The exclusion of clergy from political office in American states: An oddity in church-state relations

During the early nineteenth century thirteen American states had provisions in their state constitutions which prohibited clergy from holding political offices. Most states dropped this provision from their constitutions before 1880. Most of the states with these provisions in their constitutions were southern or border states. How can we explain why some states did or did not exclude clergy from political office! The timing of adoption of these rules shows that they were not adopted to limit the influence of the Roman Catholic church. It was not part of the nineteenth-century nativist campaigns against the Catholic church. Some evidence is presented to support the hypothesis that discrimination against clergy war, a way of taking revenge against Great Britain, the pre-revolution colonial power.