WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.879 Usually when we talk about a job interview for 00:00:03.879 --> 00:00:06.759 a really high level government position, there's 00:00:06.759 --> 00:00:10.199 this expectation of just absolute uncompromising 00:00:10.199 --> 00:00:12.419 transparency. Right, it feels like a complete 00:00:12.419 --> 00:00:15.740 psychological audit. Exactly, like an ideological 00:00:15.740 --> 00:00:18.079 audit. The vetting committees look at your finances, 00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:22.789 your past associations, public statements. Even 00:00:22.789 --> 00:00:25.010 private letters. Yeah, the assumption built into 00:00:25.010 --> 00:00:26.929 our modern political culture is basically that 00:00:26.929 --> 00:00:29.190 the government gets to ask you anything. Right. 00:00:29.309 --> 00:00:31.730 To determine if you are genuinely fit to wield 00:00:31.730 --> 00:00:35.590 power. We want to know exactly who is holding 00:00:35.590 --> 00:00:37.750 the levers of the state. So we demand to see 00:00:37.750 --> 00:00:39.729 inside their heads. We want to know what truly 00:00:39.729 --> 00:00:42.219 drives their decision making. Yeah. And that 00:00:42.219 --> 00:00:45.000 desire for total ideological transparency is 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.640 a very natural human impulse, I think. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:49.659 When someone is given authority over your life, 00:00:49.719 --> 00:00:51.520 you know, you want assurance that their fundamental 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:53.659 worldview aligns with the public good. Right. 00:00:53.719 --> 00:00:55.759 But then you look at the absolute highest law 00:00:55.759 --> 00:00:57.899 of the land, the blueprint for the entire American 00:00:57.899 --> 00:01:01.280 system. And suddenly that demand for total transparency 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:05.299 hits a massive impenetrable brick wall. It really 00:01:05.299 --> 00:01:08.579 does. Today, for our deep dive, we are exploring 00:01:08.579 --> 00:01:11.799 a single often overlooked sentence in the U .S. 00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:15.219 Constitution. Our source material today is a 00:01:15.219 --> 00:01:18.939 comprehensive Wikipedia overview of the no religious 00:01:18.939 --> 00:01:21.760 test clause. And it's a fascinating source. It 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:23.819 really is. OK, let's unpack this because when 00:01:23.819 --> 00:01:27.299 you dig into the text, you realize it is a constitutional 00:01:27.299 --> 00:01:30.629 boundary that is startlingly. absolute. Yeah, 00:01:30.650 --> 00:01:33.390 it basically functions as the ultimate none of 00:01:33.390 --> 00:01:35.609 your business clause. Exactly. And what makes 00:01:35.609 --> 00:01:39.549 it so pivotal is how early it appears in the 00:01:39.549 --> 00:01:42.230 nation's legal DNA. Because when most people 00:01:42.230 --> 00:01:44.150 think about the separation of church and state, 00:01:44.569 --> 00:01:46.609 their minds immediately go to the First Amendment. 00:01:46.629 --> 00:01:48.810 Right. The establishment clause. Right. The rule 00:01:48.810 --> 00:01:50.890 that Congress shall make no law respecting an 00:01:50.890 --> 00:01:52.730 establishment of religion. I know I did. That's 00:01:52.730 --> 00:01:54.909 the famous one everybody quotes. But here is 00:01:54.909 --> 00:01:57.030 where my mind was just completely blown reading 00:01:57.030 --> 00:01:58.930 through the source material. Yeah. If you look 00:01:58.829 --> 00:02:00.590 Look at the original seven articles of the U 00:02:00.590 --> 00:02:04.189 .S. Constitution. The document drafted in 1787 00:02:04.189 --> 00:02:06.450 before the Bill of Rights was even a thing. Right. 00:02:06.549 --> 00:02:10.330 The core structural document. Yes. This no religious 00:02:10.330 --> 00:02:13.270 test clause is the only explicit reference to 00:02:13.270 --> 00:02:16.310 religion in the entire document. Wow. Right. 00:02:16.629 --> 00:02:19.229 The framers built the core machinery of the government 00:02:19.229 --> 00:02:21.590 and the single time they brought up religion 00:02:21.590 --> 00:02:24.629 was to explicitly ban the government from testing 00:02:24.629 --> 00:02:27.830 for it. That timeline is so crucial. Because 00:02:27.830 --> 00:02:29.949 it predates the First Amendment, it stands as 00:02:29.949 --> 00:02:33.310 the absolute purest example of the Framers' original 00:02:33.310 --> 00:02:36.530 intent. It shows exactly how they thought religion 00:02:36.530 --> 00:02:39.330 and the state should interact. They didn't just 00:02:39.330 --> 00:02:41.430 forget to include a state religion. No, they 00:02:41.430 --> 00:02:44.349 actively built a firewall to prevent one from 00:02:44.349 --> 00:02:46.409 ever taking root in the federal bureaucracy. 