The Wall of Separation Between Church and State
Dr. Patton is Associate Professor of Economics at Bellevue University, a liberal arts college located at Bellevue, Nebraska. He is also editor of The Bottom Line, a scholarly quarterly published by the Entrepreneurial Leadership Center of the University.
Most Americans have been conditioned to believe and to assume that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires a “wall of separation between Church and State.” This concept is seldom challenged today . . . but it is not actually a part of the Constitution or any of the Amendments; it did not exist until well into the twentieth century.
The establishment and free-exercise clauses of the First Amendment state: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The meaning was crystal clear to Americans and American jurisprudence for generations. Very simply, the federal government was prohibited from establishing a single national denomination above all others (a state religion—endowed with public funding, special privileges, and penalties on other faiths that reject its doctrines—as Great Britain had) and secondly, the federal government could not interfere with the individual’s right to freedom of worship.
The purpose of the First Amendment was not to protect Americans from religion, it was to protect religion from government intrusion. This “understanding” is in full and obvious accord with the raison d’etre of the Bill of Rights to limit the federal government’s power and thereby secure the freedom of individuals and the rights of the states. The Bill of Rights was a declaration of what the federal government could not do.
The intent of the First Amendment could never have been to separate church and state. Virtually all state constitutions of that day required their elected officials to affirm belief in the Christian faith.[1] Not one of the states would have ratified the First Amendment in violation of their constitutions had its purpose been to separate religious principles from public life.
Quotations from the framers of the Constitution and other leaders of early America illustrate this great principle. George Washington as our first President said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.” And our second President, John Adams, told us, “It is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles under which Freedom can securely stand.” Benjamin Franklin echoed Adams’ sentiment: “Only a virtuous people are capable of Freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
On the same theme, Dr. Benjamin Rush, a Signer of the Declaration and a leading thinker of the period, said that, “The only foundation for a Republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this, there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty.” And James Wilson, who signed the Declaration and the Constitution for Pennsylvania, pointed out that “Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other. The divine law, as discovered by reason and the moral sense, forms an essential part of both.”
No “Wall” Planned
Yes, it would have been impossible for these God-fearing men to have deliberately built a “Wall of Separation” between church and state. Here is how the phrase and eventually the concept of this “wall of separation” originated.
In 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association wrote a letter to President Thomas Jefferson. They were alarmed about a rumor. Was a national denomination soon to be established? Jefferson responded by letter on January 1, 1802, assuring them that there was no basis to the rumor. He said, “I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
The Danbury Baptists were apparently satisfied. They understood the “wall” to be one-directional, protecting them and other churches from possible discrimination and harm by means of a “governmental-favored denomination” status. Nevertheless, Jefferson’s eight-word phrase, “a wall of separation between Church and State,” has become the defining metaphor for today’s misinterpretation of the First Amendment.
Obviously, Jefferson’s letter and this phrase are not part of the First Amendment and it appears far-fetched legal “reasoning” to give it the force of law or to infer intent by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
Jefferson’s letter remained in relative obscurity until 1878, when the Supreme Court, in the case of Reynolds vs. United States, cited the whole letter. According to the Court, the “wall of separation between Church and State” meant, “Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere [religious] opinions, but was left free to reach [only those religious] actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.” Thus, the Court ruled against the Mormon practice of polygamy and bigamy because the Justices considered it to be subversive of good order. In other words, the Court used the concept of “separation of Church and State” to keep a general religious principle, monogamy, integral to our society.
Nearly 70 years later, in the 1947 Supreme Court case of Everson vs. Board of Education, a major conceptual change occurred. Citing only Jefferson’s eight words (“a wall of separation between Church and State”) and not their context or previous Supreme Court interpretations, it declared a new meaning: a separation of basic religious principles from public life. Indeed, Jefferson’s eight words became the catch phrase for this new concept.
