Dusting off the Blaine Amendment: Two Challenges to Missouri's Anti-Establishment Tradition

Using broad strokes to paint the rights and protections granted therein, the free exercise and the establishment clauses stand as dual monuments to the great-American experiment in separating the State and the sacred., Their sparse language is contrasted by comparatively specific manifestations of similar interests in the state constitutions. Echoing their federal counterpart, the state constitutions commonly command that the state may not fund religiously affiliated educational institutions. No fewer than thirty-eight states, including Missouri, adopted a so-called "Blaine Amendment," which prevent states from supporting sectarian or religious schools. Employing more detail than its federal counterpart, Missouri's constitution made explicit the separation of church and state in funding religious education.