Significance
Before the Cantwell decision, it was not legally clear that the First Amendment protected religious practitioners against restrictions at the state and local levels as well as federal. But the Supreme Court in Cantwell said it did, thereby ushering in an era of greatly strengthened religious freedom.
This case incorporated the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, thereby applying it to the states and protecting free exercise of religion from intrusive state action. The Establishment Clause was incorporated seven years later in Everson v. Board of Education (1947).
Read more about this topic: Cantwell V. Connecticut
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)