Church-And-State Trends

Throughout US History what were the trends in the separation between church and state?
What were the main causes of these trends? Since the very beginnings of American History, the American people have set a strong primacy on separation between Church and State. As evident in one of the first set of laws protecting the individual citizen from its governing body, the Bill of Rights, and more specifically the First Amendment. James Madison, writer of the constitution, conveys the ideology that the government sets a strong standard that no man should have any power over another due to the faith they choose by writing “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (National Archives).
In addition to believing that separatism was just implied colonized religion still existed well past the ratification of the constitution. In particular while the constitution was being written Patrick Henry, of the notable “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech, argued in a 1784 proposed bill that the government should be more like the “teachers of the christian religion” and while his attempt to further John Winthrop’s idea of a “City on a Hill” at a Federal level many states still strived to be a model Christian society. For example “in 1777, New York State’s constitution banned Catholics from public office”(Davis) it was not till 1806 that this law was repealed. In other states like Maryland, which was a notable Catholic state before independence from England, Catholics had complete civil rights (public office included), but the Jews that had immigrated to also seek religious freedom did not. In Delaware’s constitution it was required to swear affirmation of the authenticity of the Holy Trinity (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit according to the church.) Religion being imposed at a state level not only secularized states into miniature conformist societies but also turned minorities, like the Jews in Delaware, into
In 1861, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing wrote printed the words “In God We Trust” as an effort to increase religious sentiment to the arduous Civil War. Furthermore, the common saying that later caught fire during war time, accredited to a Rev. M. R. Watkinson in a letter written to the Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, actually proposing the words “God, Liberty, Law” (History of 'In God We Trust) because of his belief that America’s greatest “national shame (was) disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters” (HO’IGWT’). In addition to Chase’s approval he also proposed that the mint actually say “OUR COUNTRY; OUR GOD or GOD, OUR TRUST” because apparently “no nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins” (Chase). Congressional supervision later changed that motto to the common “In God We Trust” we see on the back of all mint coins today. Particularly, the significance in the most common saying in all of American History should truly be noted as a means to remind American Soldiers of their morality during wartime hysteria. Giving men a sense of false hope during the war. What many fail to realize in saying “In God We Trust” is that the trust in Abraham Lincoln during the civil war was so low that many Americans looked