The ________________ created a wall of separation between religion and the government.

Freedom of religion has been an important issue throughout American history. Many of the first colonists established homes in America to escape religious persecution and oppression in England. The freedom to believe and practice religion in whatever way they chose to was of vital importance to early Americans.

The Framers of the Constitution were concerned with preserving religious freedom and preventing the federal government from endorsing a single religion. The establishment clause was incorporated into the First Amendment for two reasons: preventing state-sponsored religion and minimizing the risk of religious persecution. The goal of the establishment clause was to create a "wall of separation" between religion and the government.

However, the Framers disagreed over the extent of the separation between church and state. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, nine of the thirteen original colonies financially supported a single religion. Although citizens were free to practice other religions, those religions received no financial support from the state. Some Framers believed that endorsing one religion was acceptable as long as the practice of other religions was not limited.

Thomas Jefferson was the first to advocate a "wall of separation" between the government and religious institutions in his letter to the Baptists of Danbury in 1802. Jefferson and James Madison intended to create a firm and unyielding barrier that would prevent intermingling of the two institutions. Both men were history students and were familiar with the problems caused by the entanglement between church and state in countries such as England and Russia.

In Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, Madison argued that the government is not empowered to intervene in religious matters. Likewise, he felt that religious institutions should not have any official or unofficial involvement in the government. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Virginia Statue of Religious Liberty that all citizens were entitled to the free practice of their religion. He also believed that no one should be forced to practice a particular religion or any religion at all.

The First Amendment prohibits Congress from establishing a religion but does not apply directly to the states. The Fourteenth Amendment changed the scope of the establishment clause by preventing states from making laws that abridge individual rights. Created immediately after the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment was originally intended to protect African Americans from unconstitutional state laws designed to circumvent federal laws. The Fourteenth Amendment established the incorporation doctrine that essentially nationalized the Bill of Rights and prohibited states from passing laws that could inhibit the rights of citizens.

Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education

Although the words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the First Amendment, the establishment clause was intended to separate church from state. When the First Amendment was adopted in 1791, the establishment clause applied only to the federal government, prohibiting the federal government from any involvement in religion. By 1833, all states had disestablished religion from government, providing protections for religious liberty in state constitutions. In the 20th century, the U.S. Supreme Court applied the establishment clause to the states through the 14th Amendment. Today, the establishment clause prohibits all levels of government from either advancing or inhibiting religion.

The establishment clause separates church from state, but not religion from politics or public life. Individual citizens are free to bring their religious convictions into the public arena. But the government is prohibited from favoring one religious view over another or even favoring religion over non-religion.

Our nation’s founders disagreed about the exact meaning of “no establishment” under the First Amendment; the argument continues to this day. But there was and is widespread agreement that preventing government from interfering with religion is an essential principle of religious liberty. All of the Framers understood that “no establishment” meant no national church and no government involvement in religion. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed that without separating church from state, there could be no real religious freedom.

The first use of the “wall of separation” metaphor was by Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island in 1635. He said an authentic Christian church would be possible only if there was “a wall or hedge of separation” between the “wilderness of the world” and “the garden of the church.” Any government involvement in the church, he believed, corrupts the church.

Then in 1802, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, wrote: “I contemplate with sovereign 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 Supreme Court has cited Jefferson’s letter in key cases, beginning with a polygamy case in the 19th century. In the 1947 case Everson v. Board of Education, the Court cited a direct link between Jefferson’s “wall of separation” concept and the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

Category: Freedom of Religion

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