(HisFriend) wrote:
:|The establishment clause was adopted by a religious group that were
:|concerned about a state church telling them how they had to worship,
:|which makes since after the English church pressed upon them in
:|England.
I see you are living up to your reputation as a liar.
SOME FACTS:
They separated church and state because:
(1) "The remaining part of the clause declares, that 'no religious test
shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust,
under the United States.' This clause is not introduced merely for the
purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an
invincible repugnance to any test or affirmation. It had a higher object;
to cut off for ever every pretence of any alliance between church and
state in the national government. The framers of the constitution were
fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in history of
other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew,
that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its own stratagems, to secure to
itself an exclusive ascendancy over the human mind; and that intolerance
was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of civil power to
exterminate those, who doubted its dogmas, or resisted its infallibility."
(COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED
STATES, by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Vol III, (1833) pg 705)
(2) JUNE 3, 1811
"To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I
have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the
Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem
Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical
distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the
purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States,
I could not have other wise discharged my duty on the
occasion which presented itself"
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June
3, 1811. Letters And Other Writings of James Madison Fourth President Of
The United States In Four Volumes Published By the Order Of Congress,
Vol..II, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, (1865) pp 511-512)
-----------------------------------------------------------
MARCH 2, 1819
"The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated
hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions
with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of
the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly
increased by the total separation of the church from the State."
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Excert of a letter to Robert Walsh from James
Madison. MARCH 2, 1819 Letters and Other writings of James Madison, in
Four Volumes, Published by Order of Congress. VOL. III, J. B. Lippincott &
Co. Philadelphia, (1865), pp 121-126. James Madison on Religious Liberty,
Robert S.Alley, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y. (1985) pp 82-83)
----------------------------------------------------------
1817-1833
"Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and Gov't in the
Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by
Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents' already furnished
in their short history"
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Excerpt from Madison's Detached Memoranda. This
document was discovered in 1946 among the papers of William Cabell Rives, a
biographer of Madison. Scholars date these observations in Madison's hand
sometime between 1817 and 1832. The entire document was published by
Elizabeth Fleet in the William and Mary Quarterly of October 1946.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
JULY 10, 1822
"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation
between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have
no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done,
in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity
the less they are mixed together"
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Excerpt of letter to Edward Livingston from James
Madison, July 10, 1822. Letters and Other writings of James Madison, in
Four Volumes, Published by Order of Congress. VOL. III, J. B. Lippincott &
Co. Philadelphia, (1865), pp 273-276. James Madison on Religious Liberty,
Robert S.Alley, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y. (1985) pp 82-83)
--------------------------------------------------------------
SEPTEMBER 1833
"I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to
trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil
authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on
unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other
or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded
against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way
whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting
each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others".
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Letter written by James Madison to Rev. Jasper
Adams, September, 1833.Writings of James Madison, edited by Gaillard Hunt,
[not sure what the volume number is but have enough information presented
here to locate the letter] microform Z1236.L53, pp 484-488. )
*********************************************************************
(3) 3. Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our
liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens,
and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men
of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by
exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the
consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying
the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it.
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity,
in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any
particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the
same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of
his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to
conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?
4. Because the Bill violates the equality which ought to be the basis of
every law, and which is more indispensable, in proportion as the validity
or expediency of any law is more liable to be impeached. If "all men are by
nature equally free and independent," all men are to be considered as
entering into Society on equal conditions; as relinquishing no more, and
therefore retaining no less, one than another, of their natural rights.
Above all are they to be considered as retaining an "equal title to the
free exercise of Religion according to the dictates of Conscience." Whilst
we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the
Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal
freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has
convinced us.
If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man:
To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered. As the
Bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it
violates the same principle, by granting to others peculiar exemptions. Are
the quakers and Menonists the only sects who think a compulsive support of
their Religions unnecessary and unwarrantable? can their piety alone be
entrusted with the care of public worship? Ought their Religions to be
endowed above all others with extraordinary privileges by which proselytes
may be enticed from all others?
We think too favorably of the justice and good sense of these denominations
to believe that they either covet pre-eminences over their fellow citizens
or that they will be seduced by them from the common opposition to the
measure.
5. Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent
Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of
Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the
contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the
second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.
6. Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the
support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to
the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence
on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known
that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the
support of human laws , but in spite of every opposition from them, and not
only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left
to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence.
Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human
policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established
by human policy. It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this
Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of
its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that
its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own
merits.
7. Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments,
instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a
contrary operation.
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity
been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride
and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both,
superstition, bigotry and persecution. Enquire of the Teachers of
Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest luster;
those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with
Civil policy.
Propose a restoration of this primitive State in which its Teachers
depended on the voluntary rewards of their flocks, many of them predict its
downfall. On which Side ought their testimony to have greatest weight, when
for or when against their interest?
