Tocqueville was surprised during his visit to the United States to see that the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty mutually supported each other. In his home, Europe, and in the history he had studied the two were nearly always in conflict. 

He remarked that religion was supportive to freedom in America because the people loved freedom and would sacrifice to allow their neighbors to believe differently than themselves.

He wrote: 

In many places religion and seeking wealth were seen as opposites, but in early America they were both part of the majority belief. 

Freedom of speech and religion were among the most highly prized rights in the American view, and the freedom to pursue happiness and increase one's worth and property were of equal importance. 

Freedom of religion, freedom of thought and speech, and freedom of property and ownership are all vital to maintaining a free society--and the reduction of any inalienable right eventually tends to decrease all the others.

Tocqueville eloquently described the American view thus:

"Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the faculties of man and that the political world is a field prepared by the Creator for the efforts of mind. Free and powerful in its own sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion never more surely establishes its empire than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength.

"Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its triumphs, as the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims. It considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom."

 This is how religion and liberty coexisted and supported each other in the American founding. Both left room for each other and supported each other as long as excesses were avoided.