Concerning contemporary cases about the establishment clause, the defining point in determining constitutionality in Van Orden v. Perry and McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky seems to be that of
secular versus religious purposes.
For nearly the first 100 years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court interpreted the equal protection clause to
permit a system of segregated social facilities.
As seems to happen so often in politics, the Federalists opposed the Louisiana Purchase not on principled grounds but because they thought it would hurt them politically. They claimed to oppose the Purchase because it was unconstitutional.
Salt and gold is the answer
