Background
See also: Test ActA variety of Test Acts were instituted in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their main purpose was to exclude anyone not a member of the Church of England from holding government office, notably Catholics and "nonconforming" Protestants. Government officials were required to swear oaths, such as the Oath of Supremacy, that the monarch of England was the head of the Church and that they possessed no other foreign loyalties, such as to the Pope. Later acts required officials to disavow transubstantiation and the veneration of saints.
Many colonists of the Thirteen Colonies had left England in part to gain a measure of religious freedom. With the royal government's religious favoritism fresh in their memory, the Founders sought to prevent the return of the Test Acts by adding this clause to the Constitution. Specifically, Charles Pinckney, delegate from South Carolina where a Protestant denomination was the established state religion, introduced the clause to Article VI and it passed with little opposition.
Read more about this topic: No Religious Test Clause
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