Religion

The American Revolution was a radical experiment in liberty. Nowhere was its character more evident than in what Thomas Jefferson called a “novel innovation”—the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. The language was unmistakably direct: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

For the American revolutionaries, freedom of the soul was the most precious liberty. It was first among rights because it gave meaning to freedom itself. Without it, truth would perish; without truth, men and women could never be fully free.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ” Americans have always agreed that this “establishment clause” prohibits the government from establishing or promoting a national religion. However, since the earliest years of the republic, Americans have disagreed about whether the establishment clause bans all government involvement with religion.