Jefferson's Wall

Many people today are talking about the good old days. The days where our Founding Fathers embraced their relationship with God.

As if the nation back then was some sort of Christian Utopia. But the truth is they fought about religions role in our Government, just as much as we do today.

You see the Separation between Church and State is not a forum to expel God from our lives. It is a mechanism for a stronger, safer relationship with God.

Thomas Jefferson believed strongly that the best thing for Government and Religion alike was to make sure our new nation did not work like that of King George III of England. Our Founding Fathers were strongly devout people, but they knew the problems with a Religious Sponsored Government.

This view doesn't walk away from God, but gives his people less constraints from which to worship.

Did you know that Jefferson was called an Atheist by Federalists who saw a political opening in his separation beliefs?

Jefferson did not believe in the State sponsored Fasts, and Thanksgivings, by his predecessors Washington, and Adams, which were clearly religious in nature. Jefferson was not opposing there merits, or the right for them to occur, but just that they were Government sanctioned.

Did you know that people protested and boycotted those Religious Fasts, and Thanksgiving events because they were government sanctioned? The Southern Federalists wanted government sponsored religious events, and the Northern Republicans often opposed such meetings. Does that remind you of our system today?

Jefferson was not alone in thinking that Religion and Government didn't mix. I think what we forget is that many Americans of the time had fled their homeland because of Religious persecution. Which stems from a State Sponsored Religion.

Jefferson was anxious to address the separation issue but it was not politically viable until a letter came from The Danbury Baptist Church.

His reply and subsequent interpretations have had a constant effect on our current political landscape. But it should be remembered that these same arguments were being waged then. This is simply ideological in nature, not an attack on God, although nothing makes your political opponent less attractive then saying they do not believe in God.

Many such as myself, believe religion is a personal relationship with God, but all to often like Jefferson, we are being called Atheist because we ideologically don't believe there is, or ever should be a State Sponsored Religion. Nor is there any convincing evidence that the Founding Fathers wanted it that way. Because if they did, they would have put it in the Constitution.

The Jefferson edited letter to Danbury.

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & 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 & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

After this famous response.

The phrase Wall of Separation was first used in an 1878 Supreme Court Case Reynolds v. United States. "that it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the first amendment."

The High Court took the same position in 1947, 1948 case of McCollum v. Board of Education, "in the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by laws was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state."

1962, and 1985 has seen Supreme Court Justices, call the Wall metaphor into question.

But before you jump to conclusions and believe American policy has been dictated for the past 200 years because of a simple return letter to a Church in New England. Think again. Jefferson took this letter as a strong political document, used not only attack the Federalists who called him an atheist for opposing Fasts, and Thanksgivings, but a political manifesto.

Jefferson un-edited draft.

To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and, in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & 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 eternal separation between Church & State. Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect,

[Jefferson first wrote: "confining myself therefore to the duties of my station, which are merely temporal, be assured that your religious rights shall never be infringed by any act of mine and that." These lines he crossed out and then wrote: "concurring with"; having crossed out these two words, he wrote: "Adhering to this great act of national legislation in behalf of the rights of conscience"; next he crossed out these words and wrote: "Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience I shall see with friendly dispositions the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced that he has no natural rights in opposition to his social duties."]

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & the Danbury Baptist [your religious] association assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

This stronger version of Jefferson's letter which called for the eternal separation of Church and

State, was toned down by Levi Lincoln a Jefferson adviser, because it could prove to be politically detrimental to Jefferson. But both versions are clear in my opinion.

Of course my opinion is just that, but Jefferson is clear on his views about Church and State, not only in his letters to the Danbury Baptist Church, but also The Statute of Virginia For Religious Freedom, a document who's title he insisted be on his epitaph.

It reads,

An Act for establishing religious Freedom.

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time; that to 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, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, that therefore 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, that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that 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; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them: Be it enacted by General Assembly that 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 shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

Exd: ARCHIBALD CARY S.S.
Exd. BENJ HARRISON Sp HD

Today we are having the same arguments with different twists but at there core they are still the same. Some want their religion to be our nations religion, and think the Founding Fathers would want it that way. I believe that not to be true. I believe the Founding Fathers and Jefferson in particular wanted a nation free from a Government that lifted one religion up at the expense of another.

I like Jefferson, believe religion relies solely between a man or woman, and their God.

Click here for a comprehensive history around the Danbury Letter. It is a must read.

Saw this today in NYT.

It is okay to have a difference of opinion on this topic, but we can't have a difference of facts.

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