Religous Liberty

The United States adopted a policy of religious liberty partly because influential people, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, advocated it. This policy was also adopted partly because the sheer number of competing religious groups in eighteenth-century America made the possibility of religious uniformity remote.

The nation's subsequent success in upholding this principle, undermined the old European idea that an established church and a political state reinforced each other and that neither could thrive alone.

In place of Europeans' attribution of divine right to their monarchs, Americans developed a civil religion, granting quasi-religious status to the Constitution, the flag, and the founders, but leaving plenty of room for citizens to practice their diverse particular religions. In other words, "Religous Liberty".