Leo Goldberg is a freshman planning on majoring in Political Science and History.
Marking the burial site of Thomas Jefferson at his Monticello estate is a humble stone obelisk, as notable for what is not engraved on it as for what is. Inscribed upon it are the three feats which Jefferson proclaimed to be his “proudest accomplishments.” They are as follows: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence, Author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” Jefferson doesn’t bother mentioning what many may regard as his even greater achievements, including his two terms as President of the United States, or his time as Vice President, Secretary of State, Governor of Virginia, or Ambassador to France. Jefferson certainly carried a healthy ego, but an Augustan Res Gestae was not his departing intention. Only by these three efforts did the founding father “wish most to be remembered.”
Why, out of an exhaustive list of remarkable accomplishments, did Jefferson deliberately choose to feature these three? We are all more or less familiar with the first achievement listed, the authoring of the Declaration of Independence, and have been told of its significance to our country ever since we were children. The third accomplishment, of fathering the University of Virginia, is likewise self-explanatory, and its personal significance to Jefferson is well-known. It is the achievement in the middle, authoring the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, that is much less familiar. Despite its relative obscurity in the panoply of our founding documents, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom has good reason for being placed among Jefferson’s proudest endeavors, as it is one of the most remarkable political achievements to emerge from the American Revolution. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a pre-Constitution basis for the First Amendment, made America the first country to enshrine in its legal code the fundamental freedom of religion, and, even more importantly, the freedom from religion. Jefferson maintained that secularism is a foundational principle of good government, and that it constitutes the only means by which religious freedom and pluralism can be truly guaranteed against abuses of power committed by rulers who believe they have God on their side. To this day, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom remains fundamental in upholding America’s proud and enduring record of secularism.
Drafted by Jefferson in 1777, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was the first piece of legislation in the United States which guaranteed the right of every American to practice the faith they chose, and abolished the practice of state-sponsored churches. At the time the bill was first introduced in the Virginia legislature in 1779, the Episcopal Church was the official church of the state of Virginia, meaning Virginian citizens, whether Episcopalian or not, were legally required to subsidize the Church with their tax money, and church attendance was compulsory. Jefferson recognized the conflict this posed regarding the fact that Virginia was a religiously pluralist commonwealth, with many different Christian denominations present, including the Baptists, Presbyterians, and Quakers who regularly endured violent suppression and ridicule from hostile mobs. In the statute itself, Jefferson fulminated against this injustice, writing: “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions [in] which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”
Jefferson was soon joined in his staunch defense of religious liberty by another preeminent contemporary: James Madison. Sharing his opposition to established churches and acting as a close ally of Jefferson, Madison was primarily responsible for ensuring the Virginia Statute’s legislative success from 1784-1786 while Jefferson was abroad serving as ambassador to France. Madison argued on behalf of the bill in lengthy debates in the Virginia Legislature, including famously against founding father Patrick Henry. Also recognizing the issues with one established state church, Henry proposed an alternative bill in the Virginia Legislature, A Provision For Teachers Of the Christian Religion, in which he wrote, “be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, that for the support of Christian teachers, [a] tax on the property within this Commonwealth [shall be laid].” In other words, Henry’s bill required Virginia taxpayers to subsidize all churches in the state, as opposed to just the one Episcopal Church.
Madison, opposed to government endorsement of any church, let alone every church, rejected Henry’s plan, and continued to lobby indefatigably on behalf of Jefferson’s Virginia Statute. Madison, like Jefferson, emphatically believed that religion was a private matter, and that any attempt by the government to establish a prevailing state church meant jeopardizing the private liberties of ordinary citizens. Madison and Jefferson both lived at the peak of the Enlightenment, during which the development of individual and natural rights were flourishing at an unprecedented rate. Centuries-old religious justifications for the rule of tyrants via the divine right of kings was finally being challenged for the blatant ways it infringed upon civil liberties. In this context, Madison and Jefferson knew the estrangement of the church and the state was essential in overcoming a long history of monarchic and ecclesiastical oppression, and that a true republic could not be kept without delineating the freedom of, and from, religion.
Back in Virginia, Madison wrote a fiery petition opposing Henry’s plan, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment, in which he stated that, “a Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion will be a dangerous abuse of power, [and it is our duty] as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined.” The petition was circulated throughout the state, garnering popular support for Jefferson’s Statute and for the broader social embrace of freedom from religion. The momentum prevailed, and on January 16, 1786, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom passed in the Virginia General Assembly in a landslide vote of 60 to 27. While in France, Jefferson received the news of the Statute’s legislative success, and rejoiced at the codification of religious freedom in Virginia. So confident was he that the statute would render America an exceptional model of constitutional liberties that he had the Statute translated into French and Italian and disseminated throughout France.
For the first time in world history, a “wall of separation” had been erected between the church and the state, the people of Virginia being the first to enjoy this fundamental right to worship freely. Of course, Virginia was just the beginning—the statute was merely a prologue to what would become the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, soon making its way to the national stage. In 1787, a year after the Statute’s passing, the US Constitution was first drafted, and a bill of rights famously enshrined within it. Taking inspiration from the Virginia Statute, Madison encoded a right to religious liberty in the founding document’s First Amendment through two of its most important clauses: the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses. The former guaranteed freedom of religion, the latter freedom from it, the two vital positive and negative liberties of American life.
In his biography of Thomas Jefferson, author and New Atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote that, “[The Virginia Statute] greatly influenced the omission of any mention of God from the [Constitution].” Stipulations such as Article 6, Section 3, which ensured that no religious test was required for those seeking to hold public office, were added to the amendment, a critical move at a time when each state in the Union had its own form of religious discrimination for political candidates. In Massachusetts, for example, only Christians who condemned the Pope were allowed to run for office. Likewise, in New York, the freedom to run was open to Protestants and Jews, but prohibited to Catholics. Jefferson and Madison, solemn believers in the equality of Americans regardless of faith, formally eradicated this type of religious discrimination in running for public office in the final draft of the First Amendment.
At the Constitutional Congress in 1788, Madison proposed his religious amendment, based on the Virginia Statute, which boldly read, “the Civil Rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, nor on any pretext infringed.” Madison’s words resonated powerfully with the body, and, after three months of debate, in September of 1789, the First Amendment included a revised section which read, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The eclectic United States of America, which served as the home of Protestants, Catholics, Jews, atheists, and others, officially became the first country whose citizens did not have to worry about special privileges being granted on account of adhering to the correct faith, or the abrogation of the civil liberties of religious minorities.
As Americans, we owe a great debt of gratitude to both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, for only through their persistence and ingenuity can we boast of living in a secular country with a godless constitution. Because of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the United States continues to be looked upon as a religious haven for believers across the world, where citizens have the right to follow any faith they choose, or no faith at all. But our country’s firm tradition of secularism and separation of religion from public life cannot be taken for granted. Now more than ever, this tradition must be recognized, honored, and vigilantly defended. At a time when states like Louisiana have attempted to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, landmark Supreme Court verdicts are being delivered under the apparent strong influence of justices’ personal religious convictions, and claims that God personally intervened in saving the life of presidential candidates have found mainstream currency, it is the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom to which we have to turn for protection against the insidious creep of theocracy. The Virginia Statute stands as proof that our founders never intended America to be a Christian nation, and the fight against demagogues who claim that it is must be consistently maintained with the same vigor and conviction that characterized Jefferson and Madison’s fight two and half centuries ago. Only through a wall of separation between the church and the state can America’s proud record of secularism be adequately maintained, and the values of pluralism and religious tolerance be reliably upheld for all.
By Leo Goldberg