8. Because the establishment in question is not necessary for the support
of Civil Government. If it be urged as necessary for the support of Civil
Government only as it is a means of supporting Religion, and it be not
necessary for the latter purpose, it cannot be necessary for the former. If
Religion be not within the cognizance of Civil Government how can its legal
establishment be necessary to Civil Government? What influence in fact have
ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society?
In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the
ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen
upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been
seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to
subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient
auxiliaries.
A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not. Such
a Government will be best supported by protecting every Citizen in the
enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his
person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect,
nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another.
9. Because the proposed establishment is a departure from the generous
policy, which, offering an Asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every
Nation and Religion, promised a luster to our country, and an accession to
the number of its citizens. What a melancholy mark is the Bill of sudden
degeneracy? Instead of holding forth an Asylum to the persecuted, it is
itself a signal of persecution.
It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those who see opinions in
Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it
may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in
degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of
intolerance. The magnanimous sufferer under this cruel scourge in foreign
Regions, must view the Bill as a Beacon on our Coast, warning him to seek
some other haven, where liberty and philanthrophy in their due extent, may
offer a more certain repose from his Troubles.
SOURCE: James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance
(4) "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 every one 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." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to
Virginia Baptists, 1808. ME 16:320
"The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and
sacred of all human rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors
Minutes, 1819. ME 19:416
"Among the most inestimable of our blessings, also, is that... of
liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His
will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government
and yet proved by our experience to be its best support." --Thomas
Jefferson: Reply to John Thomas et al., 1807. ME 16:291
"In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail
to become a primary object." --Thomas Jefferson to Baltimore Baptists,
1808. ME 16:317
"Religion, as well as reason, confirms the soundness of those
principles on which our government has been founded and its rights
asserted." --Thomas Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:283
"One of the amendments to the Constitution... expressly declares that
'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press,' thereby guarding in the same sentence and under the same
words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press; insomuch that
whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the
others." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:382
"The rights [to religious freedom] are of the natural rights of
mankind, and... if any act shall be... passed to repeal [an act granting
those rights] or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement
of natural right." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779.
(*) ME 2:303, Papers 2:546
The Private Nature of Religion
"I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our
consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests."
--Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, 1816. ME 15:60
"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." --Thomas Jefferson:
Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:545
"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously
reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker
in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle."
--Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813.
"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." --Thomas
Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803. ME 10:378
"Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability
to God alone. I inquire after no man's, and trouble none with mine."
--Thomas Jefferson to Miles King, 1814. ME 14:198
Government Intermeddling in Religion
"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the
Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their
doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results no
only from the
provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free
exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the
powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe
any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has
been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the
states, as far as it can be in any human authority." --Thomas Jefferson to
Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428
"In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is
placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general
government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the
religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution
found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church
authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies." --Thomas
Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378
"Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under
the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these
should consider a conquest over the consciences of men either attainable or
applicable to any desirable purpose." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to New
London Methodists, 1809. ME 16:332
"I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the
civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or 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 prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them, an
act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for
itself the times for these exercises 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... Everyone
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 United
States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his
constituents." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:429
"To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of
opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on
supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once
destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that
tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn
the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his
own." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302,
Papers 2: 546
"It is... proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe, a day of
fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the United
States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has
directly precluded them from. It must be meant, too, that this
recommendation is to carry some authority and to be sanctioned by some
penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but
of some degree of proscription, perhaps in public opinion. And does the
change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation less a law of
conduct for those to whom it is directed?... Civil powers alone have been
given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the
religious exercises of his constituents." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel
Miller, 1808. ME 11:428
Religion Intermeddling in Government
"Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their
congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical
affinities, on 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, and giving
them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather
seek from better sources in that particular art of science." --Thomas
Jefferson to P. H. Wendover, 1815. ME 14:281
"Ministers of the Gospel are excluded [from serving as Visitors of the
county Elementary Schools] to avoid jealousy from the other sects, were the
public education committed to the ministers of a particular one; and with
more reason than in the case of their exclusion from the legislative and
executive functions." --Thomas Jefferson: Note to Elementary School Act,
1817. ME 17:419
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or
practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any
religious sect or denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act,
1817. ME 17:425
"I do not know that it is a duty to disturb by missionaries the
religion and peace of other countries, who may think themselves bound to
extinguish by fire and fagot the heresies to which we give the name of
conversions, and quote our own example for it. Were the Pope, or his holy
allies, to send in mission to us some thousands of Jesuit priests to
convert us to their orthodoxy, I suspect that we should deem and treat it
as a national aggression on our peace and faith." --Thomas Jefferson to
Michael Megear, 1823. ME 15:434
Establishments of Religion Undermine Rights
"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted
into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against
the civil and religious rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah
Moor, 1800.
"The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the
clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and
simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most
friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind."