00:02:46.669 --> 00:02:48.789 Precisely. So before we get into the historical 00:02:48.789 --> 00:02:51.169 drama that caused this, let's actually look at 00:02:51.169 --> 00:02:53.370 the mechanics of how they built that firewall. 00:02:53.969 --> 00:02:57.030 Because the text itself is, frankly, Brilliant. 00:02:57.250 --> 00:02:59.150 It really is elegantly simple. You find this 00:02:59.150 --> 00:03:01.770 in Article 6, Clause 3 of the Constitution. And 00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:03.389 the first part of the clause lays out a very 00:03:03.389 --> 00:03:05.770 standard requirement. It says all federal and 00:03:05.770 --> 00:03:08.409 state officeholders have to take an oath or an 00:03:08.409 --> 00:03:10.930 affirmation to support the Constitution. Which 00:03:10.930 --> 00:03:13.669 is a purely secular requirement. You know, you 00:03:13.669 --> 00:03:15.449 want the job of governing. You have to publicly 00:03:15.449 --> 00:03:18.090 swear to uphold the rule book you are going to 00:03:18.090 --> 00:03:20.349 be using. Makes total sense. Yeah. But it is 00:03:20.349 --> 00:03:23.349 the caveat immediately following that oath. that 00:03:23.349 --> 00:03:26.349 changes the course of American history. The text 00:03:26.349 --> 00:03:29.909 says, quote, but no religious test shall ever 00:03:29.909 --> 00:03:33.030 be required as a qualification to any office 00:03:33.030 --> 00:03:35.509 or public trust under the United States. That's 00:03:35.509 --> 00:03:38.210 the firewall right there. Yes. And I was trying 00:03:38.210 --> 00:03:41.030 to think of how to visualize the sheer mechanics 00:03:41.030 --> 00:03:44.289 of this for you, the listener. It feels like 00:03:44.289 --> 00:03:46.789 comparing the federal government to a highly 00:03:46.789 --> 00:03:49.360 exclusive club. Okay, I like that. And Article 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.300 6 is the balancer standing at the door. Normally, 00:03:52.379 --> 00:03:54.080 a balancer's job is to check if you're on the 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:57.159 VIP list, you know, to judge your vibe or ensure 00:03:57.159 --> 00:03:59.259 you meet the dress code. Right, they are there 00:03:59.259 --> 00:04:01.979 to filter people out based on a subjective standard. 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:04.539 Yes, but this constitutional rule does something 00:04:04.539 --> 00:04:08.400 entirely counterintuitive. It explicitly forbids 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:10.539 the balancer from asking what kind of music you 00:04:10.539 --> 00:04:12.560 listen to, what you believe in your private time, 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:15.460 or where your soul goes when you die. They literally 00:04:15.460 --> 00:04:18.259 can't ask. Right. The bouncer is only legally 00:04:18.259 --> 00:04:21.699 authorized to ask one single question. Do you 00:04:21.699 --> 00:04:23.779 swear to support the club's rule book? And if 00:04:23.779 --> 00:04:26.660 you say yes, you're in. You're in! Your private 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:29.360 theology is entirely off limits. That analogy 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:32.879 captures the mechanism perfectly. But to truly 00:04:32.879 --> 00:04:35.519 appreciate it, we have to recognize how profoundly 00:04:35.519 --> 00:04:37.860 radical that was at the end of the 18th century. 00:04:38.259 --> 00:04:40.439 Totally radical. By forbidding the government 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.439 from asking about private beliefs, the Constitution 00:04:43.439 --> 00:04:45.740 completely removed the state from the business 00:04:45.740 --> 00:04:49.500 of evaluating a citizen's soul. And the framers 00:04:49.500 --> 00:04:52.180 applied this wall of protection comprehensively. 00:04:52.740 --> 00:04:55.600 The text applies to the highest federal employees 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:59.259 down to local state legislators. They were deliberately 00:04:59.259 --> 00:05:01.899 shutting down a specific type of tyranny they 00:05:01.899 --> 00:05:04.100 had witnessed for generations. Because they weren't 00:05:04.100 --> 00:05:06.259 just writing philosophy in a vacuum. Not at all. 00:05:06.339 --> 00:05:08.680 They were reacting to a very brutal reality. 