Defending Constitutionalism: A Wall of Separation Between Church and State?

Have you ever heard of the 1947 Supreme Court case, Everson v. Board of Education? My guess is that many haven't. We should take the time to briefly consider its significance to our history and lives today--especially as it relates to religious freedom.

The opinion of the Court stated, "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." The question I ask here, which the justices seemingly had no interest in, is whether or not such a judgement was based on the Constitution. If not, on what did the justices base their decision. Understanding such is of the utmost importance if we, as a country, ever hope to return to the Constitutional foundation on which we were first planted.

The document on which the justices based their decision was a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson to the Baptists Association of Danbury, CT. You might think, well Jefferson's letter isn't the Constitution--but at least they based their decision on a letter written by a Founding Father. Oh, if it were only so. The problem arises in the sense that the justices based their decision on a completely, and potentially malicious, false understanding of the correspondence between Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists.

As Baptists had suffered from the centralization of power in several states, especially Rhode Island, the Danbury Association was concerned that the federal government would centralize its power in the realm of religious activity. The Association was especially concerned that the Bill of Rights looked as though it were a grant of liberties by the government--not from the Almighty. Accordingly, they were worried that the same federal government which granted freedom of religious expression could take it away at the stroke of a pen.

To a large extent, Jefferson shared the Danbury Baptists' concerns. He made it a point to speak to the notion that government had no authority to interfere with the public's rights of religious expression. In the Kentucky Resolution, 1798 Jefferson wrote, "[N]o power over the freedom of religion...[is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution." In his Second Inaugural Address, 1805 Jefferson declared, "In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general [federal] government." To the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1808, Jefferson wrote, "[O]ur excellent Constitution...has not placed our religious rights under the power of any public functionary." Finally, in 1808, Jefferson wrote to Samuel Miller that he considered "the government of the United States as interdicted [prohibited] by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions...or exercises."

The fact of the matter is that Jefferson was absolutely not stating that the First Amendment "erected a wall between church and state," as the Supreme Court essentially attributed to him in 1947. Instead, Jefferson's ardent belief and understanding was that the federal, or general, government could never establish a national religion. Jefferson makes this point in a letter to a fellow signer of the Declaration of Independence--Benjamin Rush. Jefferson wrote:

[T]he clause of the Constitution which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes and they believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly. 

 It is clear, then, that, at best, the Supreme Court, in 1947,  partially based their decision upon a historical misunderstanding of Jefferson's writings. At worst, the Court aided and abetted those who were maliciously working to undermine Jefferson's beliefs and the true meaning of the First Amendment.

For more information of the supposed separation of church and state and Thomas Jefferson's writings, read this article from David Barton, a Founding era scholar. Also, make sure to check out both of David Barton's attached videos.