Scholars and popular authors alike regularly assert that nine of America’s first thirteen states had established churches. But, as one writer puts it, the “framers of the Bill of Rights hoped that the First Amendment would encourage other states to follow Virginia’s example and establish the complete separation between religious and civil authorities.” When Massachusetts disestablished its state church in 1833, so the story goes, this noble project was complete.
While common, this account is profoundly misleading. Those who tell it neglect to define “establishment,” ignore pre-English colonial establishments, and do not consider states formed after the Constitution was ratified. Most significantly for the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence, it exaggerates the influence of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and debates about church-state relations in Virginia.
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