--Thomas Jefferson to Moses Robinson, 1801. ME 10:237
"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the
Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who
professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for
enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1810. ME 12:345
"[If] the nature of... government [were] a subordination of the civil
to the ecclesiastical power, I [would] consider it as desperate for long
years to come. Their steady habits [will] exclude the advances of
information, and they [will] seem exactly where they [have always been].
And there [the] clergy will always keep them if they can. [They] will
follow the bark of liberty only by the help of a tow-rope." --Thomas
Jefferson to Pierrepont Edwards, July 1801. (*)
"This doctrine ['that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that
what has been must ever be, and that to secure ourselves where we are we
must tread with awful reverence in the footsteps of our fathers'] is the
genuine fruit of the alliance between Church and State, the tenants of
which finding themselves but too well in their present condition, oppose
all advances which might unmask their usurpations and monopolies of honors,
wealth and power, and fear every change as endangering the comforts they
now hold." --Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818.
"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about
a legal ascendency of one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson to
Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78
"The advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor
forgiveness from [the clergy]." --Thomas Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, 1802.
ME 10:305
"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as
President] 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." --Thomas Jefferson to
Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173
"Believing... 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 legitimate 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."
--Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281
"I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of
America, a fact like this [i.e., the purchase of an apparent geological or
astronomical work] can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry
too, as an offense against religion; that a question about the sale of a
book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom
of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what
books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize
religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to
which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our
inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as
the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult
to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and
blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and
reason. If [this] book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in
its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both
sides, if we choose." --Thomas Jefferson to N. G. Dufief, 1814. ME 14:127
"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." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander
von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:21
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in
return for protection to his own." --Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G.
Spafford, 1814. ME 14:119
"I have been just reading the new constitution of Spain. One of its
fundamental bases is expressed in these words: 'The Roman Catholic
religion, the only true one, is, and always shall be, that of the Spanish
nation. The government protects it by wise and just laws, and prohibits the
exercise of any other whatever.' Now I wish this presented to those who
question what [a bookseller] may sell or we may buy, with a request to
strike out the words, 'Roman Catholic,' and to insert the denomination of
their own religion. This would ascertain the code of dogmas which each
wishes should domineer over the opinions of all others, and be taken, like
the Spanish religion, under the 'protection of wise and just laws.' It
would show to what they wish to reduce the liberty for which one generation
has sacrificed life and happiness. It would present our boasted freedom of
religion as a thing of theory only, and not of practice, as what would be a
poor exchange for the theoretic thraldom, but practical freedom of Europe."
--Thomas Jefferson to N. G. Dufief, 1814. ME 14:128
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation
of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."
--Thomas Jefferson: Bill for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers 2:545
The Benefits of Religious Freedom
"The law for religious freedom... [has] put down the aristocracy of the
clergy and restored to the citizen the freedom of the mind." --Thomas
Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:400
"[When] the [Virginia] bill for establishing religious freedom... was
finally passed,... a singular proposition proved that its protection of
opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that
coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion,
an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it
should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of
our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof
that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew
and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of
every denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:67
"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious
worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained,
molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor... otherwise suffer on
account of his religious opinions or belief... All men shall be free to
profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion,
and... the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil
capacities." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME
2:302, Papers 2:546
"Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more
than our opinions in physics or geometry." --Thomas Jefferson: Statute for
Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:301, Papers 2:545
"We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because
he is of another church." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776.
Papers 1:546
"The proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by
laying upon him an incapacity of being called to 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." --Thomas
Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:301, Papers 2:546
"A recollection of our former vassalage in religion and civil
government will unite the zeal of every heart, and the energy of every
hand, to preserve that independence in both which, under the favor of
Heaven, a disinterested devotion to the public cause first achieved, and a
disinterested sacrifice of private interests will now maintain." --Thomas
Jefferson to Baltimore Baptists, 1808. ME 16:318
Religious Illegality
"The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give
immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error." --Thomas Jefferson
to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98
"If a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has
fair play and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the
State to be troubled with it." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia
Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:224
"If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to
the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise
than as if it had happened in a fair or market." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes
on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:548
"It is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for
its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when
principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order."
--Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. ME 2:302, Papers
2:546
"Whatsoever is lawful in the Commonwealth or permitted to the subject
in the ordinary way cannot be forbidden to him for religious uses; and
whatsoever is prejudicial to the Commonwealth in their ordinary uses and,
therefore, prohibited by the laws, ought not to be permitted to churches in
their sacred rites. For instance, it is unlawful in the ordinary course of
things or in a private house to murder a child; it should not be permitted
any sect then to sacrifice children. It is ordinarily lawful (or
temporarily lawful) to kill calves or lambs; they may, therefore, be
religiously sacrificed. But if the good of the State required a temporary
suspension of killing lambs, as during a siege, sacrifices of them may then
be rightfully suspended also. This is the true extent of toleration."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:547
ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition.
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