Religious controversy became obvious during George Washington's 1789 decree of the first Thanksgiving Day:
On Friday, September 25, 1789, Representative Elias Boudinot of New Jersey rose stood and proposed a resolution. He inquired the House to come together with the Senate to endorse to the American citizens thanksgiving, a day full of public offering and prayer by realizing, the favors and sacrifices made by the Almighty God.
Boudinot's perseverance ignited a vital debate. Two members from South Carolina, Aedanus Burke and Thomas Tudor Tucker, led the conflict. Both differed with Boudinot on the role of the executive branch: Boudinot favored a strong central government, while the South Carolinians wished a weaker government. Religion only added more gas to
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Burke later explained that in Europe, both parties at war sang the Te Deum, a hymn sung in the Catholic Mass. Burke was showing the hypocrisy on his European customs in which Boudinot also participated in.
Tucker brought forward two challenges. The first objection went back to the separa¬tion of powers in the Constitution. Tucker claimed that the government did not possess enough authority to declare federal holidays. He claimed that only individ¬ual state governments harnessed this power.
Tucker's second objection had to do with the separation of church and state. Declaring a day of thanksgiving “is a religious matter,” he ar¬gued, “and, as such, proscribed to us.” The ratification of the Bill of Rights had to wait until 1791, but Congress had just approved the First Amendment, and the discussion about proper role of religion was constantly in people’s heads.
Connecticut's congressional representative Roger Sherman commended Boudinot's resolution as “a laudable one in itself.” It was “warranted by a number of