<P> In the twentieth century, the Supreme Court more closely scrutinized government activity involving religious institutions . In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), the Supreme Court upheld a New Jersey statute funding student transportation to schools, whether parochial or not . Justice Hugo Black held, </P> <P> The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government can set up a church . Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another . Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion . No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance . No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion . Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa . In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and State ." </P> <P> The New Jersey law was upheld, for it applied "to all its citizens without regard to their religious belief ." After Everson, lawsuits in several states sought to disentangle public monies from religious teaching, the leading case being the 1951 Dixon School Case out of New Mexico . </P> <P> The Jefferson quotation cited in Black's opinion is from a letter Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, that there should be "a wall of separation between church and state ." Critics of Black's reasoning (most notably, former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist) have argued that the majority of states did have "official" churches at the time of the First Amendment's adoption and that James Madison, not Jefferson, was the principal drafter . However, Madison himself often wrote of "perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters" (1822 letter to Livingston), which means the authority of the church (that which comes from the church) is decided by church authority, and that which is decided in civil government is decided by civil authorities; neither may decree law or policy in each other's realm . Another description reads: "line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority...entire abstinence of the government" (1832 letter Rev. Adams), and "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States" (1811 letter to Baptist Churches). </P>

When was the establishment clause added to the first amendment