A Wall of
Separation
“Believing with you that
religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes
account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers
of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with
sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that
their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation
between Church and State.”
--Letter to the Danbury
Baptists, January 1, 1802
The
Powers of Government
“I consider the government
of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with
religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline or exercises...I do not
believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to
direct its exercises, its discipline, its doctrines, nor of the religious
societies that the general government should be invested with the power of
effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and praying are
religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious
society has the right to determine for itself the times for these exercise and
the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets, and this
right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has
deposited it.”
--Letter to Rev. Samuel
Miller, January 23, 1808
Presidential
Authority and Religion
“[E]very one must act
according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil
powers alone have been given to the President of the U.S. and no authority to
direct the religious exercises of his constituents.”
--Letter to Rev. Samuel
Miller, January 23, 1808
Ending
Religious Intolerance
“I never will, by any word
or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the
religious opinions of others.... We ought with one heart and one hand to hew
down the daring and dangerous efforts of those who would seduce the public
opinion to substitute itself into that tyranny over religious faith which the
laws have so justly abdicated.”
--Letter to Edward Dowse,
April 19, 1803
The
Inquisition of Public Opinion
“Our laws have applied the
only antidote to [religious intolerance], protecting our religious, as they do
our civil, rights by putting all on equal footing. But more remains to be done,
for although we are free by the law, we are not so in practice. Public opinion
erects itself into an inquisition, and exercises its office with as much
fanaticism as fans the flames of an Auto-da-fé.”
--Letter to Mordecai Noah,
May 28, 1818 (an Auto-da-fé is the public burning of a heretic)
The
Reciprocal Right of Choosing
“From the dissensions among
Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of
deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must
allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious
liberty.”
--Notes on Religion, 1776
Sinful
and Tyrannical
“[T]o compel a man to
furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he
disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support
this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the
comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose
morals he would make his pattern...”
--Jefferson’s “Virginia Act
for Establishing Religious Freedom,” Adopted January 1786
Civil
Rights and Religion
“Our civil rights have no
dependence on our religious opinions...therefore the proscribing any citizen as
unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called
to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or
that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and
advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right.”
--Jefferson’s “Virginia Act
for Establishing Religious Freedom,” Adopted January 1786
Friends
of Religious Freedom
“In reviewing the history
of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater
satisfaction, on reflection, than that which presents the efforts of the
friends of religious freedom, and the success with which they were crowned. We have
solved by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom
of religion is compatible with order in government, and obedience to the laws.
And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from
leaving everyone to profess freely and openly those principles of religion
which are the inductions of his own reason, and the serious convictions of his
own inquiries.”
--Letter to the Six Baptist
Associations Represented at Chesterfield, Virginia, November 21, 1808
Sworn
Upon the Altar of God
“[The pro-establishment
clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in
opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon
the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind
of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their
opinion.”
--Letter to Dr. Benjamin
Rush, September 23, 1800
Preachers,
Pulpits and Politics
“I suppose there is not an
instance of a single congregation which has employed their preacher for the
mixed purposes of lecturing them from the pulpit in... principles of
Government or in anything but religion exclusively. Whenever, therefore,
preachers instead of a lesson in religion [discuss]...the construction of
government or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a
breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which
they are salaried.”
--Letter to P.H. Wendover,
March 13, 1815 (Unsent)
On
Choosing a Pastor
“In choosing our pastor we
look to his religious qualifications, without inquiring into his physical or
political dogmas, with which we mean to have nothing to do.”
--Letter to P.H. Wendover,
March 13, 1815 (Unsent)
Religious
Hostility in the New World
“The poor Quakers were
flying from persecution in England. They cast their eyes on these new countries
as asylums of civil and religious freedom; but they found them free only for
the reigning sect.”
--Notes on the State of
Virginia, 1781-1785
Religious
Diversity
“Difference of opinion is
advantageous in religion.... Let us reflect that [the world] is inhabited by a
thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different
systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand.”
--Notes on the State of
Virginia, 1781 – 1785
It Does
Me No Injury
“The legitimate powers of
government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me
no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither
picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
--Notes on the State of
Virginia, 1781 – 1785
The Most
Inalienable and Sacred Right
“The constitutional freedom
of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.”
--Address to the University
of Virginia Board of Visitors Reprinted October 7, 1822
Equality
in the Eyes of Government
“I am for freedom of
religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one
sect over another.”
--Letter to Elbridge Gerry,
January 26, 1799
The
Example of History
“History, I believe,
furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil
government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their civil as
well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
--Letter to Alexander von
Humboldt, December 6, 1813
Provided for by American's United. http://www.au.org/files/images/page_photos/with-sovereign-reverence.pdf
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