Then, in 1962 the Supreme Court, in the case of Engel vs. Vitale, redefined the word “church” to mean “a religious activity in public.” The revolt against the roots of Americanism had begun in earnest. Separation of Church and State now meant the government (or state) and its institutions must be “protected” from religion.
Since 1962 there have been over 6,000 court cases challenging religious expressions in public institutions and public life. For example, numerous court cases ruled that verbal prayers in public schools, even if voluntary and denominationally neutral, were un-Constitutional. In 1980, it was ruled that it was un-Constitutional to hang the Ten Commandments on the walls of public school classrooms (ironically, the Ten Commandments are engraved on the chamber walls of the Supreme Court). And in Virginia, a federal court ruled a homosexual newspaper may be distributed on a high school campus, but religious newspapers may not. Needless to say, a cultural war of mammoth proportions was unleashed by the Everson and Engel rulings.
The Tide Is Turning
Interestingly, and significantly, the 1990s have seen more and more court decisions based on the original intent of our Founding Fathers. The Supreme Court ruled in 1990, for instance, that it is permissible to have prayer and Bible clubs at public high schools. The justices also decided in another case that premarital sexual abstinence programs, while religious in nature, can be taught in public schools. The tide appears to be turning back to our traditional, Godly American heritage. []
1. David Barton, The Myth of Separation (Wallbuilder Press, 1991), pp. 25-35.
Comment by Chuck on 17 June 2010:
The idea that separating religion from government didn’t occur until the 20th Century is ludicrous! They all spoke about it at length. And if you have any doubt as to what was meant in the Constitution, look no further than what the Father of the Constitution meant by what he himself had written:
* The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State (Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819).
* Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov’t in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history (Detached Memoranda, circa 1820).
* Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).
I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others. (Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1832).
* To the Baptist Churches on Neal’s Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself (Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811).
Comment by James Madison Fan on 17 June 2010:
Chuck,
Couldn’t have said it better. I doubt Mr. Patton would be quite so enthusiastic about the “turning tide” if the dominating religious rhetoric were Islamic rather than Christian. Islam is the second fastest growing religion on Earth behind, strangely, atheism which isn’t a religion at all.
This might sound strange coming from an agnostic but I think there are instances where it is taken a bit far such as removing the cross from the mission in the LA County seal. Seperation of Church and State doesn’t mean rewriting history to exclude religion. Wouldn’t be so bad but the reason they did it was paranoia about being sued rather than actually loosing a suit. Yet another example of “Baby? Bathwater? What’s the difference?” mode of thinking.
Comment by Andy on 23 August 2010:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7243716805363959903#
Comment by Doug Indeap on 5 October 2010:
The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the underlying principle of the First Amendment and the no-religious-test clause of the Constitution. That the phrase does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there and later learned they were mistaken. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to describe one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
Some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists–as if that is the only basis of the Court’s decision. Instructive as that letter is, it played but a small part in the Court’s decision. Perhaps even more than Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”
While many founders were Christian of one sort or another, care should be taken not to make too much of the founders’ individual religious beliefs. Given the republican nature of our government, it is only natural and expected that the laws enacted by our government–in both the founders’ time and today–largely reflect Christianity’s dominant influence in our society. That said, there is no reason to suppose that Christianity or theism is an inherent aspect of our government. Indeed, any such claim is antithetical to the constitutional principle of separation of religion and state.
In assessing the nature of our government, the religiosity of the various founders, while informative, is largely beside the point. Whatever their religions, they drafted a Constitution that plainly establishes a secular government on the power of the people (not a deity) and says nothing substantive of god(s) or religion except in the First Amendment where the point is to confirm that each person enjoys religious liberty and that the government is not to take steps to establish religion and another provision precluding any religious test for public office. This is entirely consistent with the fact that some founders professed their religiosity and even their desire that Christianity remain the dominant religious influence in American society. Why? Because religious people who would like to see their religion flourish in society may well believe that separating religion and government will serve that end and, thus, in founding a government they may well intend to keep it separate from religion. It is entirely possible for thoroughly religious folk to found a secular government and keep it separate from religion. That, indeed, is just what the founders did.
