by Rich Welsh

Created on: December 11, 2008

When Thomas Jefferson proposed the separation clause to Madison, every colony, or state if you will, had its own adopted religion. For example, Virginia was an Anglican state and it was understood that no man not of the Anglican faith could hold public office in Virginia.

Pennsylvania, the most liberal of colonies at that time, said in its charter that no man could hold public office in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania if he did not believe in a supreme creator.

Tax monies were used to build churches and purchase bibles for Sunday school. This was normal, because that's what they did in England and other European nations prior to coming to the American colonies.

What Jefferson saw was a newly formed federal congress. He was afraid that this new federal congress would adopt its own religion and supersede it over the states.

We know this because Jefferson and Madison became life-long friends and wrote letters to each other about this topic. They toured the country together giving speeches about it.

In Daniel Dreisbach's book, Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State, he points out that the traditional interpretation of Jefferson's writing in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 about the separation between church and state is in error. According to Dreisbach, Jefferson was simply pointing out that there was a wall of separation between the federal government and religion. Remember, religion was a part of each colony.

Dreisbach wrote that historical evidence suggests that Jefferson did not really believe that the establishment clause created any sort of strict separation between religion and government, but instead that Jefferson felt his separation beliefs were based in federalism. Jefferson believed that the wall he wrote about was between the federal government on one side and church authorities and state governments on the other.

It wasn't until the 20th century that the current nonsense of Jefferson believing that religious symbols had no place in public settings began. This was the mastermind idea of atheistswho were hellbent on removing religion from traditional American life. Prior to that the federalism interpretation was wholly understood throughout the young country.

Neither Jefferson nor any other Founding Fathers wanted to make laws that said that Christmas trees or baby Jesus mangers could not be displayed on public property. The first amendment already took care of the establishment of religion by government. The separation clause was simply Jefferson's federalist idea of blocking the federal congress from forcing states to adopt it's own adopted religion. Nothing more. Nothing less.

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