Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Equal laws protecting equal rights…the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.

Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.

In framing a system, which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce.

If men were angels, there would be no need of government.

No distinction seems to be more obvious than that between spiritual and temporal matters. Yet whenever they have been made objects of Legislation, they have clashed and contended with each other, till one or the other has gained the supremacy.

There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermingle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation.