RESOURCES
• http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/42.htm
• http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/enlight/religi.htm
• http://www.vahistorical.org/sva2003/vsrf.htm
ACTIVITY
At the time of the Founding, most states had official churches which citizens were required to support through taxation. Though many supported this practice, others, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, believed it was a violation of natural rights for the government to compel religious participation. In order to end state-established religion, Jefferson authored a law, called the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, in 1786.
This law condemned state-mandated religion and emphasized the natural freedom of the human mind. It met with fierce resistance in the state legislature, but the political expertise of James Madison helped secure its adoption. The statute’s wording uses religion itself to argue against government involvement in religion, arguing that state-mandated worship is contrary to God’s plan: “…Almighty God hath created the mind free… all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments…are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion.”
While Jefferson recognized religion’s civic utility as a foundation for private morality and public behavior, he felt very strongly that the state had no right to compel worship or support of a religious institution. “[T]o compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical [and] is depriving him injuriously of…natural right[s].” The Virginia Statute on Religion Freedom is still part of Virginia’s state constitution. James Madison, who steered the law through the Virginia legislature, proclaimed that its passage “extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.”
The Statute brought about the end of the Episcopal Church as the official religion of the state, making Virginia the first state to end its official church. Other states followed suit, and the last remaining state church was disestablished by the early nineteenth century. The Statute, one of Thomas Jefferson’s proudest achievements, was an important precursor to the 1791 First Amendment. The First Amendment protects both freedom from government-established religion and freedom of individual free exercise.
QUESTIONS
1. Why did Thomas Jefferson and James Madison oppose state-established religion?
2. What did the Virginia Statute for Religious freedom emphasize about the human mind?
3. What was the effect of the law in the state of Virginia?
4. In what way was the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom a precursor of the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of religion?
ANSWERS
1. They believed it was a violation of natural rights.
2. Freedom is the natural condition of the human mind.
3. The law led to the end of Virginia’s official church.
4. They protected religious freedom in two ways: just government can never establish a religion, nor can it restrict individual beliefs. These mirror the First Amendment protections against government-established religion and prohibitions on free exercise.
