The phrase “separation of church and state” originated in a letter written by President Thomas Jefferson to The Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut. The Baptists had written President Jefferson conveying their joy that Jefferson, a fellow Anti-Federalist, had been elected President, but also expressing concern that the constitution’s protection of religion may not have the strength of substance they had hoped for. They were fearful that “…what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights.” #29

Inalienable rights are also referred to by the founding fathers as “natural rights”. These are rights they considered to be granted by God, and God alone, and nontransferable to the government or anyone else. The correct pronunciation of “unalienable” would actually be “un-a-leen-able”, not the “un-a-le-un-able” that is often quoted today. The inference being that these natural rights (such as the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) may not have a lien placed upon them by our government. These rights belong to the people, and to them alone...and the only Person who can remove these rights is God.

The Danbury Baptists’ desire for these religious protections was shared by President Jefferson. He supported the prohibition of an established national denomination in the United States, thereby allowing all to worship freely within their own belief systems and traditions. His famous letter that contains the “separation” phrase is as follows:

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and, in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, 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 & State.

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience I shall see with friendly dispositions the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced that he has no natural rights in opposition to his social duties."]

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & the Danbury Baptist [your religious] association assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802. #30

Jefferson’s conviction was that citizen’s individual rights to religion were natural, God given rights, and that the federal government was not to interfere with these rights. Likewise, the intention of the First Amendment was not to censor religious expression in public or otherwise … unless the religious acts disrupted “peace and good order”, or, as the Danbury Baptists put it …worked “ill to (one’s) neighbor”. #31 And the “free exercise” clause of the amendment is there, specifically, to protect religious expression! This Amendment as a whole was enacted, in fact, not to keep Christian beliefs and influences out of government, but to keep the national government out of Christian beliefs and practices!

And with regard to the phrase “separation of church and state”, which is erroneously attributed to the First Amendment, David Barton stated in his book “Original Intent, The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion” that “There is probably no other instance in America’s history where words spoken by a single individual in a private letter – words clearly divorced from their context –have become the sole authorization for a national judicial policy.” #32