Analyzing an Experiment Gone Awry: A Unique Application of Bacon's Corrective Model to the First Amendment Protection of Essential Rights and Liberties

Abstract

Promising both academic enrichment and challenging provocation, John Witte, Jr. accomplishes both purposes by carefully tracing the history of the establishment and free exercise clauses of the Constitution and, through uncharted territory, analyzing their historical and current application in terms of the effectiveness of this American Experiment. Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment: Essential Rights and Liberties examines the religious freedom clauses as the "fair" and "novel experiment" which Thomas Jefferson and the framers contemplated in the context of Francis Bacon's corrective paradigm for experimental methods gone awry. In an inventive and refreshing survey, Witte ultimately calls for a new form of a more integrated framework of religious liberty, born primarily of the recognition that the nature of the First Amendment is grounded in "theological visions and values." Refusing to strip the clauses of their necessarily personal and moral implications, Witte recognizes a set of basic principles which must, woven together, form an "interlocking and interdependent shield of religious liberties and rights for all."

Latching on to the Bacon's three correctives to propose a remedy for the experimental defects of the religion clauses, Witte provides a welcome roadmap to guide both the constitutional novice and expert through the historical base of the clauses, their implementation, and the perceived breakdown of that implementation. Witte heeds Bacon's instructions for correcting defects:

"First, said Bacon, we must 'return to first principles and axioms,' reassess them in light of our experience, and 'if necessary refine them.' Second, we must assess 'our experience with the experiment' in light of these first principles, to determine where 'the experiment should be adjusted.' Third, we must 'compare our experiments' and experiences with those of fellow scientists, and where we see in that comparison 'superior techniques,' we must 'amend our experiments' and even our first principles accordingly. "

By analyzing the clauses under this model, the reader may more easily navigate the waters that theological and political movements left murky on the eve of constitutional drafting. Detailing six first principles that he perceives prominent in these movements, Witte explains the failings of the applications of the clauses today and proposes remedy to the extent that he contemplates it exists.