Welcome, rannnel.

If Anu has, in your opinion made a minor slip in attributing this phrase to the constitution, there is little doubt that it accurately reflects what was in the mind of the founding fathers. It was a letter from Thomas Jefferson on January 1 1802 that described his vision of how church and state required a degree of clear separation:

Religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative 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 and State.

There’s an interesting view of his manuscript available:

http://www.christianlaw.org/pdf/Jeff_danbury.pdf


You will note that (in keeping with the separation of topics on this board) I have addressed only the language topic and not the doubtless incendiary religious or social issues around the term's extension by the SC in 1947...! ;)