Dreisbach, a professor in American University's Department of Justice, Law, and Society, writes that Jefferson "saw no contradiction in authoring a religious proclamation as a state official and refusing to issue a similar proclamation as the federal chief executive." Dreisbach further argues that Jefferson's wall separated the federal government from churches and state governments, rather than separating churches from all levels of government.
Hamburger, who teaches law at the University of Chicago, inflicts greater damage to absolute separationist readings of American history. Hamburger documents that the contemporary understanding of church-state separation is rooted far less in Jefferson than in Hugo Black, the Supreme Court justice who wrote the majority opinion in Everson v. Board of Education (1947). And Black's advocacy of church-state separation, in turn, found its roots in the fierce anti-Catholicism of the Masons and the Ku Klux Klan (Black was a Kladd of the Klavern, or an initiator of new members, in his home state of Alabama in the early 1920s).
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These books seem to completely downgrade the importance that is given (in modern times) to Jefferson's statement. Jefferson's remark in his letter to Danbury Connecticut was more of a states rights issue. The modern interprettation of Jefferson's letter is strongly rooted in anti-Catholic bigotry. Just another example of Protestants hurting themselves with their own Catholic bashing.
Thanks for the link.