00:05:08.939 --> 00:05:11.519 Why did the framers feel the urgent need to put 00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:15.379 this specific ban in the Constitution? To understand 00:05:15.379 --> 00:05:17.300 that, we have to look at the religious oppression 00:05:17.300 --> 00:05:19.399 they were actively running away from across the 00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:21.819 Atlantic. Right. The European context is everything 00:05:21.819 --> 00:05:24.899 here. It's exactly. In 17th and 18th century 00:05:24.899 --> 00:05:28.060 England, the government utilized a legal framework 00:05:28.060 --> 00:05:31.389 known as the Test Acts. The test acts were basically 00:05:31.389 --> 00:05:34.310 the ultimate theological bouncers. Yeah, that's 00:05:34.310 --> 00:05:36.490 exactly what they were. Their primary function 00:05:36.490 --> 00:05:39.850 was to ruthlessly exclude anyone who wasn't a 00:05:39.850 --> 00:05:41.790 member of the official state religion, which 00:05:41.790 --> 00:05:44.790 was the Church of England, from holding any form 00:05:44.790 --> 00:05:48.009 of civil or military office. Right. This machinery 00:05:48.009 --> 00:05:51.449 was targeted directly at Catholics and non -conforming 00:05:51.449 --> 00:05:54.350 Protestants like Puritans or Quakers. You couldn't 00:05:54.350 --> 00:05:56.310 just show up to the magistrate's office and say, 00:05:56.370 --> 00:05:58.990 hey, I am a competent administrator. I will do 00:05:58.990 --> 00:06:01.870 a good job. No, you had to pass an invasive theological 00:06:01.870 --> 00:06:05.009 exam. It's wild. I was stunned reading. the specifics 00:06:05.009 --> 00:06:07.430 in the source material, officials had to swear 00:06:07.430 --> 00:06:09.930 the oath of supremacy, declaring the English 00:06:09.930 --> 00:06:12.129 monarch as the supreme head of the church. Which 00:06:12.129 --> 00:06:15.490 was a direct legally binding way of forcing people 00:06:15.490 --> 00:06:17.949 to disavow the pope. Right. But it went so much 00:06:17.949 --> 00:06:19.750 deeper than just rejecting foreign political 00:06:19.750 --> 00:06:22.009 authority. They actually made government officials 00:06:22.009 --> 00:06:25.129 explicitly disavow transubstantiation. It was 00:06:25.129 --> 00:06:27.110 a surgical strike against Catholic theology. 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:29.759 It really was. And for those who might not be 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:32.339 familiar with the term, transubstantiation is 00:06:32.339 --> 00:06:35.160 the core Catholic doctrine that the communion 00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:38.000 bread and wine literally transform into the physical 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:41.000 body and blood of Christ during the mass. The 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.800 English test acts also required officials to 00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:47.339 legally renounce the veneration of saints. Imagine 00:06:47.339 --> 00:06:50.139 going to the DMV today to get a public sector 00:06:50.139 --> 00:06:53.560 job, and the HR paperwork requires you to formally 00:06:53.560 --> 00:06:56.139 state your position on the metaphysical properties 00:06:56.139 --> 00:06:58.610 of communion bread under penalty of perjury. 00:06:59.050 --> 00:07:01.110 It sounds absurd to us now, but that was the 00:07:01.110 --> 00:07:03.029 absolute norm. It's just crazy to think about. 00:07:03.110 --> 00:07:05.269 And the consequences of failing that test were 00:07:05.269 --> 00:07:07.370 devastating. It wasn't just, oh, you lose a job 00:07:07.370 --> 00:07:09.670 opportunity. Right. It was much worse. In many 00:07:09.670 --> 00:07:12.329 European nations, failing to align with the state 00:07:12.329 --> 00:07:15.290 religion resulted in a kind of civil death. You 00:07:15.290 --> 00:07:17.350 could be stripped of your property, barred from 00:07:17.350 --> 00:07:20.250 inheriting estates and heavily fined. Wow. The 00:07:20.250 --> 00:07:23.170 government used the machinery of the law to enforce 00:07:23.170 --> 00:07:25.209 adherence to the beliefs of the ruling sect. 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:27.939 And we have to be honest about American history 00:07:27.939 --> 00:07:31.459 here. Early colonial governments in America utilize 00:07:31.459 --> 00:07:34.220 these exact same practices. Which brings us to 00:07:34.220 --> 00:07:38.040 a massive glaring historical contradiction. Here's 00:07:38.040 --> 00:07:40.860 where it gets really interesting. Okay. Knowing 00:07:40.860 --> 00:07:43.300 that the colonies themselves had a long history 00:07:43.300 --> 00:07:45.959 of state -sponsored religious tests, the guy 00:07:45.959 --> 00:07:48.379 who actually introduced this no religious test 00:07:48.379 --> 00:07:50.819 clause at the Constitutional Convention was a 00:07:50.819 --> 00:07:53.259 delegate named Charles Pinkney. Right. And he 00:07:53.259 --> 00:07:55.339 was a delegate representing South Carolina. A 00:07:55.339 --> 00:07:58.699 state that, at that exact moment in 1787, had 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:01.480 an established Protestant state religion. Right. 