Droxyn

Does anyone have any info on the validity of this rendering of the Northwest Ordinance. (mainly in regards to the religious comment) I notice that no one listened to the Indian decree to much.

I got this from <a href="http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/docs/amdocs_index.html" target="_blank">web page</a>

hezekiah jones

What do you mean "validity"?

Many observers have cited that portion of the Ordinance in support of their "original intention" arguments against the Supreme Court's interpretation of the establishment clause. Nonetheless the SC's rulings stand, at least for the time being.

The question, with respect to the Ordinance's language, necessarily becomes, "Which religion"? Which is exactly why the SC has ruled as it has.

theyeti

Let me get this straight. Fundie lawyers are using this Ordinance to claim that C/S separation is bogus? So are they at least being consistent by planning to return half the United States to the Indians?

theyeti

ohwilleke

The second half of that first sentence is definitely correct (The Northwest Ordinance played an important part in the formation of the State where I grew up, Ohio, its school districts and the college in the town where I grew up, so that phrase was quoted constantly). I have little doubt that the whole thing is correct. The Northwest Ordinance is only limited evidence of the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, however, since it pre-dates the Constitution completed several months later, and the Bill of Rights, adopted four years after that. Certainly, when it was adopted, it mixing church and state was not unconstitutional.

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: ohwilleke ]</p>

Droxyn

I only mean that there is a lot of crap on the internet and I just wondered if this text was consistant with the original. You know, not added to to further ones cause and then posted as 'real'

(edited by Toto to fix tag)

[ May 18, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

hezekiah jones

It's hosted by the University of Kansas so I would imagine it to be pretty reliable. Very useful page by the way.

lpetrich

That statement is consistent with the view that religion is desirable as the opium of the people. This view has been stated explicitly in past centuries by the likes of Plato and Machiavelli and Strabo and Polybius; it is not generally honestly stated nowadays.

Buffman

<a href="http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nworder.htm" target="_blank">http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/nworder.htm</a>

Please read Sec. 14, Art. 1. & 3. (Especially Art.1. Also note that The Constitutional Convention was in session when this Ordinance was approved.

This next URL provides some additional elaboration
<a href="http://www.jmu.edu/madison/northwestterrb.htm" target="_blank">http://www.jmu.edu/madison/northwestterrb.htm</a>

Gar

Exactly! This thing looses all credibility because of the bit about being nice to the natives.

hezekiah jones

Yes. I did a quick search at Lexis-Nexis for law review articles containing the phrases "Northwest Ordinance" and "establishment clause." I found several articles using the NO to support their argument, although some of them were from Pat Robertson's Regent University Law Review.

More importantly Rehnquist referred to the Northwest Ordinance in his famous dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree:

Of course after all of this I am compelled to once again reproduce one of my favorite passages from the preface to Leonard W. Levy's The Establishment Clause, at least for the benefit of Droxyn, in which Levy addresses the views of Rehnquist and other nonpreferentialists generally, and the Wallace v. Jaffree dissent specifically:

Levy, it should be noted, does not count himself among the "strict separationists," and in fact has received considerable criticism from the proponents of same.

[ May 18, 2002: Message edited by: hezekiahjones ]</p>