THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
QUOTE:
A common misconception is that the phrase "separation of church and state" actually appears in the U.S. Constitution. It does not. The First Amendment states , "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...."
Thomas Jefferson is, in fact, the sole author of the phrase "separation of church and state" and he used it in his personal correspondence - specifically, a Jan. 1, 1802 letter to Nehemiah Dodge, Ephram Robbins and Stephen S. Nelson of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut.
Jefferson wrote, "believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, 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 eternal separation between Church and State".
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separation of church and state
