2009/09/01 by Stacy E. Smith · 4 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Mormonism, Religion, and History #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment #Free Exercise Clause #Law #Constitutionality #Establishment Clause #Supreme court #Political science #Constitution #Statute #Double jeopardy #Jurisprudence #State (computer science) #Legislation #Sociology #First amendment
paper · doi:10.1093/jcs/csq021
published in Journal of Church and State 51(4), 587-616 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2009/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
In 1879, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered its judgment in Reynolds vs. United States on the constitutionality of a federal anti-polygamy statute.1 The case had been the Court's first in which a litigant had in his defense invoked the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution.2 In its judgment, the Court unanimously held that a Mormon3 could not be exempted from criminal sanctions for bigamy due to a sincere religious belief in the practice of polygamy.4 More generally, the Court granted its imprimatur to Thomas Jefferson's famous interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause: that “the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions.”5 “Laws are made for the government of actions,” the Court held, “and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.”6 Although later decisions by the Court acknowledged that it was possible for legislation to unconstitutionally limit religious practices,7 the belief–practice distinction that was adopted in Reynolds has remained a consistent, if controversial, touchstone in Free Exercise Clause jurisprudence.8 In many ways, the Reynolds decision was both an end and a beginning: even today, the case stands out as a significant hinge on which the history of church-state relations in the United States has swung.