When
did this United States' concept of "Separation of
Church and State"
first appear in the landscape of United States' politics or law? Well;
There
was a founding father, Thomas Jefferson, who espoused this ideal first
in an 1802 letter
to the Danbury Baptist Association? There were, indeed, several other
oblique or more direct references to the ideal that no religion would
be endorsed or otherwise promoted by the government including the Establishment Clause and the First Amendment.
The United States has always been a melding of diverse religious
foundations from the Puritan, Quaker, and Catholic to the Mormon,
Native American, Amish, Atheist and Baptists. The ideal of "Separation
of Church and State"
first came into public policy through the United States Courts
and
specifically in a Supreme Court decision of Reynolds v United States,
(1847) where Thomas Jefferson was cited as an authority.
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