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:04.319 South Carolina had an official religion. So why 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:06.600 would a delegate from a state that literally 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:10.189 have a legally recognized religion Be the one 00:08:10.189 --> 00:08:12.829 to propose a nationwide ban on religious tests. 00:08:13.089 --> 00:08:15.250 It seems backwards. It really does. It seems 00:08:15.250 --> 00:08:17.750 entirely backwards to advocate for a federal 00:08:17.750 --> 00:08:20.709 ban on the very thing your home state is actively 00:08:20.709 --> 00:08:23.509 doing. It looks contradictory until you understand 00:08:23.509 --> 00:08:26.470 the deep pragmatism of the founders. OK, unpack 00:08:26.470 --> 00:08:29.449 that for me. The memory of European state -sponsored 00:08:29.449 --> 00:08:31.310 religion where the royal government picked a 00:08:31.310 --> 00:08:33.669 favorite sect and violently suppressed the rest 00:08:33.669 --> 00:08:36.809 was incredibly fresh. Right, they lived it. Exactly. 00:08:37.210 --> 00:08:40.750 They had just fought a brutal war to throw off 00:08:40.750 --> 00:08:43.450 a monarch who dictated both laws and theology. 00:08:44.330 --> 00:08:46.649 Even a delegate like Pinkney, coming from a state 00:08:46.649 --> 00:08:49.690 with a religious establishment, recognized a 00:08:49.690 --> 00:08:52.610 terrifying mathematical reality. Which is? If 00:08:52.610 --> 00:08:54.730 the new federal government was given the power 00:08:54.730 --> 00:08:57.269 to test for religion, whoever controlled the 00:08:57.269 --> 00:09:00.149 capital would inevitably impose their specific 00:09:00.149 --> 00:09:03.929 denomination on the entire continent. It's the 00:09:03.929 --> 00:09:06.289 ultimate double -edged sword. You might want 00:09:06.289 --> 00:09:09.070 your religion to be the test today, but tomorrow 00:09:09.070 --> 00:09:11.169 a different faction takes power and suddenly 00:09:11.169 --> 00:09:14.090 you are the one failing the test and losing your 00:09:14.090 --> 00:09:16.629 civil rights. Precisely. They knew that a national 00:09:16.629 --> 00:09:19.450 test act would trigger an endless vicious cycle 00:09:19.450 --> 00:09:22.029 of sectarian conflict that would eventually tear 00:09:22.029 --> 00:09:24.210 the fragile young country apart. So it was just 00:09:24.210 --> 00:09:26.799 self -preservation. Mostly, yes. So when Pinkney 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:29.179 proposed this ban, it passed with very little 00:09:29.179 --> 00:09:31.779 opposition. It wasn't necessarily born of pure 00:09:31.779 --> 00:09:33.940 utopian tolerance. It was an act of political 00:09:33.940 --> 00:09:35.779 survival. That makes so much sense. Yeah. So 00:09:35.779 --> 00:09:37.940 the founders successfully banned the theological 00:09:37.940 --> 00:09:40.740 exam. The government cannot ask about your faith. 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:43.679 But, and there's always a, but governments are 00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:47.340 incredibly clever institutions. If a state really 00:09:47.340 --> 00:09:50.259 wants to filter people out, and the Constitution 00:09:50.259 --> 00:09:53.059 says they can't test your religion, they will 00:09:53.059 --> 00:09:55.700 inevitably try to test your ideological loyalty 00:09:55.700 --> 00:09:58.240 in other ways. They will absolutely search for 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:00.419 a loophole. Right. How did the Supreme Court 00:10:00.419 --> 00:10:03.480 handle non -religious tests? Because that search 00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:06.240 for a loophole triggered a massive Supreme Court 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:09.179 showdown shortly after the Civil War. Yes. The 00:10:09.179 --> 00:10:11.820 case is called Ex Parte Garland, and it perfectly 00:10:11.820 --> 00:10:14.460 illustrates how powerfully this single clause 00:10:14.460 --> 00:10:17.759 operates. The context here is vital. The Civil 00:10:17.759 --> 00:10:20.720 War is over. The union has survived and the federal 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:22.259 government is trying to figure out what to do 00:10:22.259 --> 00:10:25.059 with former Confederates. Right. Congress decides 00:10:25.059 --> 00:10:28.840 to create a new secular loyalty oath. They tried 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:30.980 to legally force former Confederate officials 00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:33.679 and lawyers to swear they had never borne arms 00:10:33.679 --> 00:10:36.139 against the United States before they could practice 00:10:36.139 --> 00:10:38.600 law in federal courts. The intention was clearly 00:10:38.600 --> 00:10:41.200 punitive. They wanted to permanently ban the 00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:43.320 architects of the rebellion from holding public 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:46.639 trust. But there was a massive legal complication 00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:49.080 in the case of A .H. Garland. The officials in 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:52.509 question had already received full formal presidential 00:10:52.509 --> 00:10:54.690 pardons for their actions during a rebellion. 