logical to read the Establishment Clause so broadly as to render unconstitutional both James Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance" and Thomas Jefferson's "A Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom", or to forbid the teaching of these laws to school children.
Note that both of these were meant to protect religious freedom and forbid religious establishments, and yet both rely on "god", "the almighty", the "Universal sovereign", etc. as the ultimate source of authority. The statement in the Pledge that we are "one nation, under god" is no different than what can be found in both documents.
The Establishment Clause is not at odds with Memorial and Remonstrance, A Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom, or the Declaration of Independence. It is the absurdly broad interpretaion of the Establishment Clause urged by Mr. Newdou that is at odds with the texts and historical facts.
http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/vaact.htmlThe Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
Thomas Jefferson, 1786
Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power...http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/remon.html James Madison
Memorial and Remonstrance -1785
*** Quote ***
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia
A Memorial and Remonstrance
We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled "A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said Bill,
1. Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence." The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considerd as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign.....
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