Commentary by Richard Storey

The first commentary ever written on the Constitution was written by Justice Richard Storey in 1835, who was appointed to the court by Madison. "The general, if not universal, sentiment in America was that religion ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions and to make it a matter of State policy to hold all in utter indifference would have created universal disapprobation if not universal indignation." The real object of the First Amendment, he says, was "not to countenance, much less advance, Mohammedanism, Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which would give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government."

There are some good collected resources in the Amazon First Amendment Store