In January of 1786, the Virginia legislature passed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. This was seen as a landmark change, not only for Virginia but one that would eventually spread throughout the union.
Colonial Practices
The notion of religious freedom was a departure from the customary practices in Europe. For centuries, European powers had an official state religion. In good times, they tolerated certain other religions and treated their practitioners as second class citizens. In bad times, practitioners of unapproved religions were imprisoned, expelled, tortured, or executed.
England took an odd turn since it had originally largely remained Catholic, until Henry the VIII formed the Church of England, mostly to get around the Pope’s prohibition on him divorcing his wife. While England joined the Protestant world, Anglicanism kept many of the Catholics beliefs and traditions, mostly just removing papal authority.
Within England, there were Protestants who wanted to make religious changes that went well beyond that. Separatists and puritans fought with the Church of England, at times to reform its practices, and at other times simply to form a separate truly protestant church that was more in line with the Lutheran and Calvinist practices in northern Europe. Other new religions spouted in England, such as the Society of Friends, better known as Quakers. There were others in England, and in other parts of Britain, who insisted on remaining Catholic.
All of this deeply divided the country. The English government, and later the government of a United Britain, cracked down on dissenters with differing levels of hostility. At times, dissenters would be treated like second class citizens, denied certain rights. At other times they would be fined, jailed, or worse. Many religious dissenters from Britain found a home in the colonies, where British officials seemed to tolerate greater levels of religious dissent.
Many states, however, including Virginia, were established as Anglican colonies where the Church of England remained the official religion. Religious dissenters might be permitted to live in the colony, but would be subject to denial of certain rights. They would also be obligated to pay taxes to support the Church of England in Virginia. Groups of Baptists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians established communities in Virginia, but had to fund their own churches privately, while also providing funds for the Church of England. Like mother England, there were times when the Virginia colonial government cracked down on other religions. In the years leading up to the Revolutionary War about half of all Presbyterian ministers were jailed for preaching. Many Baptist ministers were also arrested.
Thomas Jefferson
Even before the Revolutionary War began, there were a considerable number of people who opposed state support of the Anglican church in Virginia. Way back in Episode 17 of this podcast, I talked about how Patrick Henry had made a name for himself arguing against the payment of the clergy in the early 1760’s.
Following independence, there was no guarantee that the legal protections for the financial support of the Anglican Church in Virginia would remain in place. Following the war, the Anglican Church in America rebranded itself as the Episcopal Church.
Many Virginians were moving toward the idea that the state should not provide financial support to any religion. Among those leaders, Thomas Jefferson took a prominent role.
It is difficult to say with certainty what Jefferson’s inner beliefs were on God and religion. Like most people they probably evolved over time. Beyond that, many men who might have rejected the idea of God altogether, might not have been willing to articulate that idea, especially in writing. In many cases atheists were not permitted to vote, hold office, and faced other restrictions.
Many historians have argued that Jefferson was a deist. That is someone who holds some general belief in an intelligent creator, but not a God who answers prayers or regularly intervenes in human affairs. Deism had grown in popularity over the 17th and 18th centuries. Many men who focused more on logic and science seemed drawn to this concept.
This seems consistent with what Jefferson did write about religion as an adult. Many of us have heard about the so-called “Jefferson Bible.” Jefferson took a standard bible and essentially summarized all the moral teachings of Jesus, while cutting out all the stories of miracles and supernatural events. By all appearances, Jefferson wanted to focus on the teaching about moral behavior, while rejecting all the rest of it as superstition. I should add this is something he kept in his personal library. It's not something he published or expected to share with the public. Jefferson sometimes spoke about God’s wrath for sinful behavior, but again, we don’t know exactly how to understand this in terms of his inner beliefs.
While Jefferson was baptized as an Anglican, he did not regularly attend any particular church. He did attend churches as an adult, but went to different ones all the time. We also know that he refused to become a godfather for the child of a close friend, writing that he did not sufficiently believe in the Anglican teachings enough to qualify for that role.
Virginia Bill
Whatever his inner thoughts on God and religion, we can say with certainty that Jefferson became an outspoken opponent of state support for any churches. In 1776, he and Madison argued for a repeal of all tax support for the church. While these efforts failed, it made clear where Jefferson stood on the issue.
In 1779, after being elected Governor of Virginia, Jefferson put forward 126 bills that he had worked on several years earlier on a committee with George Wythe and Edmund Pendleton. These bills represented a wide variety of issues which focused on updating Virginia’s statutes more generally so that the laws reflected an independent state rather than a British colony.
Bill number 82 was entitled “A Bill For establishing religious freedom.” The bill started with a long preamble, stating why it made no sense for a government to put restrictions on religious beliefs. Among other things, it said “That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical;” It then concluded
“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.”
