The U.S. Supreme Court and Non-First Amendment Religion Cases

The United States Supreme Court decides most church–state cases on the basis of the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause. However, as these religion clauses were not included in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applied to the states until the 1940s, the Court was hence required to decide earlier religion cases through other means. Some were decided on the language of the Fourteenth Amendment itself, while many others were decided on other nonconstitutional grounds. This article examines some samples of church”.state cases that were decided on grounds other than Religion Clauses.