HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Blaine Amendment was a failed
amendment An amendment is a formal or official change made to a law, contract, constitution, or other legal document. It is based on the verb to amend, which means to change for better. Amendments can add, remove, or update parts of these agreements. The ...
to the U.S. Constitution that would have prohibited direct government aid to educational institutions that have a religious affiliation. Most state constitutions already had such provisions, and thirty-eight of the fifty states have clauses that prohibit taxpayer funding of religious entities in their state constitutions. The measures were designed to deny government aid to parochial schools, especially those operated by the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
in locations with large immigrant populations. They emerged from a growing consensus among 19th-century U.S. Protestants that public education must be free from “sectarian” or “denominational” control, while it also reflected nativist tendencies hostile to immigrants. The amendments are generally seen as explicitly
anti-Catholic Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
because when they were enacted public schools typically included Protestant prayer, and taught from Protestant bibles, although debates about public funding of sectarian schools predate any significant Catholic immigration to the U.S.Steven K. Green,
Blaming Blaine: Understanding the Blaine Amendment and the No-Funding Principle
2 First Amend. L. Rev. 107, (2003)
Thus, at the time of the Blaine amendments, public schools were not non-sectarian or non-denominational in the modern sense; nor were they completely secular.


Proposed federal amendment

President Ulysses S. Grant (1869–77) in a speech in 1875 to a veterans' meeting, called for a Constitutional amendment that would mandate free public schools and prohibit the use of public money for sectarian schools. He was echoing nativist sentiments that were strong in his Republican Party. Grant laid out his agenda for "good common school education." He attacked government support for "sectarian schools" run by religious organizations, and called for the defense of public education "unmixed with sectarian, pagan or atheistical dogmas." Grant declared that "Church and State" should be "forever separate". "Religion", he said, "should be left to families, churches, and private schools devoid of public funds." After Grant's speech, Republican Congressman
James G. Blaine James Gillespie Blaine (January 31, 1830January 27, 1893) was an American statesman and Republican politician who represented Maine in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1863 to 1876, serving as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representati ...
proposed the amendment to the federal Constitution. Blaine, who actively sought Catholic votes when he ran for president in 1884, believed that possibility of hurtful agitation on the school question should be ended. In 1875, the proposed amendment passed by a vote of 180 to 7 in the House of Representatives, but failed by four votes to achieve the necessary two-thirds vote in the
United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...
. It never became federal law. The proposed text was:


Amendments to state constitutions

Supporters of the proposal then turned their attention to state legislatures, where their efforts met with far greater success. Eventually, all but 12 states (
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
,
Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...
,
Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...
,
Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and nor ...
,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...
,
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
,
North Carolina North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...
,
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
,
Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
,
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...
,
Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provin ...
, and
West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...
) passed laws that meet the general criteria for designation as "Blaine amendments," in that they ban the use of public funds to support sectarian private schools. Jonathan A. Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, explained in 2017 the purpose of the state constitutional Blaine amendments: “These constitutional provisions serve significant government interests — leaving the support of churches to church members, while also protecting houses of worship against discrimination and interference from the government.” In some states the provisions in question were included in newly drafted constitutions, rather than adopted as amendments to an existing constitution. The state Blaine amendments remained in effect in thirty seven states until June 2020. In 2012, 56% of voters rejected a measure repealing Florida's Blaine amendment. A 60% favorable margin was required for adoption. Voters have also rejected proposals to repeal their state-level Blaine amendments in New York (1967), Michigan (1970), Oregon (1972), Washington state (1975), Alaska (1976), Massachusetts (1986), and Oklahoma (2016). On April 20, 1974, voters in Louisiana approved a new constitution by a margin of 58 to 42 percent, which repealed the Blaine amendment that was part of that state's 1921 constitution. Louisiana's current 1974 constitution replaced it with a copy of the federal First Amendment's no-establishment and free exercise clauses, in Article 1, Sec. 8 of its Declaration of Rights; in Article 8, Sec. 13(a), it also guarantees the provision of free textbooks and "materials of instruction" to all children attending elementary and secondary schools in Louisiana. Two other states, South Carolina and Utah, have also watered down their "no-aid to religion" constitutional clauses by removing from them the word "indirect," leaving only a prohibition of direct aid or assistance to religious schools in these states. On June 30, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in ''
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue ''Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a state-based scholarship program that provides public funds to allow students to attend private scho ...
'' that Montana's no-aid provision in its constitution, a Blaine amendment, had been inappropriately used to block tax-credit scholarship funds for private schooling for being used at a religious school in violation of the Free Exercise Clause. The ruling effectively stated that if the state offered public scholarship funds for a private school, they could not discriminate against religious schools. As a result, it is expected that states that have similar programs with no-aid provisions in their constitutions will be forced to re-evaluate any program restrictions.


See also

* Public funding of parochial schools *
Separation of church and state in the United States "Separation of church and state" is a metaphor paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson and used by others in discussions regarding the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which reads: ...
* '' Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer'' * ''
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue ''Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue'', 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a state-based scholarship program that provides public funds to allow students to attend private scho ...
'' * ''
Carson v. Makin ''Carson v. Makin'', 596 U.S. ___ (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Free Exercise Clause. It was a follow-up to '' Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue''. ...
''


Notes


Further reading

* Deforrest, Mark Edward. "An Overview and Evaluation of State Blaine Amendments: Origins, Scope, and First Amendment Concerns," ''Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy'', Vol. 26, 200
available here
* Green, Steven K. "The Blaine Amendment Reconsidered," 36 Am. J. Legal Hist. 38 (1992)


External links


The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
A leading opponent of Blaine Amendments in the legal arena
Blaineamendments.org
A comprehensive resource by the
Becket Fund Becket Law (formerly the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty) is a non-profit public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C., that describes its mission as "defending the freedom of religion of people of all faiths." Becket promotes accommod ...
, which seeks to overturn the amendments
''School Choice: The Blaine Amendments & Anti-Catholicism''
Report by the
United States Commission on Civil Rights The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (CCR) is a bipartisan, independent commission of the United States federal government, created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 during the Eisenhower administration, that is charged with the responsibility fo ...
{{authority control Proposed amendments to the United States Constitution Religion and politics State law in the United States History of religion in the United States 1875 in the United States 1875 in religion 1875 in American politics James G. Blaine Anti-Catholicism in the United States