All sorts of people spend an inordinate amount of time and effort, trying to convince present-day Americans, that the foundation of our country was always based upon the separation of Church and State. While there is some truth to this statement, the statement in of itself, is deceitful, as the first Amendment to our Constitution makes it quite clear, that this so-called separation is in reality, a mandate that the Government at the highest level, will not now, nor never, ever establish a State-sanctioned Church to the exclusion of all other denominations of churches. This in substance means that rather than their being a separation of Church and State in America, that instead that the State sanctions the free exercise of religion in America, and will not interfere with it.
The main reason that the Church has been separated from the State in our national Government, is the fact, that the colonies as originally constructed all had State-sponsored religions, in which, for instance, the States of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and New York, had at one time, the Anglican Church as their established church in their State. The Anglican Church is also known as the Church of England, and the Church of England is the established Church of the country, England, to which, the head of that Church, is at the present time the Queen of England, but at the time of our revolution, it was King George III, the very monarch that our Declaration of Independence railed against as a tyrant.
Therefore, it then follows, at the time of the American uprising against England, that those that lived in States, such as our most populous State Virginia, which was the home of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and James Madison, could not at that time, nor in the future, both rebel against their motherland, England, yet on a spiritual level, be loyal to the Anglican church which was the established Church of England. Consequently, this meant that our rebellion was a rebellion against both church and State, with the important caveat being that the rebellion against the Church was a rebellion against the established Church, the Anglican Church and its representatives, which could not be allowed to be established in our free land as the arbiter of our liberty, freedom, and our pursuit of happiness.
Consequently, upon the founding of the United States of America, no Church was established at the national government sanctioned level to be the one church that all would have to worship and pay tribute to. Instead, in America, its citizens were given the established right to worship as their consciences deemed fit, without government intrusion upon their faith. This did not mean, however, that the State had no interest in religion, was opposed to religion, or was constitutionally set against religion for its people. It meant, instead, that the State would not favor one religion to the exclusion of all others, while recognizing through its laws, through its interactions, and through its affairs, that its faith in a Higher Power, our Creator, was the very foundation of all our freedoms, and that these rights were unalienable and given to use freely by the very hand of God.