The First Amendment embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion. Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to undercut our secular government by somehow merging or infusing it with religion should be resisted by every patriot.
Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer on the current law of separation of church and state–as applied by the courts rather than as caricatured in the blogosphere. I commend it to you. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx
Comment by Ray Martinez on 30 October 2010:
“The idea that separating religion from government didn’t occur until the 20th Century is ludicrous!….”
Nobody said the idea was 20th century; rather, the idea and an inverted definition/understanding and implementation only occurred in the 20th century.
The evidence offered in support of the above quoted claim does not support the above claim. Letters mentioning separation are not legal opinions existing in a court case. And, most importantly, reproducing such quotes in the context of current understanding and definition of “separation” is egregious quote-mining.
The separation of Religion from State institutions did not occur until the 20th century. Merely citing letters that speak about separation does not change the fact that implementation only occurred at the hands of Judges, in the 20th century, who were and are Darwinists. Law now reflects Science: pro-Atheism.
Comment by Brian on 4 November 2010:
Ray, I see you’re here polluting this site just as you do talk.origins. Like every topic I have seen you expound upon, you know next to nothing about the Constitution, much less the 1st amendment. Inventing your own explanations and making shit up as you always do doesn’t change one iota of the reality that actually is.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 4 November 2010:
Doug,
Absolutely fantastic post. Well done. One of the best I’ve seen on here.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 4 November 2010:
Ray,
“Merely citing letters that speak about separation does not change the fact that implementation only occurred at the hands of Judges, in the 20th century, who were and are Darwinists. Law now reflects Science: pro-Atheism.”
Science isn’t “pro” anything besides knowledge. It does not care if God exists or not but if we defaulted to “And then a miracle happened” we’d still think the Sun is a wheel on Apollo’s chariot.
On the other hand religion has proven time and again it is pro-ignorance. Entire libraries were burned such as the famed Library of Alexandria set alight by Theophilus around 400 AD. The Copernican model of the Solar system was labeled heresy and anyone that supported it was censured, excommunicated, and even killed. The Vatican condemned vaccination because it was a sin to infect a person in the morning only to pray for a cure in the evening. Benjamin Franklin was also attacked for inventing the lighting rod because it protected sinners from God’s wrath. I find this hilarious. God can create entire galaxies with billions of stars and planets in a day but when it comes to a sharp iron rod he’s completely powerless? I hope Satan never asks Ben about his invention or Yahweh is in deep trouble.
Essentially every major scientific breakthrough has had an entire army or religious whackos trying to discredit it or say it violates “God’s Law.” They’re currently standing in the way of Stem Cell research because they know exactly -zero- about the topic and have somehow linked it to abortion. It would be nice if the zealots got out of the way because I’ve got Glaucoma and I’m running short of time and I have no interest in going blind due to gross sectarian ignorance of galactic proportions. Thanks.
After a thousand years the Christians were finally beginning to come around and now the Muslims are trying to drag us back to the 7th Century. What is it with these fanatics and the Middle Ages? News Flash to the nutters. The Crusades are over. Welcome to 2010.
I’m also curious about this claim that judges are Darwinists?
Chief Justice Roberts went to Notre Dame Elementary (Catholic) as well as La Lumiere College (Catholic).
Justice Scalia Went to Xavier High (Catholic).
Justice Thomas was raised Roman Catholic, went to the College of the Holy Cross on a nun’s recommendation, and seriously considered becoming a priest.
Justices Sotomayor, Alito, and Kennedy are also Catholic.
Justice Ginsberg is Jewish and is reported to have been exceedingly devoted to her religious beliefs to the point of being appointed a honorary Rabbi in her early life.
Justice Kagan is staunchly Jewish and was so involved in her religious beliefs that she had (forced) the first Bat Mitzvah at her synagogue.
