In 1791, the Congress of the United States ratified the First Amendment to the Constitution. It protects five rights, amongst them, freedom of religion. This inalienable right to freedom of conscience is the foundation for the right to religious freedom. Freedom of religion is set out in the first sixteen words of the amendment through two clauses: one relates to government, and the other relates to individuals. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," is the first clause, the Establishment Clause. It applies to our government - federal, state and local. The second clause, "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," is the Free Exercise Clause and protects individuals and groups. (Article VI in the main body of the Constitution provides that there will be no "religious test" for federal office.)

Initially, the religious liberty clauses of the First Amendment applied only to the federal government (Congress shall make no law...). States could continue to have established churches, to grant certain civil privileges to members of their churches, and to support the established church with tax revenue. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments were written to end slavery, and they expanded individual rights and the power of the federal government. In 1925, the Supreme Court extended the interpretation of the word "liberty" in the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause ("no state...deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law") to other freedoms in the Bill of Rights. This legal doctrine is called "incorporation", and by using it, the Court was able to extend rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights to the state and local level. The religion clauses were found to apply to state and local government (i.e., incorporated) in 1940 (free exercise) and 1947 (establishment) respectively. Some historians and lawyers, however, still question whether these decisions accurately reflect the framers' intent.

Next Section - PRINCIPLES OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT