IntroductionThe separation of church and state is a topic addressed by the Supreme Court for the past 150 years. Our country's religious freedoms and how they are interpreted have been debated by both sides with reasonable arguments. The founders of our federal government established a set of guidelines for a free and prosperous society. One of the most controversial provisions of our Constitution's First Amendment, that no law shall condone any religion or prohibit citizens from exercising their religious rights, has been part of a national debate since the first session of Congress. Can you blatantly ignore a religion and ensure they receive no government funding for their schools because of their religious status? Is it constitutional to ignore drug laws because it is a person's religious belief to use them in their practice? In this essay, I will show through Framer articles, early policy debates, and various Supreme Court cases, why the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause were inserted into the Constitution in order to "build a wall of eternal separation between Church and State. BackgroundTo understand what the framers of the Constitution considered an appropriate relationship between a government and a religious institution, we must first examine their own writings and speeches to understand what their beliefs on this issue had been. It is true that, like most issues brought to the table at the Constitutional Convention, the question of religion in government was a subject of extensive debate among the framers. There is no doubt that the battle to structure the separation issue ended when the Constitutional Convention closed its doors. ...... middle of paper ......eacon Press, 1951.McConnell, Michael M. "The Origins and Historical Understanding of the Free Exercise of Religion." Harvard Law Review. 103.7 (1990): 1409-1517. Powell, Jefferson H. “The Original Understanding of Original Intent.” Harvard Law Review Vol. 98, No. 5 (March 1985), pp. 885-948. Cambridge: The Harvard Law Review Association. Reynolds v. US, 98 US 145 (1878) 98 US 145Rossiter, Clinton. 1787: The Great Convention. 1st ed. New York: Macmillan, 1966. Print. Seixas, Moses and George Washington. “To intolerance without sanction.” American Treasures from the Library of Congress. Library of Congress, July 27, 2010. Web. February 14, 2012. .Sherbert v. Verner, 374 US 398 (1963) Sofaer, Abraham D. “The Presidency, War, and Foreign Affairs: Practice Under the Editor.” Law and contemporary problems. 40.2 (1976): 12-36.