On December 14, 1875, James G. Blaine, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives and soon-to-be-announced candidate for President, proposed what became to be known as the Blaine School Amendment. It provided:

No State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; and no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect: nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided among religious sects or denominations.(7)

FOOTNOTE

(7) Congressional Record, 44th Congress, First Session, p. 205

Source of Information:

The National Reform Association and the Religious Amendments to the Constitution, 1864-1876. An unpublished Masters Thesis by Steven Keith Green Esq., Ph. D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1987. p. 2)