Santorum has been trying to rebuild his political career since being unseated by Bob Casey (D-PA) in 2006. And while he may not catch fire on the campaign trail, Santorum’s bombast in Boston is certainly part of an escalating war of attrition against the principle of separation — and it may be a bellwether for what we might anticipate in the run-up to the 2012 presidential campaign.

The coming battle may very well turn on the details of American history, as we shall see. But in the meantime, let’s return to the beginning of our story.

The Boston Globe reported

“In remarks to about 50 members of the group Catholic Citizenship — which encourages parishioners to speak out on issues of public policy — Santorum decried what he called the growing secularization of American public life.

He traced the problem to Kennedy’s 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which Kennedy – then a candidate for president – sought to allay concerns about his Catholicism by declaring, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

Santorum, who is Catholic, said he was “frankly appalled” by Kennedy’s remark.

“That was a radical statement,” Santorum said, and it did “great damage.”

Unsurprisingly, Santorum has been a hero to the Catholic Right. According to a 2005 profile in National Catholic Reporter:

“To us, he’s the preeminent Catholic politician in America,” says Austin Ruse, president of the Culture of Life Foundation, a Washington-based pro-life group. The “us” Ruse refers to are conservative Catholics, loyal to the magisterium, to this pope and his predecessor. “He’s a living, breathing, daily communicant who’s in the Senate leadership so all of us know that the things that we care about are discussed at the highest levels of the U.S. government,” says Ruse.

If Santorum’s Massachusetts appearance is any indication, he is positioning himself as the anti-Kennedy and the epitome of the new Catholic pol. To better appreciate how this is so, note that his remarks are rooted in a little-noticed address he gave last fall in Houston (the text of which is featured on the web site of the neo-conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center.) The event was evidently positioned as an answer John F. Kennedy’s historic speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in which he declared that as president he would not take orders from the Pope and that he respected the doctrine of separation.

Santorum is deeply steeped in revisionist history. But let’s focus on just one of his claims.

The phrase “wall of separation”… comes from a letter written by a founder who didn’t even attend the constitutional convention, Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson’s famous phrase has long stood in the way of the ambitions of the theocratically inclined because the Supreme Court has found it to be useful in explaining the meaning of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. That’s why the Religious Right expends so much energy attempting to invalidate it.

Part of Santorum’s line of attack is to undermine the significance of the phrase by highlighting the fact that Jefferson was not present when the First Amendment was written. While it is true that Jefferson was not around when the First Amendment was written, it is also true that his role as a key architect of our Constitutional approach to the relationship between religion and government is very well-supported by history. Because this is so, facts are being selectively distorted in order to sustain a counter narrative of American history favorable to key elements of the Religious Right. Here is how I addressed the ‘Jefferson wasn’t there’ meme in my 1997 book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy:

One Christian Right leader, John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, wrote an influential book, The Separation Illusion, [1977] in which he attack’s Thomas Jefferson’s notion of the separation of church and state as the key phrase grounding the Supreme Court’s understanding of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Whitehead claims that Jefferson’s views are irrelevant because Jefferson was not present when the First Amendment was written. Christian Right activist David Barton makes the same point in his book The Myth of Separation: What is the Correct Relationship Between Church and State? [1992]

While it is true that Jefferson was, at the time, President Washington’s Ambassador to France and was not personally present for the drafting of the Constitution and the First Amendment, his influence is generally acknowledged by historians. In fact, the preponderance of evidence demonstrates the centrality of Jefferson’s views in shaping the framer’s views of the proper relations between religion and government. In 1777, Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom which was ultimately pushed through the Virginia legislature by his close colleague, then-Governor James Madison, in 1786. This law provided the theoretical basis for the First Amendment. Jefferson believed that it was, along with the authoring of the Declaration of Independence and founding the University of Virginia, one of his most important accomplishments. Madison, in turn, is generally credited with being the principal author of both the Constitution and the First Amendment.

Historical distortions are a key ingredient in the success of the Christian Right to date. This effort to somehow discredit the historical relevance of Jefferson is part of a larger effort to revise American history to suit their contemporary religious and political objectives ….

There are many deceptive propaganda ploys such as Whitehead’s to fire up the prospective constituencies of the Christian Right. They are often difficult to address, not only because they can be such a tangle of lies and distortions, but because few outside of their primary intended audience pay much attention. The effect of all this is the systematic alienation of conservative Christians from mainstream society and the creation of a counterculture which believes that somehow “the truth” has been kept from them through various conspiracies.

If we follow Santorum’s logic, John F. Kennedy’s views on separation are invalid because Jefferson’s views are invalid because Jefferson was not personally present when the Madison authored the Constitution and when Congress passed the First Amendment.

Whatever else we hear on such things from Santorum, we can reasonably expect to hear many more such things in the not to distant future from Religious Rightists and the pols who pander to them. (John McCain did it last time.)

[Crossposted from Talk to Action]

One wonders if Congressman Paul, or any of the Tea Partiers running on such a platform actually bothered to read the Constitution, or whether they just purchased worn, dog-eared copies to convey that impression.

The first power granted to Congress in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, definitively dispels their belief.  Unlike the third power, the “Commerce Clause” that has been the subject of two centuries of Supreme Court interpretation to determine what is interstate commerce is in a growing, changing and increasingly integrated economy, Congress’s first power requires no such midwifery.

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

The first 14 words grant Congress the power to raise money—the 16^th Amendment added “income tax” to the means (Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises) allowed to raise money.

The next 17 words, “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”, specify what the money raised is to be used for.

Most simply stated, Clause 1 grants Congress the power to raise money to pay the debts and spend on the common defense AND the general welfare.

Common defense.  General welfare.  Where did we hear those phrases before?  They were part of the mission statement of the United States of America, as set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution. 

The general welfare.   There is no adjective or adverb qualifying that authority.  Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution grants the United States government the unqualified and unlimited power to raise and spend money, for example, to:  provide healthcare for the elderly (or for everyone); provide old-age pension; build roads, bridges, train tracks, airports, electric grids, libraries, swimming pools, housing; educate our children, re-train the unemployed, provide pre-school and day care; fund public health projects; invest in and conduct basic research; provide subsidies for agriculture; save the auto industry; create internets; and, yes, Tea Party Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), even provide emergency aid from natural disasters, and so forth.  All subsumed under the authority to spend for the general welfare.

And, of course, the 18th power under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is by its own wording combined with each and every power in the Constitution: 

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Otherwise known as the “necessary and proper clause”, the 18^th power makes it as clear as the Supreme Court Justice’s financial disclosure rules that the Congress has the authority to enact any law to spend money in pursuit of the general welfare.

That that authority to raise and spend money for the general welfare is broad, deep and unqualified, does not, of course, compel that it be exercised.  But, the authority to do so is emblazoned right smack dab as the first of all the powers of Congress.

What about the 10^th Amendment, reserving powers not granted to the Federal Government to the States or its citizens?  For a specifically stated Article 1 power, the 10^th Amendment is irrelevant.  That power has been granted.  The “necessary and proper clause” provides additional authority to make all Laws to execute the granted powers.  One does not even need to address the history of this Amendment and the decision NOT to include the word “expressly”.

Anyone, of course, can argue the wisdom of this or that expenditure.  But, the authority to do so was conveyed by the States and its individual citizens when they ratified the Constitution.

It is not, oh Tea Partiers, “tyranny” or a “usurpation” to exercise that authority.

Perhaps you are sorry they did that.  But they did.  In the Constitution of the United States of America, dog-eared or not.

After all, what’s a Founding Father to do?