by Liz Orton

Created on: April 05, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

In school, you may have learned that the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights provided for freedom of religion, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Although all of these rights are enforced in our daily lives, one of them is mentioned nowhere in the Bill of Rights. It is the principle of "separation of church and state." One of the Founding Fathers did coin this phrase, however, but he did not mean it the way we interpret it today.

The phrase first appeared in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a private group called the Danbury Baptist Association. The Danbury Baptists were from Connecticut, and they wrote to Jefferson to inform him of the religious injustices they were suffering. Their state constitution gave the government the power to grant them religious freedoms for Connecticut citizens, freedom of religion was not an inalienable right, it was subject to approval from the government. The Baptists wrote, "...what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights: and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements [sic], as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen.". They asked Jefferson to intercede, even though they understood that the President usually didn't meddle in states' affairs. Jefferson wrote back and agreed that their state government should not have that much power over their religious choices. He said he would see to it that they got the freedoms they had the rights to.

Jefferson stated that religion was each man's private matter the government should not interfere with it. He said that "the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions." The government can't decide which religions to approve or disapprove of. "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 & State." It's ironic that the first usage of this phrase was intended to protect religion from the government, and not vice versa as it is today. Jefferson says that the American people want freedom of religion as it is stated in the Constitution, and in order to protect this freedom, the government must not

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