Now we have considered in a very general way the nature of our government and something of our powers and duties under the Constitution. I know that you will be interested in considering our rights and privileges under the Constitution of the United States.
Always keep in mind that each State has a Constitution, and that the Nation has a Constitution, that the Constitution of the United States covers the entire Nation, not only the original thirteen colonies, but the present forty-eight States, and that any States that may hereafter be brought in the Union will have as their fundamental law the Constitution adopted by the people in the long ago.(49)
Also always keep in mind that the Nation has certain powers, and that the Constitution of the United States is supreme only as to the things over which the United States as a Nation has control.
But it is important to bear in mind that the great principles of the Constitution of the United States have been carried into the Constitutions of the various States, and that the rights and privileges of the people under the Constitution of the United States have also to a large extent been guaranteed by the Constitutions of the States.(50)
This morning we take up a constitutional guaranty which you perhaps have not thought much about, but which is one of the most important in the whole Constitution--_Freedom of Worship_. The Constitution provides:
_"__Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.__"_(51)
As we look back through the history of the world we are startled to find that this was the first written guaranty that the people of any nation ever had permitting them to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience.(52)
Now some of you may not realize how important this is; but there is nothing so dear to the human heart as the right, the privilege, of belonging to that church and worshipping God in that manner which each individual may desire. We do not realize the value of such a privilege until some one, or some power, seeks to take it away from us. All through the world men and women and children have fought, and many of them have died, for this privilege. It was the custom of the nations of the world before our Constitution to have an established religion, a National religion, and in many of the countries it was the law that every one must belong to the state church, and must actually believe in the religion of the state. In fact, in many countries, refusal to believe in the religion of the state was punished by death--sometimes by burning to death, and I am sure you will be surprised to realize that while America was first settled by people who were seeking religious freedom, they were still so imbued with a feeling of the old days that persons must worship, not as their conscience might dictate, but as the state might dictate, that for many years in this country in certain of the colonies a state religion was recognized, and obligation to conform to the established religion enforced by severe penalties.