In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Connecticut Danbury Baptist Association. In this letter he stated that "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." Though the idea of the separation of church and state was not new by this time, historians believe this letter was the first to coin the phrase.
