ABSTRACT
Many changes that took place in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century and continuing throughout the twentieth century have significantly influenced the circuitous route taken by the serpentine wall. The subject that attracted most of the increased and expanded attention of the Supreme Court in the early twentieth century was the question of the proper relationship between religion and public education. The rest of this chapter focuses on other issues and incidents concerning church and state in the twentieth century, not specifically or primarily determined by decisions of the Supreme Court. The increased diversity of religious beliefs in the military brings more theoretical or philosophical questions about possible conflicts between having publicly supported chaplains in the military with the establishment clause of the First Amendment into much sharper focus. Religion played a major role in the presidential election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
