Chief Justice William Rehnquist on Separation of Church and State

Chief Justice William Rehnquist (1924-2005) has said:

It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of Constitutional history... The establishment clause had been expressly freighted with Jefferson's misleading metaphor for nearly forty years...

There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the framers intended to build a wall of separation (between the Church and state) ... The recent court decisions are in no way based on either the language or intent of the framers...