<Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> "(A) hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world ." </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> <P> Article Six of the United States Constitution also specifies that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States ." </P> <P> Jefferson's metaphor of a wall of separation has been cited repeatedly by the U.S. Supreme Court . In Reynolds v. United States (1879) the Court wrote that Jefferson's comments "may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the (First) Amendment ." In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Justice Hugo Black wrote: "In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state ." </P> <P> In contrast to separationism, the Supreme Court of the United States in Zorach v. Clauson upheld accommodationism, holding that the nation's "institutions presuppose a Supreme Being" and that government recognition of God does not constitute the establishment of a state church as the Constitution's authors intended to prohibit . As such, the Court has not always interpreted the constitutional principle as absolute, and the proper extent of separation between government and religion in the U.S. remains an ongoing subject of impassioned debate . </P>

Who wrote that he hoped to erect a wall of separation between church and state