>
> I think, to be more specific, it was Thomas Jefferson who was big
> on separation of religion and state, and everybody else happily
> went along with it, looking suspiciously at their neighboring
> ever-so-slightly-different-and-therefore-obviously-heretical
> churches. True?

Eh. Jefferson was really big on separation of church and state, but it's important to note that the 1st Amendment pretty explicitly forbids the federal Congress from getting involved in any sort of religion: either restricting its practice or establishing an offical one. That it was ratified proves it was a popular idea. Even Jefferson's political enemies, people like Adams and Hamilton, supported it.

What's so often confused, though, is that the 1st Amendment only applies to the federal government. States are left to their own devices (though not since the Supreme Court incorporated the 1st Amendment to the states). Not all of the Founding Fathers were as adamant about separation of church and state everywhere as somebody like Jefferson was. He was hardly alone, though. Thomas Paine, while not a political figure exactly, was pretty influential and also strongly against religion in government.

But I think it's fair to say that a cozier relationship between churches and governments at a lower level was generally accepted in 1804 than it is in 2004 and that Jefferson and Paine stand out in their opposition to it.

Stephen