Justice Breyer is also Jewish.
In fact out of 112 Justices only one did not identify with any church whatsoever and only 8 have been Jewish. The rest were all Christians (Predominately and Episcopalian).
This information would have taken around 20 seconds to locate.
Got Google?
Comment by James Madison Fan on 4 November 2010:
(Predominately Episcopalian and Presbytarian)
Comment by Catdaddy on 4 November 2010:
Chuck & James Madison Fan,
Thanks for illustrating the proof-texting that the right does to create false facts about the nature of the constitution and the separation of church and state in particular. Madison envisioned a separation that was complete–he considered tax support of religion in any form by the government as an establishment of religion and he certainly did not envision a theocratic state like some of these folks do.
Good job guys!
Comment by Catdaddy on 4 November 2010:
BTW, we all are entitled to our own opinions, but we are NOT entitled to our own facts.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 8 November 2010:
Thanks Cat.
Comment by Andy on 14 November 2010:
Mr. Patton is generally correct in what he writes, and there are some good points made in some of the other comments. But some of the central points of this discussion have been missed entirely because no one has really talked about the historical context for the 1st Amendment.
There were 3 hot issues at the time of the drafting of the constitution (1785 – 1790) regarding religion and government:
1. Whether there would be established churches in America;
2. Protection of the rights of conscience; and
3. Concerns about the power in influence of clergy in political issues.
Of these 3 issues, #3 was almost a tangential issue, #2 was almost universally held, and the real debate was about #1.
#1 concerns “established” churches: which in our historical context, refers to any particular Christian denomination that was the “official religion” of a colony and was supported by MANDATORY TAXATION of all citizens of that colony. Besides the tax burden, additional local laws regulated citizens’ behavior in religion matters, such as requiring mandatory church attendance and restricting certain activities on the Sabbath. Citizens were punished, fined, or jailed for violations. To understand this in the cultural context, consider that George Washington was afraid to travel on the Sabbath while in Massachusetts DURING his Presidency lest he offend the local religious leaders! (This despite the fact Washington was the most popular and powerful President in American history.)
Regardless of how foreign established religion seems to the modern mind, prior to 1776, 8 of the 13 colonies had established churches, i.e. an official Christian denomination that was supported by tax dollars. (In the North the Congregational denomination was the established church, and in the south it was the Anglican Church.) Despite attempts by writers like Patton and Chuck above to prove some single view held sway, the fact is the founders were divided on the issue of whether established religions should continue under the new constitution. This is perhaps best illustrated by what happened in VA in 1784. Recognizing that VA had become more religiously “pluralistic”, Patrick Henry proposed new, modified, establishment legislation which would no longer force all taxpayers to support the Anglican/Episcopal Church. Under Henry’s plan each taxpayer could choose which religious group his tax dollars should support. The legislation initially passed its first vote with a 60% majority, and counted George Washington and eventual SC Chief Justice John Marshall amongst its supporters. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were fierce critics, and they eventually defeated the measure with the support of the Christian evangelicals of the day (how ironic!). The Baptists and Methodists were anti church establishment because they had never been “established” and did not trust government to have any power or control over their actions or beliefs. They believed religious truth would flourish on its own merits without tax subsidies.
On the other side, John and Samuel Adams were outspoken supporters of established churches. Once, when asked about dis-establishment, Adams stated that the Congregational Church in MA would be dis-established ‘only when the planets fell out of their orbits”! In fact, MA was the last state to dis-establish the Congregational Church, but not until 1820! CT had disestablished only two years earlier 1818.
Any serious discussion of the 1st Amendment must take therefore take several historical facts into account:
1. Established churches continued to exist in the US some 30 years AFTER the constitution was ratified;
2. There were diverse views on religion AND on the issue of church establishment amongst the founders. One cannot quote Jefferson’s letter to suggest it contains the definitive meaning of the 1st Amendment – it is only Jefferson’s view. Jefferson was not a member of a church, he was not even a frequent church attendee, and he was not a supporter of the establishment concept. John Adams was all three and would have responded differently to the question the Danbury Baptists posed to Jefferson which produced the “wall of separation” language.
