Quote:
Originally posted by MAKWAY:
[QB]I'll be darned. Thank you for the correction.

One thing though... I don't recall those letters being agreed upon by the other signataries or being ratified by 2/3 of the states.
True, the letters were not. But Madison was explaining what the First Amendment meant. And he's the one who wrote it - and it was based on the Virginia Statute, which Jefferson penned. Madison knew what the intent was, and explained it in those letters.

The interesting thing is that first Madison quote I listed. He says the "total separation of the Church from the state". NOT "total separation of the state from the Church." If anything, it seems, by that line, that he was more concerned about keeping the church out of the government.
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"Nature has constituted utility to man the standard and test of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful and consequently virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced" - Thomas Jefferson, moral relativist