00:10:54.950 --> 00:10:58.309 Which means, legally speaking, their slate was 00:10:58.309 --> 00:11:01.330 wiped completely clean by the executive branch. 00:11:01.629 --> 00:11:03.350 They were no longer criminals in the eyes of 00:11:03.350 --> 00:11:06.509 the law. Exactly. And because the pardons negated 00:11:06.509 --> 00:11:08.950 any argument that they were criminals, the Supreme 00:11:08.950 --> 00:11:11.730 Court was forced to evaluate the constitutionality 00:11:11.730 --> 00:11:14.250 of the loyalty oath itself. And what did they 00:11:14.250 --> 00:11:16.580 decide? The court struck it down. They ruled 00:11:16.580 --> 00:11:19.360 that forcing officials to swear loyalty oaths 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:21.440 to anything other than the U .S. Constitution 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:24.139 was unconstitutional. See, I'm going to play 00:11:24.139 --> 00:11:26.399 devil's advocate here because when I was reading 00:11:26.399 --> 00:11:28.740 the source, I was really struggling to understand 00:11:28.740 --> 00:11:31.519 the legal leap the court made. OK, lay on me. 00:11:31.779 --> 00:11:34.759 The text of Article six explicitly says no religious 00:11:34.759 --> 00:11:38.190 test. It specifies religion. How did the Supreme 00:11:38.190 --> 00:11:41.289 Court justify applying a ban on religious tests 00:11:41.289 --> 00:11:44.230 to a completely secular Confederate loyalty oath? 00:11:44.269 --> 00:11:46.710 That's the big question. Right. It feels like 00:11:46.710 --> 00:11:50.029 passing a law that bans red cars and then a judge 00:11:50.029 --> 00:11:52.789 uses that exact same law to ban blue trucks. 00:11:53.450 --> 00:11:55.419 How did they make that leap? It's a brilliant 00:11:55.419 --> 00:11:57.419 question. And if we connect this to the bigger 00:11:57.419 --> 00:12:00.659 picture, the answer lies in understanding how 00:12:00.659 --> 00:12:03.240 the different moving parts of Article 6 function 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:06.820 as a single mechanism. The ban on religious tests 00:12:06.820 --> 00:12:10.019 doesn't exist in a vacuum. It operates in tandem 00:12:10.019 --> 00:12:12.440 with the very first point of that clause, the 00:12:12.440 --> 00:12:14.639 strict requirement to take an oath to support 00:12:14.639 --> 00:12:17.779 the Constitution. Right. The framers demanded 00:12:17.779 --> 00:12:19.700 an oath to the rule book and then immediately 00:12:19.700 --> 00:12:22.379 banned testing for anything else. Exactly. The 00:12:22.379 --> 00:12:25.240 court looked at the underlying logic. The Constitution 00:12:25.240 --> 00:12:28.639 demands a single specific oath to itself. It 00:12:28.639 --> 00:12:31.580 acts as a jealous master. A jealous master, I 00:12:31.580 --> 00:12:33.220 like that phrasing. Yeah, so when the government 00:12:33.220 --> 00:12:36.139 invents a new secondary oath designed to test 00:12:36.139 --> 00:12:38.679 past ideological purity or political loyalty, 00:12:39.139 --> 00:12:41.700 it is essentially creating a secular religious 00:12:41.700 --> 00:12:44.440 test. Ah, I see. It is demanding a profession 00:12:44.440 --> 00:12:48.120 of faith in a specific political orthodoxy. By 00:12:48.120 --> 00:12:50.720 explicitly naming the Constitution as the sole 00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:53.379 object of the oath and explicitly banning tests 00:12:53.379 --> 00:12:56.940 of belief, the framers established a rigid boundary. 00:12:57.600 --> 00:13:00.720 So the state cannot invent new tests of purity 00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:03.299 to filter out its political enemies. Exactly. 00:13:03.559 --> 00:13:06.000 The Constitution is the sole master you swear 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:09.659 to. That is a profound legal mechanism. It completely 00:13:09.659 --> 00:13:12.179 locks down the federal government. But, you know, 00:13:12.299 --> 00:13:14.360 as is so often the case in American history for 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:16.700 a very long time, the states were operating under 00:13:16.700 --> 00:13:19.019 a completely different set of rules. Oh, entirely. 