3. From Madison’s original draft of the 1st Amendment, there were 10 subsequent “revisions” or alternative versions debated in the House. The final language is consensus language, and therefore one cannot quote Madison and suggest his views are the definitive meaning of the text. The establishment clause is compromise language as surely as is Article I Section 9 of the Constitution – which “froze” discussion on the issue of slavery for 20 years because no consensus on the issue was possible in 1788.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
If you go back and re-read the 1st Amendment in the historical context (which I have only briefly sketched above), an objective reader will have to see the matter slightly differently that anyone has previously stated in this discussion.
“Congress” was not in Madison’s original draft, but was added in version 3. Without “Congress” in the text, it could be fairly argued that the 1st Amendment did create a wall of separation between religion and government. However, it was added for a reason – and the reason was to restrict/qualify the intent of the language ONLY to CONGRESS — and thereby to the Federal government. Given this clear conditional limitation, and the reality that established churches continued in various states for several decades AFTER ratification of the Bill of Rights, it must be argued that the ORIGINAL intent of the 1st Amendment was to:
1. RESTRICT THE POWER OF THE FEDERAL LEGISLATURE/GOVERNMENT TO ESTABLISH A NATIONAL CHURCH/RELIGION, and
2. RESTRICT THE POWER OF FEDERAL LEGISLATURE/GOVERNMENT TO INTERFERE WITH THE RIGHTS OF STATES TO ESTABLISH OR DIS-ESTABLISH ANY STATE CHURCH/RELIGION.
3. CONFIRM FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND PRACTICE.
In conclusion, from the time the Constitution was ratified until after the Civil War, there was no “universal” separation of church and state in the US. There was a prohibition against any “federal” establishment legislation, and there was a guarantee of religious freedom. However, the states retained the right to establish (and dis-establish) churches – which is the ulitimate violation of the modern separation interpretation. Congress had no authority to legislation in any fashion (“no law”) on the matter of establishment. Therefore the 1st Amendment did NOT create a wall of separation of between church and state other than the protection of active religious freedom of thought and exercise. There was no passive protection, i.e. protection “from religion”. Establised state churches still legally existed up to 1820 and additional state churches could have been created in states where they did not exist prior to the Civil War.
After the Civil War, everything changed. The Union victory decided the superiority of federal power over states rights. The adoption of 14th Amendment in 1866 (“equal protection”) was really the incubator for the current notion of passive separation. The modern issues of prayer in schools, biology curriculum, public holiday displays, and the like were NOT the issues at hand in 1787. The modern notion of “separation of church and state” as laid out by the modern court is (and here I offer my opinion) more heavily reliant in a strict legal sense on the 14th Amendment than on the 1st, and on the “evolution of power” that has occurred (right or wrong – no value judgment here) as many rights and powers that were initially reserved to the states have been taken over by the federal government.
There is much more that could be said on this topic, but in summary, almost everything I read on this topic is flawed by a lack of historical knowledge and by the subjective need to promote a current political agenda. The “left” and the “right” are equally guilty in this regard.
In my own attempt to be an informed historian and an objective observer, I think that many of the modern court’s arguments on this topic, including the citation of Jefferson’s letter, are historically flawed and anachronistic justifications of positions that would be foreign to most of the founders. It is certainly true that many of the key founders were not “orthodox” Christians and very few were “evangelicals”, but almost all were either “religious” (deists, Unitarians, etc.) or believed that Judeo-Christian religious and moral teachings were critical to survival of the new government. I think most of the founders would not agree with the secular absolutism of some of the modern court’s decisions. I also find great humor in the fact that the loudest opponents of established religion in the 1780′s were Thomas Jefferson – who was always suspicious of Federal power – and the Evangelical church leaders of that day. I doubt either would support the secularist or separationist agendas in America today!
