There is an article about Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists (of which Mr. Hitchens is quite rightfully fond) by James Hutson, chief of the Manuscript Division of The Library of Congress. That recounts the restoration of the original
letter by the laboratories of the FBI to find what was behind the seven of 25 crossed out lines.

The article mentions that he intended to have broader implications involving not proclaiming fastings and thanksgivings as his predecessors did. After the initial drafting he was approached and advised to revise it's content by Levi Lincoln. He obviously adhered to the advise, presumably for the sake of making a more widely acceptable political statement that is very arguably in even more in threat today, than at the time of its drafting.

Now just shy of 205 years into the future, we have a presidential candidate who seems to respect the wall of separation guaranteed in that letter merely as something he can hide behind. Going further and proclaiming reasonable questions about some of the eccentricities of his faith in regard to respecting that wall are "Un-American" as well as that "fact" being somehow amplified because it is around the time of Thanksgiving.

Mr. Jefferson, build up that wall!

(the article can be found at the official website for The Library of Congress at <link>

whoops, 206, I couldn't figure out how to edit my own post on these forums.

alexc,

The link does go to the library site--but gives a page not found error. Is this what you intended with the link?

Regarding editing--I can't figure it out either!

I just double checked the link and it its fine, I have no idea why it
isn't working through these forums, it automatically changed the text to <link> when i posted the specific url, and hovering over the link gives the exact same url as well. I have no idea what the problem is, but the same article shows up as the second result if you do a google search for danbury baptists.

I liked this:

The Supreme Court turned the spotlight on the "wall of separation" phrase in 1878 by declaring in Reynolds v. United States "that it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the [first] amendment."

Seems that those conservatives who claim that judicial activism and the drift away from "strict constructionism" started with the Warren Court in the 60's might be wrong.

BTW, I found the article by typing in "danbury baptist" in the search field at the "page not found" page from your link.