With the war still raging, the legislators were unwilling to take on this, or many other of Jefferson’s revolutionary proposals. While many men supported religious toleration, that was different from religious freedom. Religious toleration allowed for a state religion that was supported by tax dollars. At the same time, it tolerated the existence of other religions that could support themselves.
For these men, Jefferson’s idea of religious freedom that prevented any tax dollars from going to any church, was just too far. Many argued that no church could survive in this way. Not enough people would give sufficient funds voluntarily to support the church. They believed that established religion was necessary to maintain morality among the population and that these taxes were necessary for that established religion.
Jefferson and others disagreed. For Jefferson, education, not religion, was the key to a moral and virtuous people. Jefferson viewed most organized religion as standing against the science and reason that he wanted to encourage. With the war still raging, the legislature tabled the measure. Governor Jefferson would leave office without any legislative action.
A few years later, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson continued to argue that religion was an inappropriate purpose for government. He wrote “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.” He continued, “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.” He further noted that true religion did not need the support of the state. Only “error…needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.”
Assessment Fight
After Jefferson left for France, debate over support for religion grew stronger. The vast majority of the Virginia population, and the vast majority of legislators in Virginia had been Anglicans. But there was a growing battle over what that even meant. Many Anglicans were divided on this and other issues. As I said, since they wanted to embrace independence from the Church of England, the churches in America had rebranded themselves as Episcopalians.
A minister from Fairfax, Virginia, David Griffith organized a meeting of ministers in Richmond for April 1784. Griffith saw a grave threat in the loss of state revenues, and believed that without a united effort, the church in America would be destroyed. The result of this meeting would kick off an assessment drive, to petition the Virginia Assembly to raise a tax assessment to fund the ministers.
Before acting on an assessment, the Assembly proposed a bill that would create a corporation within the state under which the Episcopal clergy could operate. It would establish church laws and regulations, called for the election of clergy, and gave them control of church properties. This bill effectively took control of the church hierarchy by handing all power to locally elected clergy. Madison and the reformers supported this bill, but Governor Patrick Henry managed to kill it. An amended bill established lay delegates in each parish so that the old Anglican leadership would still play a role in church policy, still mixing church and state.
The reformers, as well as the smaller religions, especially the Presbyterians, greatly opposed the final bill. It essentially still treated the Episcopalians as the official religion of Virginia. In response, legislators offered to create a state corporation for any other church that wanted it, but none did. The other churches, along with reformers like Madison, wanted a complete separation of church and state.
That fall, the Presbyterians moved to a new strategy. They appointed a commission of four ministers to work with the legislature, they moved for state support of religion generally as necessary for maintaining morality among the population.
Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee took up this campaign. In the spring of 1785, they supported a “provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion.” Proponents argued that “A general discussion of Christian knowledge” would “correct the morals of men, restrain their vices, and preserve the peace of society.” The bill would not support exclusively the Episcopal Church. Rather it would raise funds to support all Christian churches and be apportioned based on the number of adherents to each sect.
The bill lost some momentum when both of the major sponsors of the bill left the assembly. Henry was elected governor of Virginia. Lee left to serve as President of the Continental Congress. With their departure, Madison managed to delay any assessment bill until the next session of the Assembly.
With everyone aware that the bill on assessments would be taken up again in the fall, both sides spent the spring and summer of 1785 trying to make their case to the public and to members of the legislature. Advocates argued that society needed organized religion, and that religion simply could not survive without government support.
Memorial and Remonstrance
In response, James Madison wrote his famous Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments. Madison laid out 15 points beginning by quoting the 1776 Virginia Bill of Rights, that true religion “can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.” Government uses force. Religion must persuade voluntary adoption. He noted that men accepted religion, often even devoting their lives to religions that were contrary to what the government required, so of course religion could exist without being imposed by the civil authorities.
Infringement on the freedom to follow one’s own conscience in following God is a form of tyranny. It is a form of enslavement, depriving a free people of this right. He went on to argue that civil servants are no experts in the truth of any religion and are ill-equipped to judge that point on behalf of others. He also noted that minority religions often thrived without government support - pointing out the Quakers and Menonites as examples of this. He also noted that the assessment would be inherently unequal, favoring certain sects over others.
He attacked established religions as having a poor history:
“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.”
Government, Madison contended, could operate just fine without religion, and that religion could operate just fine without government. He noted that lack of government support for any religion over the past several years, has not destroyed religion, and had, in fact, resulted in moderation and harmony among the existing sects.
