The Virginia
Act for Establishing Religious Freedom - Draft
Thomas Jefferson
(1779)
SECTION I. Well aware that
the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow
involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God
hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free
it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; 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, but to extend
it by its influence on reason alone; 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 endeavoring 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 and abhors, 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 dependance 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 also 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 the opinions of men are not the object of civil government,
nor under its jurisdiction; 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
falacy, 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.
SECT. II. WE the General Assembly
of Virginia do enact 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.
SECT. III. 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.
Comment:
Thomas Jefferson drafted
The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1779 three
years after he wrote the Declaration of Independence. The act was
not passed by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia until
1786. Jefferson was by then in Paris as the U.S. Ambassador to France. The
Act was resisted by a group headed by Patrick Henry who sought to pass a
bill that would have assessed all the citizens of Virginia to support a
plural establishment. James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance Against
Religious Assessments was, and remains, a powerful argument against
state supported religion. It was written in 1785, just a few months before
the General Assembly passed Jefferson's religious freedom bill.
Both the final version
of the
Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom and
the
Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments are
availalbe on this site.
