James Iredell Quote

Had Congress undertaken to guarantee religious freedom, or any particular species of it, they would then have had a pretense to interfere in a subject they have nothing to do with. Each state, so far as the clause in question does not interfere, must be left to the operation of its own principles.

July 30, 1788, p. 172. - North Carolina's Debates, in Convention, on the adoption of the Federal Constitution (1787)