Harry Wesley Gilmer

The Boisterous Sea of Liberty Harry Wesley Gilmer

The Boisterous Sea of Liberty is an introductory survey of the development of the right of conscience beginning in Europe and moving to its codification in the Constitution of the American Republic. Human beings struggle to be free of anything that shackles them, that limits, that causes them not to use their full capacity. The founders believed in the incredible importance of the inner life. The author holds that the unshackling of the individual conscience along with its derivative, freedom of religion, is a subject that informs much of the history of the United States of America. Indeed, the evolution of religious freedom in America is a thread that runs through the entire history of the nation even up to the present day. The themes of diversity, the right of conscience, and tolerance and their consequences is not a done thing in America. In this second and expanded edition, Gilmer surveys the manner in which the religion clauses of the 1st Amendment have been addressed by the Supreme Court.