Jefferson: Religion is a State Issue

I explain to people that when Thomas Jefferson wrote in his letter to the Danbury Baptists that the must be a wall of separation between the church and state, what he meant was not the anti-religious "Separation of Church and State" ideas of today's liberal left. He meant that religion was none of the federal government's business, and that the Danbury Baptists would have to take up their gripe with their State.


The following quote by Thomas Jefferson supports that concept:


"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the States." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Miller, 1808


-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary