"I found some interesting research on the Founding Fathers views at the time the Constitutional debates were taking place:
Many supporters of the Constitution, including one of the most prominent, James Madison, agreed to support a bill of rights in the Constitution, if it could be ratified. Several of the states included suggested amendments, including rights of the people, in their ratification documents. The push was on for a bill of rights in the Constitution. Madison was true to his word -- on June 8, 1789, Representative James Madison rose and gave a speech in the House where he introduced a series of articles of amendment. One concerned religious freedom:
The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed.
Madison's proposal follows the proposals of some of the states. New Hampshire's read:
Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or to infringe the rights of conscience.
Virginia was much more verbose:
That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and therefore all men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.
New Yorkers had the same to say, but more succinctly:
That the people have an equal, natural, and unalienable right freely and peaceably to exercise their religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.
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