Editor’s note: The following column, which has been edited for length, first ran December 2023 but seems especially relevant after Louisiana signed into law a bill that requires all public schools and universities to prominently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Various civil liberties groups filed a lawsuit this week to challenge the law.
Prayer in schools, prayer at public events and the public display of religious scenes all too often seem under attack by the courts. The courts base their rulings on more than 200 years of legal precedents that there must be a separation — a wall — between church and state.
These rulings seem to go well beyond the simple statement that is in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”. A major basis of those court rulings goes back to an event in the Mississippi Territory that took place 212 years ago.
When the U.S. Constitution was drafted, people in the United States had a bitter taste in their mouths toward England and its official religion, the Church of England. They wanted no part in a single national church directly connected to the government.
The language in the First Amendment refers only to no establishment of a religion and no prohibition of free exercise of religion. Nowhere does it refer to a wall between church and state. So, what happened to make that more restrictive language appear?
The first significant issue about church and state arose in 1801 when Connecticut’s Danbury Baptist Association became concerned that the state legislature was about to grant special privileges to the Congregationalist Church. They wrote a letter to President Thomas Jefferson expressing concern over the infringement of their religious liberty.
Jefferson responded: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God … 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 and State…”
Though Jefferson is credited with declaring there is a wall separating church and state, it was President James Madison who had to address the first real question of separation of church and state. In 1811, two bills came before Congress involving churches.
One was: “An act incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexandria in the District of Columbia.” President Madison objected “because the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are limited, by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions, and violates, in particular, the article of the Constitution of the United States, which declares, that “Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.”
The Mississippi controversy also occurred in 1811 when Congress considered legislation “that there be reserved the quantity of five acres of land, including Salem Meeting-house in the Mississippi Territory, for the use of the Baptist Church, at said meeting-house.” The legislation was on its way to be passed and enacted when President Madison objected to it.
Madison believed it to be unconstitutional “because the bill in reserving a certain parcel of land of the United States for the use of said Baptist Church comprises a principle and precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.’”
The bill was reconsidered by Congress and “the House negatived the Bill” as it was considered legislation pursued by the Mississippi Territory to aid a specific religious denomination. The Mississippi controversy made national news. Typical was the report in the Boston Repertory with a date line of Saturday, March 2, 1811. “The bill for incorporating a Baptist Society in the Mississippi Territory, and granting five acres of land thereto, was reconsidered, and the President of the United States having objected to such bills as erecting a religious Establishment, and therefore unconstitutional – the house negatived the bill 55 to 33!”
Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase “a wall of separation between Church and State” in 1802. However, it was an attempt by the Mississippi Territory in 1811 to give 5 acres of land to a church for religious purposes that brought the separation of church and state to the national stage and set the precedent for that wall of separation that has existed for over 212 years.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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