Catapulted into the headines with the recent Supreme Court decision in Carson v. Makin, the Establishment Clause, or the doctrine of separating the church from the state, remains a misunderstood revision of its historical applications. The Makin decision returned the original understanding of the doctrine, distorted by the secular Klansmen judicial activist, Hugo Black, in 1947. But where did this doctrine originate, and how was it understood before the disastrous Everson decision?