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The term separation of Church and State is from a private letter from Thomas Jefferson, NOT a Public Statement from Jefferson on that issue (And it should be noted Jefferson was in France as the US Ambassador at the time the Constitution was written AND either was still Ambassador to France or had become Washington's Secretary of State by the time the Bill of Rights were proposed by Congress. My point is that in both cases, Jefferson had little or no input into either document, through his views were well known.
As to the First Amendment, it was carefully written to include as much free speech, free press and free Religion as possible (All three were inter-tangled at that time since most people were organized along religious lines even on non-religions matters). Furthermore to get most changes in the law to the most people the most effective way was via the Churches. Most people could NOT read or write AND lived in Rural areas where the only place available for common meetings was the local Church. Thus any new laws had to be sent to the Churches to be read for most people to learn of the changes in the law. This all changed after about 1800, first with the invention and widespread adoption of Pulp paper, which for the first time permitted what we would call Newspapers today (Newspapers had existed in the 1700s but using much more expensive linen paper and tended to be advertisement papers meant to be kept for months after printing NOT read once and thrown away, most papers only lasted 20 or fewer years, the Times of London being the biggest exception to the 20 year "rule", most modern Newspapers date from the mid 1800s NOT earlier and the introduction of pulp paper).
With the introduction of Pulp Paper came Public education, Tax payer supported education. This starts in the 1830s, you had schools before that date, but either tuition paid or Church related. The train is the third factor for it permitted the movement of papers to area beyond what a horse could carry. While horses stayed part of the delivery system till the Truck replaced them after 1900, they only had to move the papers from the railhead to the news stand instead of from the Newspaper print shop to the newsstand. This permitted more papers to be sold over a wider area, thus permitting the use of even bigger and faster presses. I bring this up for until these changes occurred (And note ALL after about 1830) the best way to get news to people was via the local pulpit and for that reason many states were reluctant to disestablished churches (In fact the South Disestablished them first, more to get rid of the cost of taking care of Widow and Orphans then anything else, in Colonial times, while the State paid for the cost of what we call "Welfare" today, it was run through the Churches. When the South "Freed" their churches in the 1790s it then told such widows and orphans to go west and take land from the Indians instead of getting support from the State such Widows and orphans were living in (yes, they is a direct connection between our stealing land from the Indians and the Freedom of Religion, the ability to steal the land of the Native Americans permitted the states to support widows and orphans independent of state churches).
I go into the above basically to explain WHY the first amendment is worded the way it is, it was to prevent the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT from adopting nay religious test OR discrimination against any religious/political minority. At the same time Congress wanted the ability to use the pre-existing state system to distribute legal notices. Most States used their State Churches OR had adopted a way to use all of the Churches in their state for the same purpose (For Example Pennsylvania adopted religious toleration but also sent messages through the churches to be read to the Citizens of Pennsylvania, remember most people lived in rural area and did not read and write in Colonial America). Thus the wording of the First:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Until just before the time of the Civil War, complete separation of Church and State was simply not possible. With the above three changes in society, Newspapers became the way for the State to publish new laws and to get messages to its citizens, slowly replacing churches throughout the 1800s. Thus no one thought in terms of Separation of Church and State (Except on the theoretically level, as Voltaire and Jefferson did) do to the issue of how would the state get its messages as to changes in the Law to the people? Prior to Pulp paper, Steam Railroads and universal education the job of distributing news and new laws was solely in the hands of the Church (Whatever was the Church in that area). The Church also had the hierarchy to distribute such messages (And this was by the simple means of getting churchmen together once every while to discuss not only theologian points but how to distribute news AND by sending letters from the Government to the head of the Church, who had them copied and sent to his local ministers who read them to his congregation). This was the cheapest and most effective way to distribute such news till the above three inventions made newspapers the preferred way to distribute news.
Thus when Congress wrote the first, it had enough sense to understand that complete separation of Church and State was NOT possible, so it punted the issue back to the states. Only at the time of the Civil War did anyone questioned this policy and you see the states making the final cut off of using Churches for the purposes of distribution of News (And also welfare). In the mid 1800s it finally became possible to separate the State from the Church, but by making the the growing power of Corporate America (as seen in the form of Corporate Newspapers) the replacement of the Church is distribution of news. As a whole this was an improvement, but the First Amendment still reflects the facts that existed in 1792 when it was adopted NOT today.
Side-note: The First Amendment by its wording restricts only Congress, the Courts have long ruled that the First applies ot the States via the 14th amendment and that amendments adoption that all states MUST give Due Process to all Citizens. A State establishing A church would interfere with other citizens right to due process and thus unconstitutional, a State forbidding a religion would also be unconstitutional as denying such a person his or her fundamental rights as defined in the First Amendment. Thus the above is a comment of the time period more then what the courts have ruled on since the 1860s and the adopting of the post- Civil War Amendments which made fundamental changes in the State-Federal relationship. It is do to the post Civil War Amendments that the concept of Separation of Church and State became the view adopted by the Courts. It is still the preferred viewed but the Courts accept it is based on a very weak foundation (From a legal point of view, it is a popular view with the public, but Constitutionally not on very strong grounds). The Same Court that said the First Amendment applied to the States under the Concept of Substantial Due Process also ruled that the same concept also forbade the State and the Federal Government to set minimum wages and Maximum hours do the grounds it was a violation of the concept of Substantial Due Process. Those rulings as to labor were struck down in the 1930s but if it is NO longer a violation of Substantial Due Process for the Government to restrict one's right to contract (i.e. agree to work for less then minimum wage and more then maximum hours) is it still a violation of Substantial Due Process for a state NOT to have a State Church? Remember the First applies to the states via the Due Process Clause of the 15th NOT by its own wording. Most people support the concept so the issue only comes up at the margins, and at the margins the courts have a problem applying the concept of Due Process to the states. How is it a denial of Due Process for a local Government to deny a religious group the right to set up a monument in a locally owned park? Note I did NOT say separation of Church and State but how is is a denial of Due Process? Remember it is a denial of Due Process that permits the Courts to impose the first on the States, if a state would ban posting such a monument anywhere, then due process issues kick in (i.e. the state must have a system for such a ban to be challenged), but how is it a denial of due process if the restriction is only on government owned property? It is only with the denial of Substantial Due Process that permits the Courts to impose the First onto the States, thus we get to the issue of where is the violation of Substantial Due Process?
Now I know the above is mostly academic, most people support the concepts behind the First and want it applied to the States in addition to the Federal Government, but the issue is almost never over supporting or suppressing one religion or another but at the margins of where Freedom to exercise religion cab be restricted by the State. Thus the Courts problem with the First, how is a local government's decision to permit the continue standing of a Ten Commandment monument be a denial of Due Process? How can the refusal of a local Government to a religious group be a denial of Due Process? Due Process is your right to a trial and proper procedure during that trial, it does NOT apply to things outside the court. The Courts expanded the Due Process clause in the late 1800s early 1900s to include what the Court called "Substantial Due Process" so that it could strike down laws the regulated business (and wages). The Court then expanded this concepts to the issue of Free Speech and Religion. The whole concept is Questionable. In the late 1930s the Court actually gave up on economic issue when it came to "Substantial Due Process" but kept the First Amendment issues, even through both were based on the same rational. That rational being it was a violation of Due Process for the State to pass a law that restricted what a person could do. It is from this concept that the Court embraced Jefferson's comment about separation of Church and State. The concept of Separation of Church and State has wide support in the US at the present time, but as I tried to point out above weak constitutional groundings.
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