CDL: Was the New United States a Christian Country?

1. Why did Madison want the Constitution to say little about religion, and how did people react to it?

 Madison wanted the Constitution to say little about religion because he did not want the government to have the power to choose for the people one religion over another.  Madison wanted to take the ideas of Thomas Jefferson in that people had the right to choose their religion.  Some people were very confused that the constitution did not use language of religion and at one point Alexander Hamilton said jokingly that they had just forgotten it. 

2. Why does the first amendment grant equal rights to all religion?

 The first amendment grants equal rights to all people that they can be free to choose their choice of religious belief and the U.S. Government would not be able to force citizens to a specific religious following.

3. If a substantial majority of the individual states had constitutions that assumed the primacy of Protestantism why doesn't the Constitution of the United States invoke Christianity as the State Religion?

 Invoking Christianity as the state religion would take away the religious free right of the people to have faith in whichever they choose and this would cause the U.S. Government to meddle in the private affairs of citizens and they needed to be concerned only with governing not religious views.

4. The first amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” Why did the founding fathers feel they needed to enumerate Freedom of religion. (In addition to speech, press, peaceable assemble, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.)?

The founding fathers probably had in mind the religious bickering that had occurred over the years between the British .The founding fathers also I am sure thought of the people that had settled in the U.S. and of the many different religious faiths. The founding fathers wanted a government that was not about religion but that was about maintaining laws and freedoms which could include all people of all faiths and backgrounds equally.