Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
The Constitution successfully kept religious institutions separate from government power.
In plain terms
Church and state are kept apart by the Constitution.
What can you take from it?
Separation of church and state protects liberty.

Where it applies

  • constitutional law
  • religious freedom debate
  • civil rights

Putting it to work

  • defend secular laws
  • teach constitution
  • protect minority faiths

Questions to consider

  • Is total separation possible?
  • How does religion influence politics?

Another view

Complete separation is often debated in modern policy.

More from James K. Polk

  1. The passion for office among members of Congress is very great, if not absolutely disreputable, and greatly embarrasses the operations of the government. They …

    Permalink to quote #7
  2. There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress, as well as others, than I had any conception [of], before I became President of the U.S.

    Permalink to quote #9
  3. It becomes us, in humility, to make our devout acknowledgments to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, for the inestimable civil and religious blessings with whi…

    Permalink to quote #6

Related quotes

  1. While I concur with the Synod in the efficacy of prayer, and in the hope that our country may be preserved from the attacks of pestilence 'and that the judgmen…

    Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson quote #8
  2. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting 'Jesus Chris…

    Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson quote #118
  3. We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the…

    Charles Evans HughesCharles Evans Hughes quote #1