 1840s, some Catholic
> persecution in the 1830s, and the lynching of Leo Frank by a mob in
> 1915 (I think that is the right date).
>
> You can find citations for these events and further discussions in the
> following places:
>
> Paul Finkelman, The Ten Commandments on the Courthouse Lawn and
> Elsewhere, 73 Fordham L. Rev. 1477-1520 (2005).
> Paul Finkelman, Religious Liberty and the Quincentennary: Old World
> Intolerance, New World Realities, and Modern Implications," 7 St.
> Johns J. Legal Comm. 523 (1992).
> Paul Finkelman, RELIGION AND AMERICAN LAW: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA (Garland,
> 2000).
>
>>
>>> My question will perhaps reveal more about my ignorance of American
>>> history than I ought to disclose but my question is as follows:
>>>
>>> Various Supreme Court justices have argued that one of the
>>> motivations of the establishment clause is the prevention of
>>> religiously-motivated political strife. See, e.g., Justice Souter's
>>> dissenting opinions in Mitchell and Zelman. However, the only
>>> references to strife one sees in the opinions are to 17th century
>>> Europe and to the divisiveness of founding era state-supported
>>> churches.
>>>
>>> My question then is what events, if any, would list members point to
>>> as examples of religiously-motivated strife in the American
>>> context--this to head off someone who might like Justice Stevens in
>>> Zelman point to conflicts in "the Balkans, Northern Ireland, and the
>>> Middle East." 19th century school funding conflicts?
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>> Kevin Pybas
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> --
>>
>> Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017
>>
>> Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8567
>>
>> 2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:sjamar at law.howard.edu
>>
>> Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar/
>>
>>
>> "Example is always more efficacious than precept."
>>
>>
>> Samuel Johnson, 1759
>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>>
>
>
>--
>Paul Finkelman
>Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law
>University of Tulsa College of Law
>3120 East 4th Place
>Tulsa, OK 74105
>
>918-631-3706 (voice)
>918-631-2194 (fax)
>
>Paul-Finkelman at utulsa.edu
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
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>
>Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
>
--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, OK 74105
918-631-3706 (voice)
918-631-2194 (fax)
Paul-Finkelman at utulsa.edu
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