The real object of the [First Amendment] was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833, para.1871.
