No they didn't. They wanted all religion to be a part of this nation. The wall of separation between church and state that Jefferson described was a wall to separate the government from ever interfering with our religious freedoms, not a wall to separate religious expression from our schools, courthouses, and other public places.
Early U.S. courts clearly understood Jeffersons intent when he wrote about a wall of separation between church and state. In fact, unlike recent court cases, they quoted his letter in its entirety, including the full context. Today, only 8 words are quoted from his letter. In 1878 there was a case called Reynolds vs. United States. In this case, in which polygamy was condemned by the courts, the argument was that government was interfering with religious expression. In other words, the U.S. government had no right to prohibit polygamy, since it was a form of religious expression by a certain group. It was understood that the government could only interfere when overt acts against peace and good order were occurring. In other words, such things as human sacrifice and polygamy could not hide under the pretense of religious freedom. I have already seen that the founding fathers, and the entire nation never dreamed that a future generation would twist the meaning of the 1st Amendment so that it would be used to remove the freedom of religious expressions such as prayer, Bible reading, etc. from public schools. It is obvious that they encouraged such things.
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, William Rehnquist said:
There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the framers intended to build a wall of separation
He also said:
- - the greatest injury of the wall notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights - - - The wall of separation between church and State is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It
should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.
