Abstract

In its controversial 1990 Smith decision, the American Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause does not exempt the sacramental use of peyote from state laws prohibiting drug use. Smith overturned nearly three decades of legal precedent, but it failed to articulate a clear or comprehensive rule for subsequent religious liberty cases. This study addresses the lacuna in the Court's free exercise jurisprudence. It attempts to answer two questions: What are the grounds for the right to religious freedom? And, how ought that right be protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment? ;Chapter One begins with John Locke's philosophical defense of religious liberty. I examine the argument of A Letter Concerning Toleration in light of Locke's epistemological writings. This leads me to suggest that Locke's most fundamental argument for religious toleration is found in his aspiration for men to govern their lives according to the limits of reason. ;Chapters Two, Three, and Four examine religious liberty in the political thought of three of America's leading founding fathers: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. I attempt to explain what each founder meant by the right to religious freedom and how each defended that right philosophically and politically. ;Chapter Five moves from political theory to constitutional law. I translate the founders' principles of religious liberty into doctrinal rules for contemporary jurisprudence. I also set forth the five basic types of issues that arise under the Free Exercise Clause. I then apply the founders' principles to these issues. This process demonstrates the degree to which the founders would have disapproved of the Supreme Court's free exercise jurisprudence and the degree to which the founders agree and disagree with one another. ;I conclude with further discussion of the differences among Jefferson's, Madison's, and Washington's principles. This study reveals that the founders did not share a uniform understanding of the right to religious liberty. Nevertheless, within the founders' thought I find a principled standard for contemporary free exercise jurisprudence