First, let's read the First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This applies to the federal government not the individual states.
The Founding Fathers were between a rock and a hard place on the issue of freedom of religion; how does the new government allow religious freedom and equality, but ensure that the federal government doesn't establish a national religion? What many don't know is that when the country was founded, there were already seven states that adopted a "state" religion, preventing many people from fully exercising their religious freedoms.
Justice Joseph Story explains in his Commentaries on the Constitution why the Founding Fathers decided to completely remove the federal government on the issue of religion and allowing the states to deal with those issues themselves.
"It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in foreign annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject. The situation, too, of the different states equally proclaimed the policy, as well as the necessity of such an exclusion. In some of the states, episcopalians constituted the predominant sect; in others, presbyterians; in others, congregationalists; in others, quakers; and in others again, there was a close numerical rivalry among contending sects. It was impossible, that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy, if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment. The only security was in extirpating the power. But this alone would have been an imperfect security, if it had not been followed up by a declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion, and a prohibition (as we have seen) of all religious tests. Thus, the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments, to be acted upon according to their own sense of justice, and the state constitutions; and the Catholic and the Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Jew and the Infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship."
This is the reason why the Founders decided that Congress shall make NO law respecting ANY one religion, religious establishment, or making any law preventing the free exercise thereof. If they had decided otherwise, there would have been enormous civil unrest.
During his travels in the newly formed America, Alexis de Tocqueville noted that schools incorporated core beliefs of religion along side other academic teachings. He noted that in New England, "every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge; he is taught, moreover, the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution...".
He also noticed a bond resonating from the various churches. He observed that the clergy was fervent to uphold the separation of church and state, yet as a whole have an impact on the morals and customs of every day public life, which, in turn, showed itself when formulating new laws. Alexis de Tocqueville also noted that the clergy didn't hold any political office and were not even represented in any assemblies. This was completely unheard of in Europe where the clergy always belonged to a national church and occupied offices of power.
What de Tocqueville realized during his tour of the newly formed country, was that the clergy removed itself from politics because in their view it was beneath them. However, they also believed that it was their solemn duty to deliver the message of religious principles to the people. Not doing so would put America's freedom and political security at risk.
In terms of religion, the Founders wanted to do something that no other country on earth achieved: To give LEGAL equality to ALL religions, including non-Christians. Recalling the seven states that already established a state religion, these would have to be dissolved and Jefferson tried that in Virginia in 1776, but wasn't actually completed until 1786. Patrick Henry, on the other hand, made an attempt in 1784 to introduce a bill (Provision For Teachers of the Christian Religion) that would have allowed taxpayers to designate which society of Christians their money should go to.
This was counter intuitive to what the Founders had in mind causing James Madison to fire back with his famous Memorial and Remonstrance. Madison argued that the stated goal was to give legal rights to all religions and the government should not show preference of one over others:
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were the two Founders that spearheaded the issue of church and state. Their intent was to completely remove the federal government and at the same time give all religions equality in the law on a national level. During the Virginia conference Madison stated, "There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation."
And Thomas Jefferson took the same stance when he wrote the Kentucky Resolution of 1798, "Resolved that it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the Amendments to the Constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’; and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people..."
He also went further by making it crystal clear that the Supreme Court was also to be excluded from the jurisdiction of religion. He understood that the Supreme Court's role in the federal government was to act as a sentinel to safeguard the Constitution, not to get involved with making laws and interfering with the individual states. He wrote, "And that in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another & more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the constitution which expressly declares that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,’ thereby guarding in the same sentence, & under the same words, the freedom of religion of speech & of the press: insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, and that libels, falsehood & defamation, equally with heresy & false religion, ARE WITHHELD FROM THE COGNISANCE OF FEDERAL TRIBUNALS..." (Emphasis added).
Remember that the intent of the First Amendment is to remove the federal government from religious issues of the individual states. When Thomas Jefferson was on the Virginia State legislature, he was among a group that drafted a bill to have a day of fasting and prayer. However, when he was elected president, he stated unequivocally that the federal government had NO authority to proclaim ANY religious holidays.
This is where the famous "wall of separation between church and state." came from. On January 1, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association explaining his position on the matter:
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, & 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.
Note the operative phrase, "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". This is a plural use in the sense that he was referring to the federal government, not the individual states. Recall the bill he submitted when he was in the state legislature and what he said when he became president.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has either forgotten their role in the three branches of government or they just don't care. They have taken it upon themselves to misuse Thomas Jefferson's metaphor to meddle in states' religious affairs and have forced others to take the same "hands off" stance. This was not the intent of our Founding Fathers and it only applied to the federal government.
When you read the statements of Jefferson, as well as his actions, you begin to see the obvious distortion of his statement to the Danbury Baptist Association. Remember that it was Madison and Jefferson who said that the states had sole authority of religion and that any state giving preference to any one religious establishment should be dissolved. Other Founding Fathers joined and emphasized that ALL religions were to be encouraged to foster the moral fiber, as well as the tone of the people. This would have been impossible if there were a "wall" between church and state on the state level. His statement was intended ONLY for the federal government.
References cited:
Joseph Story Commentaries
Virginia Ratifying Convention
Kentucky Resolution of 1798
Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Memorial and Remonstrance by James Madison
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson vol 30. January 1, 1798 - January 31, 1799
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