This is an adapted excerpt from the new book Conservative: Knowing What to Keep, available on Sept. 24.

Given the primacy of conscience to the founders, the government they forged was specifically prohibited from either imposing religious ideas on the citizenry or hindering an individual citizen’s endeavors to live out their faith in society. The only centralized authority government was given regarding religion was the power to protect citizens’ space to practice theirs. In this way, the United States would not serve any one creed, and by doing so, would serve all of them equally.