Winning the Future

A 21st Century Contract with America

By Newt Gingrich

Jefferson’s phrase “Wall of Separation” from a letter of 1802 lay totally unnoticed until it was cited by the Supreme Court in 1879 in Reynolds v. United States in a mistaken transcription of Jefferson’s original letter; the focus in 1879 was not on “separation” but on the term “legislative powers” (which the transcriber had written instead of Jefferson’s original clearly formed handwriting “legitimate power”). The metaphor otherwise lay unused and virtually unknown until Justice Black drew it from obscurity in 1947 (still using the erroneous translation.)

(Gingrich 2005, 65)

At a White House dinner during the war, the clergyman who gave the benediction closed with a thought: “The Lord is on the Union’s side.” Lincoln responded with this sharp rebuke:

“I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”