In the end, I find comfort in the fact that the country has survived through many great controversies in the past, and hopefully it will continue to do so.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 15 November 2010:
Andy,
Interesting and well written. Your assessment of the influence of 14 on 1 is insightful and rarely commented on. I appreciate it.
I would offer that the aim is to achieve what would have happened if it were not for political necessity. In an ideal world the Constitution would not have allowed slavery but it was impossible under the social circumstances at the time. The same was true for Separation. At the time religion was too pervasive.
Some of the staunchest believers in liberty couldn’t see past their dogmatic blinders. To many it was as absurd to suggest granting freedom to Negros as it would be to suggest we grant freedom to a gorilla. The slaves were close to human but not quite in much the same way a donkey is close to a horse but not quite. Yes they can cross breed but such an animal is still not a horse.
To others it was as absurd to suggest separating religion from daily life as it would be to suggest we abolish Law. Even in 2010 I still have drawn out debates with Theists that can’t grasp the concept of law and morality without using some deity as the foundation.
The Founders were well aware of the Bible’s existence and could have emulated in the Constitution had they wished to make it so but they never make reference to it or God in the entire document. In fact the only reference to the divine is in the Declaration in which Jefferson indicates “their Creator” rather than a specific deity such as the Christian God. Considering the period in which these documents were written I do not think the failure to call on God’s divine authority is coincidental.
Comment by common sense guy on 22 August 2011:
The government can’t force a religion upon me…and on the other side of the “wall” the government can’t keep me from worship when and where I want. Pretty simple. Don’t overthink it.
Comment by Manuel Little on 3 November 2011:
Great commenting! Thanks. There is an obvious tendency to ‘interpret’, or ‘fill in’ the final wording of the 1st Amendment (US Constitution), as if the interpretation is what matters. No. The final wording is what matters. And so many historical interpretations go on and on about the grey areas of what ‘Separation of Church and State’ means around 1801, when actually the amendment uses the word ‘religion’ and never the word church. Church is a form of organized hierarchy, as pointed out by George Washington. Okay, historians, you have a good mind for dates and written facts. How about starting from what the definition of religion is, or could have been at the time. And what is the legal definition of ‘religion’ today? Hierarchical religion still has its power today – but any organized political group has its power.
If we can’t even understand the meaning of the word ‘religion’, there’s no end to the multiplicity of interpretations which can arise from the 1st amendment.
Then, is it separation of church and State, meaning a particular State, or separation of church and the Federal government, or both? The use of the words ‘church’ and ‘State’ by one of the USA Presidents, answering a particular form of hierarchical religion, within a particular State, cannot be used to infer a general meaning. Get real.
Comment by Doug Indeap on 2 December 2011:
Manuel,
Separation of church and state is a bedrock principle of our Constitution much like the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. In the Constitution, the founders did not simply say in so many words that there should be separation of powers and checks and balances; rather, they actually separated the powers of government among three branches and established checks and balances. Similarly, they did not merely say there should be separation of church and state; rather, they actually separated them by (1) establishing a secular government on the power of the people (not a deity), (2) saying nothing to connect that government to god(s) or religion, (3) saying nothing to give that government power over matters of god(s) or religion, and (4), indeed, saying nothing substantive about god(s) or religion at all except in a provision precluding any religious test for public office. Given the norms of the day, the founders’ avoidance of any expression in the Constitution suggesting that the government is somehow based on any religious belief was quite a remarkable and plainly intentional choice. They later buttressed this separation of government and religion with the First Amendment, which constrains the government from undertaking to establish religion or prohibit individuals from freely exercising their religions. The basic principle, thus, rests on much more than just the First Amendment.
That the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, to some who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there and, upon learning they were mistaken, reckon they’ve discovered a smoking gun solving a Constitutional mystery. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to name one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
Comment by InixNitip on 4 February 2012:
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