New Paper From Mark David Hall

I received a message from Dr. Hall:

... I just published an article that readers of AC might find to be of interest. Here is the citation and the abstract. 

Mark David Hall, “Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance, Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Liberty, and the Creation of the First Amendment,” American Political Thought. 3 (Spring 2014): 32-63. 

Jurists, scholars, and popular writers routinely assert that the men who framed and ratified the First Amendment were influenced by James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance (1785) and Thomas Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Liberty (1786). In this essay I demonstrate that there is little evidence to support these claims. Because these documents represent only one approach to church-state relations in the era, jurists and others who believe that the religion clauses should be interpreted in light of the founders’ views need to look well beyond these texts if they want to understand the First Amendment’s “generating history.”