Mr. Jefferson, a Mammoth Cheese, and the "Wall of Separation Between Church and State": A Bicentennial Commenmoration
2001; Oxford University Press; Volume: 43; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/jcs/43.4.725
ISSN2040-4867
Autores Tópico(s)Mormonism, Religion, and History
ResumoTwo hundred years ago this New Year's Day, residents in the Federad City witnessed an extraordinary spectacle unlike any witnessed before or since in the capital city famed for its political showmen and ceremony. With great fanfare, President Thomas Jefferson received at the new executive mansion a “mammoth cheese,” a gift from a small Baptist community in western Massachusetts, which made the cheese to celebrate Jefferson's election and commemorate his devotion to religious liberty. On the same day, 1 January 1802, Mr. Jefferson penned an address to a Baptist association in Connecticut in which he said the First Amendment built “a wall of separation between church and state.” Today, this architectural metaphor is accepted by many Americans, including jurists, as a pithy description of the constitutionally prescribed church-state arrangement. This essay commemorates these two events, rich in symbolism: one is all but forgotten and the other continues to inform church-state discourse and policy.
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