Madison concluded by again quoting the Virginia Bill of Rights which guaranteed, “the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his Religion according to the dictates of conscience.” If this assessment bill made this right of religion unequal, then all the basic rights for which they had fought could come up for adjustment by the legislature as well.
Other Opposition
Many of the minority religions, which had gotten along just fine without government support for decades, also joined in opposition. Although the assessment bill started through a committee of Presbyterians, the Presbyterian congregations called a convention that summer in which a majority condemned the assessment and the Incorporation Act.
The Baptists, who until recently had seen their preachers imprisoned for preaching, also opposed the assessment. They greatly distrusted the government to operate fairly in this area. Baptist petitions called the assessment “Contrary to the Spirit of the Gospel; and the Bill of Rights.”
It was during this time that the Episcopal Church also suffered a major break. A group of Episcopal reformers broke away, calling themselves the Methodist Church. Methodism had existed before the Revolution as a separate voice within the Anglican Church, but it did consider itself Anglican. Part of this was likely in order to receive government protection and avoid government sanction. It had maintained this association despite an increasingly different view of theology, preaching style, and organizational structure from mainstream Anglicans. In the independent US, there was no longer a need to pretend that Methodists and Episcopalians agreed. They separated to form their own church. The result was a large group of Virginia Methodists who also opposed the assessment bill.
In May, the Virginia Episcopal leaders met at a convention in Richmond. As a result of the Incorporation Act, church leaders for the first time had the authority to organize their religion on their own, without oversight from the legislature. They elected the Rev. James Madison as their leader. This was not the James Madison we think of. Rather, it was a cousin of the same name. The convention revealed that even within the Episcopal Conference, there was a great deal of disagreement on how the church should move forward on issues of dogma and organization.
The convention made considerable changes to the liturgy and the Book of Common Prayer, approving 43 different changes to church canon. It further put the main authority over the church in the convention, which would meet repeatedly, and included both clergy and lay people. Between conventions, a committee would handle matters that could not wait. It made the power of the bishop purely advisory.
The convention was made up primarily of members of Virginia’s political and social elite. During the Richmond convention, they mixed regularly with the governor, council, and judges. It only confirmed the view of other sects that the Episcopal Church in Virginia was part of the establishment and would never allow other sects to compete on an equal basis.
Passage
Over the course of the fall of 1785, opposition to the assessment bill only grew larger. Without majority support, leaders would not bring the matter to a vote. Sensing the strength of the opposition, Madison re-introduced Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, on which the legislature voted in January, 1786.. This time, it passed with wide support.
The Statute’s passage meant that Virginia could never compel anyone to support a religion, financially or otherwise. With that, the assessment bill was dead.
While many celebrated its passage, critics saw it as the end of virtue in society. One prominent Philadelphia Minister published a pamphlet attacking the Virginia Statute. He argued that it was “a general declamation against all religion." and that “under the specious appearance of establishing religious freedom," it actually “tends to remove the necessity of any religion whatsoever among the people.”
More generally, though, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was received favorably. Jefferson was still serving in Paris when he received word of its passage. He immediately translated the statute into several languages and had it circulated throughout Europe.
The legislature also ended up repealing the Episcopal articles of incorporation, spinning off the church to operate outside of any government control, just like any other religion.
Next week: we head to Massachusetts, where Daniel Shays starts a rebellion.
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Next Episode 340 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (Available soon)
Previous Episode 338 John Adams Goes to London
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Further Reading
Websites
Beeman, Richard R. “Social Change and Cultural Conflict in Virginia: Lunenberg County, 1746 to 1774.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 3, 1978, pp. 455–76. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1921659
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/virginia-statute-religious-freedom
Jefferson's Religious Beliefs https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/jeffersons-religious-beliefs
“Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, [ca. 20 June] 1785,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-08-02-0163
Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)
Jefferson, Thomas The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth [The Jefferson Bible], St. Louis: N.D. Publishing, 1902.
Sweet, William W. The Story of Religion in America, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939.
Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*
Buckley, Thomas E. Establishing Religious Freedom: Jefferson's Statute in Virginia, Univ. of Va. Press, 2014 (borrow on archive.org).
Kidd, Thomas S. God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution, Basic Books, 2010.
Meyerson, Michael I. Endowed by Our Creator: The Birth of Religious Freedom in America, Yale Univ. Press, 2012.
Peterson, Merrill & Robert Vaughan (eds) The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Its Evolution and Consequences in American History, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988 (borrow on archive.org).
Ragosta, John A. Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America's Creed, Univ. of Va Press, 2013 (borrow on archive.org).
Rasor, Paul & Richard Bonds (eds) From Jamestown to Jefferson: The Evolution of Religious Freedom in Virginia, Univ. of Va. Press, 2011.
* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
