Alabama Ten Commandments display.JPG

The Ten Commandments monument is pictured through the glass front doors of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery, Ala. in this Aug. 25, 2003, file photo. The monument later was moved into a storage room at the Alabama Judicial Building and former Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from office as the debate over the monument. (AL.com file photo)

Tim Guffey, right, is pictured with Gov. Robert Bentley. (TimGuffeyforcommission.com)

SCOTTSBORO, Alabama – A commissioner in Jackson County wants to erect a monument at the courthouse that would feature the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents.

Tim Guffey, a Republican who was elected to the commission in 2012, said the Ten Commandments should be included in the monument alongside the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

"What I'm trying to do is erect a monument of historical documents," Guffey said Thursday in an interview with AL.com. "It's the Constitution, the Ten Commandments and the Declaration of Independence. I feel like that's what this country was founded on. These documents helped America become the greatest country in history."

Inclusion of the Ten Commandments is for historical reasons, not religious, Guffey said. The influence of the Ten Commandments, he said, cannot be separated from the writings of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Members of the Alabama legislature have introduced bills in recent years to establish an amendment to the state Constitution allowing the display of the Ten Commandments on state property. Most recently, the bill passed the state House of Representatives earlier this year before stalling in the Senate.

"I just can't see how you could explain a Constitution – why it was written the way it was written – without understanding why those men wrote it the way they wrote it," Guffey said. "They don't teach this at school anymore and a person would have to go back and research and study each one of those men's writings to find out that that's what established them. That's what gave them the inspiration to read the greatest Constitution this world has ever seen.

"There's no other country that's ever done what we have done. And I feel like taking that document out, if that document wasn't there to guide them, then our Constitution wouldn't be what it is today. (All the documents) would not be the way it is today without it. I'm using it in the context of this is historical. I'm not doing it to push religion at all. But I don't see how I could do the other two and not do that one and be truthful about it."

Guffey said he admired Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who erected a Ten Commandments monument in the lobby of the Alabama Judicial Building in 2001 in a previous term as chief justice and it cost Moore his job. Guffey's said his intent, though, is different from Moore's.

"I have a lot of respect for Judge Moore," Guffey said. "When Judge Moore did the monument, it was for the Ten Commandments. It was for religious purposes. And I commend him. He believed it was his right to put that up and he was going to stand on it.

"This situation is not that situation. I'm trying to show people where (the historical documents) came from."

Guffey said he is seeking feedback from constituents about the proposed monument and early feedback has been "positive."

The presidency of Barack Obama led Guffey to begin studying the Constitution, he said.

"The Constitution gave us the three branches of government and without it, we'd have a dictatorship," he said. "If you look at the current administration, it's more important now than ever to show people what the intent was in the Constitution, what's in the Constitution. We're trying to get people to start thinking again.

"The Ten Commandments is a historical document (in this context) and it has nothing to do with religion. It shows that these founders had great beliefs in God and the Ten Commandments and His Word and it helped them get to the point where they were. Their feeling was God helped them build the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. If you read all of the writings of John Adams, Patrick Henry, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, they speak about how that was their foundation that helped them interpret and write a great Constitution."