00:13:19.179 --> 00:13:20.620 The federal government was locked down by this 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:22.559 rule, but the states were basically doing whatever 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:24.759 they pleased. Yeah, this was the doctrine of 00:13:24.759 --> 00:13:26.820 states' rights applied to civil liberties. For 00:13:26.820 --> 00:13:29.059 the first century and a half of U .S. history, 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:31.799 the Bill of Rights and certain federal constitutional 00:13:31.799 --> 00:13:34.419 protections were understood by the courts to 00:13:34.419 --> 00:13:37.029 apply only to the federal government. Individual 00:13:37.029 --> 00:13:39.470 states had almost complete discretion to construct 00:13:39.470 --> 00:13:41.870 their own societies within their borders, and 00:13:41.870 --> 00:13:44.830 historically that included writing explicit religious 00:13:44.830 --> 00:13:47.450 tests directly into their own state constitutions. 00:13:47.950 --> 00:13:49.909 So even though the federal constitution explicitly 00:13:49.909 --> 00:13:53.129 says no religious test shall ever be required 00:13:53.129 --> 00:13:55.929 to any office or public trust under the United 00:13:55.929 --> 00:13:59.190 States, the states just argued that local offices 00:13:59.190 --> 00:14:01.799 weren't under the United States. Precisely. They 00:14:01.799 --> 00:14:04.679 viewed state and local offices as a separate 00:14:04.679 --> 00:14:07.620 sovereign domain. It took a massive, seismic 00:14:07.620 --> 00:14:10.039 legal shift to finally bring the states into 00:14:10.039 --> 00:14:12.080 compliance with the national standard. And that 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:13.940 shift culminated relatively recently, right? 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:17.139 In 1961, with a unanimous Supreme Court case 00:14:17.139 --> 00:14:20.399 called Toccaso v. Watkins. That's the one. 1961. 00:14:20.500 --> 00:14:22.299 I just want to pause on that. We were sending 00:14:22.299 --> 00:14:24.639 astronauts into space, the Cold War was peaking, 00:14:24.940 --> 00:14:26.799 and states were still legally demanding that 00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:29.539 their citizens pass religious tests to hold a 00:14:29.539 --> 00:14:32.409 notary public license. The timeline is totally 00:14:32.409 --> 00:14:35.330 jarring. It really is. In Torqueso v. Watkins, 00:14:35.529 --> 00:14:37.950 the Supreme Court finally ruled that the state 00:14:37.950 --> 00:14:40.210 -level religious tests were unconstitutional. 00:14:40.889 --> 00:14:43.389 But what's fascinating about the legal architecture 00:14:43.389 --> 00:14:45.990 of this decision is how they got there. How so? 00:14:46.350 --> 00:14:48.950 They used the 14th Amendment, which guarantees 00:14:48.950 --> 00:14:51.490 equal protection under the law, to essentially 00:14:51.490 --> 00:14:53.509 grab the provisions of the First Amendment and 00:14:53.509 --> 00:14:56.129 pull them down to apply to the individual states. 00:14:56.230 --> 00:14:58.789 Oh, that makes sense. The source material actually 00:14:58.789 --> 00:15:01.210 highlights an incredible quote from Justice Hugo 00:15:01.210 --> 00:15:03.389 Black about this. Yeah, he was referencing an 00:15:03.389 --> 00:15:05.649 earlier case, Everson v. Board of Education, 00:15:05.769 --> 00:15:08.009 to explain the logic of the Torquesa decision. 00:15:08.210 --> 00:15:11.309 Yes, and his words are so definitive. He stated 00:15:11.309 --> 00:15:14.190 for the unanimous court, quote, we repeat and 00:15:14.190 --> 00:15:16.730 again reaffirm that neither a state nor the federal 00:15:16.730 --> 00:15:18.970 government can constitutionally force a person 00:15:18.970 --> 00:15:21.850 to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. 00:15:22.139 --> 00:15:25.419 Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose 00:15:25.419 --> 00:15:28.299 requirements which aid all religions as against 00:15:28.299 --> 00:15:31.139 non -believers, and neither can aid those religions 00:15:31.139 --> 00:15:34.399 based on a belief in the existence of God as 00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:36.539 against those religions founded on different 00:15:36.539 --> 00:15:40.159 beliefs. It is a sweeping, comprehensive prohibition. 00:15:40.500 --> 00:15:43.120 It really leaves no room for misinterpretation. 