>> So does anyone know the history of the anti-establishment clause? Was this
>> an elitist imposition on a religious mass or a widely held opinion?
>>
>>
>>
> Certainly it was a fight, but I think at the end of the day,
> disestablishment won because it also won at the state level, and that had to
> do with people recognizing and resisting the unfairness of a state church.
>
> It occurs to me also that disestablishment winning first at the federal
> level probably (and here I am surmising) had to do as much with states
> wanting their own churches (not pushed down from the federal level) as with
> anything else. But then essentially the same thing happens in the states
Yes, absolutely. The non-establishment clause had nothing to do with freethought or deism. It was entirely about not imposing a federal religion on the states. States themselves had established religions, as you point out. And while probably many Founders were against establishment even at the state level, the reason was to prevent conflict among different Christian sects and denominations, not as a protest against state endorsement of religion or Christianity per se. I'm positive the vast majority of the Founders would have seen absolutely nothing wrong with, say, an official declaration that atheism is incompatible with the American system of government.
SA