Government and Religious Rights
"It is not in the legitimate province of the Legislature to determine what religion is true or what false. Our government is a civil and not a religious institution. Our Constitution recognizes in every person the right to choose his own religion, and to enjoy it freely without molestation. THE PROPER OBJECT OF GOVERNMENT IS to protect all persons in the enjoyment of their civil as well as their religious rights, and NOT TO DETERMINE FOR ANY WHETHER THEY SHALL ESTEEM ONE DAY ABOVE ANOTHER, or esteem all days alike holy. What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as RIGHTS of which government can not deprive any portion of citizens, however small. Despotic power may invade those rights, but justice still confirms them."-United States Senate Report, 1829.