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:46.279 And from a strictly legal standpoint, the court 00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:48.620 achieved this without even needing to rule on 00:15:48.620 --> 00:15:51.440 Article 6 here. They relied instead on the First 00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:54.019 Amendment, effectively expanding the spirit of 00:15:54.019 --> 00:15:56.519 the original no religious test clause to cover 00:15:56.519 --> 00:15:58.779 every square inch of the country. Which brings 00:15:58.779 --> 00:16:02.879 us to, honestly, the most surprising, almost 00:16:02.879 --> 00:16:05.720 surreal fact in the entire source document. I 00:16:05.720 --> 00:16:07.019 think I know what you're going to say. So what 00:16:07.019 --> 00:16:10.220 does this all mean for today? We just established 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:14.980 that in 1961, the highest court in the land unanimously 00:16:14.980 --> 00:16:18.039 declared that states absolutely cannot have religious 00:16:18.039 --> 00:16:20.879 qualifications for office. It violates the core 00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:23.440 of the Constitution. Right. And yet, if you look 00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:26.980 at the books today, eight states still have religious 00:16:26.980 --> 00:16:29.580 qualifications written into their constitutions 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:32.440 right now. The text is still sitting right there 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:34.679 in their founding documents. Arkansas, Maryland, 00:16:35.039 --> 00:16:36.960 Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:39.309 Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. All eight of them. 00:16:39.309 --> 00:16:41.769 It's pretty wild. The source breaks down Pennsylvania 00:16:41.769 --> 00:16:44.330 specifically, which is wild to read in a modern 00:16:44.330 --> 00:16:46.789 context. Oh, yeah. Read that one. The Pennsylvania 00:16:46.789 --> 00:16:50.110 state constitution explicitly protects office 00:16:50.110 --> 00:16:53.690 holders who believe in a supreme being and who 00:16:53.690 --> 00:16:56.450 believe in a future state of rewards and punishments. 00:16:56.750 --> 00:17:00.269 Right. But it is completely, definitely silent 00:17:00.269 --> 00:17:03.830 on people who don't hold those specific metaphysical 00:17:03.830 --> 00:17:06.829 beliefs. It extends a protective shield to the 00:17:06.829 --> 00:17:09.789 believers, believes the non -believers entirely 00:17:09.789 --> 00:17:12.730 out in the cold. It serves as a stark historical 00:17:12.730 --> 00:17:15.509 residue. Laws don't just disappear from the paper 00:17:15.509 --> 00:17:17.289 when the Supreme Court strikes them down. They 00:17:17.289 --> 00:17:19.349 sit there until a legislature actively votes 00:17:19.349 --> 00:17:21.450 to remove them. Right. But we have to be very 00:17:21.450 --> 00:17:23.329 clear about the real world application here. 00:17:23.710 --> 00:17:25.450 Even though these discriminatory clauses are 00:17:25.450 --> 00:17:27.230 still physically printed in those eight state 00:17:27.230 --> 00:17:30.430 constitutions, they are essentially unenforceable 00:17:30.430 --> 00:17:33.069 zombie laws. Zombie laws. They're dead on arrival, 00:17:33.390 --> 00:17:35.430 but they're still shuffling around in the legal 00:17:35.430 --> 00:17:39.319 code. Exactly. Because of the 1961 ruling, the 00:17:39.319 --> 00:17:42.160 federal supremacy established by Torqueso means 00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:45.160 those state clauses have absolutely no legal 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:48.019 teeth. A state cannot actually use them to deny 00:17:48.019 --> 00:17:50.119 someone a job. But every once in a while, one 00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:52.539 of these zombie laws manages to stumble out of 00:17:52.539 --> 00:17:55.059 the archives and tries to bite someone. They 00:17:55.059 --> 00:17:58.099 do try. The source details a fascinating case 00:17:58.099 --> 00:18:01.619 from 1997, Silverman v. Campbell, which happened 00:18:01.619 --> 00:18:03.900 in South Carolina. One of those eight states 00:18:03.900 --> 00:18:06.660 we just listed. It is the perfect example of 00:18:06.660 --> 00:18:09.200 the tension between state history and federal 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:11.359 supremacy. Yeah, so what happened there? The 00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:13.839 state of South Carolina was requiring citizens 00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:16.460 seeking employment in the public sector to take 00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:19.160 an oath that explicitly included the words, so 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:22.809 help me God. Okay. A citizen challenged the requirement, 00:18:23.369 --> 00:18:25.890 arguing it was a religious test. And the South 00:18:25.890 --> 00:18:28.430 Carolina Supreme Court was forced into a really 00:18:28.430 --> 00:18:30.710 fascinating position. They had to look at their 00:18:30.710 --> 00:18:33.470 own state constitution, look at the federal constitution, 00:18:33.849 --> 00:18:36.349 and eventually rule against themselves. Exactly. 