[Notwithstanding]

There was no such thing as being for "Seperation" - the prevailing sentiment was that of being against "Establishment".

Those are two very different concepts - and the reality is that federal gov't money and laws supported overt Christian worship - from day one of the first Congress.

Senate chaplains, military chaplains and chapels, the Northwest Ordinance, federally funded Catholic schools for Indians.

Perhaps the founders did not understand their own Constitution?

[E Rocc]

There was no such thing as being for "Seperation" - the prevailing sentiment was that of being against "Establishment"

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.

-Thomas Jefferson, as President, in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.

-James Madison, "Monopolies. Perpetuities. Corporations. Ecclesiastical Endowments,"

-Eric