Jefferson, Wine, and the Wall of Separation

Jefferson, Wine, and the Wall of Separation

Many people know Thomas Jefferson's phrase about a "wall of separation between church and state." Fewer know how that phrase entered constitutional law. It's a curious story, which I discuss in a new Legal Spirits podcast with historians Don and Lisa Drakeman. The story begins with Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists, written to reassure them that he shared their view of church-state relations. In that letter, Jefferson wrote that th…