Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the State forever separate.

Grant’s line comes from a major post-presidential address delivered during the Reconstruction era, when public schooling, immigration, and the role of religion in civic life were hotly contested. In the mid-1870s, debates over public funding for sectarian (especially Catholic) schools and over Bible reading in public schools helped spur “Blaine Amendment” proposals to bar public aid to religious institutions. Grant, speaking to a large veterans’ gathering, urged a strong separation of church and state and argued that religious instruction should be handled by families, churches, and privately supported schools rather than by government.

The quotation frames religious formation as a private and voluntary sphere, contrasting it with the state’s responsibility to provide civic education without sectarian control. Grant’s emphasis on “private contributions” reflects a fear that public money for religious schooling would entangle government with denominational competition and undermine equal citizenship. The closing imperative—“Keep the church and the State forever separate”—casts separation not merely as a constitutional technicality but as a safeguard for both institutions: the state avoids religious faction, and religion avoids political corruption. In context, the statement also functions as an argument for a common public school system insulated from sectarian influence.