554 F.Supp. 1104 (S.D. Ala. 1983)

JAFFREE V. BOARD OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS
OF MOBILE COUNTY

Civ. A. No. 82-0554-H.
United States District Court,
S.D. Alabama, S.D.
Jan. 14, 1983

This case led to an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court [Wallace v. Jaffree 472 U.S. 38 (1985) in which the Supreme Court prohibited a daily moment of silence for public school classrooms]. But it is interesting to read how the District Court ruled in this very case...

"The drafters of the first amendment understood the first amendment to prohibit the federal government only from establishing a national religion. Anything short of the outright establishment of a national religion was not seen as violative of the first amendment. For example, the federal government was free to promote various Christian religions and expend monies in an effort to see that those religions flourished. This was not seen as violating the establishment clause. [R. Cord, Separation of Church and State 15 (1982)]."

"But even President Jefferson signed into law bills which provided federal funds for the propagation of the gospel among the Indians. Based upon the historical record Professor Cord concludes that Jefferson, even as President, did not interpret the establishment clause to require complete independence from religion in government."

"One thing which becomes abundantly clear after reviewing the historical record is that the founding fathers of this country and the framers of what became the first amendment never intended the establishment clause to erect an absolute wall of separation between the federal government and religion. Through the chaplain system, the money appropriated for the education of Indians, and the Thanksgiving proclamations, the federal government participated in secular Christian activities. From the beginning of our country, the high and impregnable wall which Mr. Justice Black referred to in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 18, 67 S.Ct. 504, 513, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947), was not as high and impregnable as Justice Black's revisionary literary flourish would lead one to believe."

"The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects [denominations] and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government." [quoting Justice Joseph Story]