00:18:36.529 --> 00:18:39.190 They had to step in and rule that requiring an 00:18:39.190 --> 00:18:42.190 oath to God for public sector employment violated 00:18:42.190 --> 00:18:44.690 Article 6 of the federal constitution, as well 00:18:44.690 --> 00:18:46.470 as the First and Fourteenth Amendments. They 00:18:46.470 --> 00:18:48.509 had to strike down their own state's requirement 00:18:48.509 --> 00:18:50.500 to comply with the national standard. They had 00:18:50.500 --> 00:18:52.720 to legally concede that while the words were 00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:55.740 in their state constitution, the federal boundary 00:18:55.740 --> 00:18:59.700 erected in 1787 superseded them. The original 00:18:59.700 --> 00:19:02.220 mechanism designed by the framers held strong. 00:19:02.819 --> 00:19:06.019 That is incredible. This evolution from the brutal 00:19:06.019 --> 00:19:08.940 test acts of Europe to Charles Pickney's pragmatic 00:19:08.940 --> 00:19:11.740 proposal to the fall of the state zombie laws, 00:19:12.299 --> 00:19:15.039 it fundamentally shapes the society you and I 00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:17.200 live in today. It really does. Because of this 00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:20.160 single often ignored sentence in Article 6, When 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.279 you go to the DMV to get your license renewed, 00:19:22.440 --> 00:19:24.240 or when you walk into a voting booth to choose 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:26.319 a senator, or if you ever have to interact with 00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:29.059 a judge in a courtroom, the person sitting across 00:19:29.059 --> 00:19:31.559 from you is qualified for their immense power 00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:34.180 by one thing and one thing only, their sworn 00:19:34.180 --> 00:19:36.339 allegiance to uphold the Constitution. Their 00:19:36.339 --> 00:19:39.039 private beliefs, their personal theology, their 00:19:39.039 --> 00:19:42.180 views on transubstantiation or a future state 00:19:42.180 --> 00:19:45.000 of rewards and punishments, none of that is legally 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:47.220 allowed to act as a barrier to public trust. 00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:49.779 Right. The government is forced to remain legally 00:19:49.779 --> 00:19:52.940 blind to the soul of its citizens. It is an incredibly 00:19:52.940 --> 00:19:55.839 rare, hard -fought achievement in human history 00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:59.039 to force the state to look away from our private 00:19:59.039 --> 00:20:03.099 beliefs. It absolutely is. But as we wrap up 00:20:03.099 --> 00:20:06.099 this deep dive, exploring how the Constitution 00:20:06.099 --> 00:20:08.039 constantly thwarts the government's desperate 00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:11.000 attempts to measure our ideological purity, it 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:13.000 does leave us with a highly provocative thought. 00:20:13.109 --> 00:20:15.069 This actually raises an important question for 00:20:15.069 --> 00:20:17.109 you to think about. Yeah, what's that? If the 00:20:17.109 --> 00:20:19.970 Constitution strictly forbids testing a public 00:20:19.970 --> 00:20:22.869 official's religion and forbids testing their 00:20:22.869 --> 00:20:25.069 loyalty to anything other than the Constitution 00:20:25.069 --> 00:20:28.069 itself, how do we measure the moral or ethical 00:20:28.069 --> 00:20:31.079 fitness of the people who lead us? Ooh. That 00:20:31.079 --> 00:20:33.619 is the big question. Does the complete absence 00:20:33.619 --> 00:20:36.599 of a religious test inherently require the citizens 00:20:36.599 --> 00:20:39.759 like you to be far more engaged and critical 00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:41.839 in judging the true character of those asking 00:20:41.839 --> 00:20:45.779 for public trust? Wow. The Constitution brilliantly 00:20:45.779 --> 00:20:47.740 protects you from the government's test, but 00:20:47.740 --> 00:20:49.880 it places the burden of judgment squarely on 00:20:49.880 --> 00:20:52.339 us as citizens. It is a fascinating question 00:20:52.339 --> 00:20:54.779 to chew on as we navigate a world obsessed with 00:20:54.779 --> 00:20:57.259 purity. Thank you for joining us on this exploration 00:20:57.259 --> 00:20:59.160 of the sources. Until next time, keep digging 00:20:59.160 --> 00:20:59.519 deeper.