January 1
On this date in 1802, President
Thomas Jefferson coined the
famous phrase describing the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment as erecting "a wall of separation between church and state."
He used the phrase in his famous letter to the Baptists of Danbury,
Connecticut, who had asked him to explain the meaning of the First
Amendment's phrase, "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion."
“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 prohibit the free exercise
thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
—President Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, Jan. 1, 1802
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