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DRAFT
FOR A BILL FOR ESTABLISHING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
1779
The
following draft declaring "the natural rights of mankind"
was written by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) in 1777
and proposed to the Virginia Legislature in 1779. Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison promoted the bill for years
before it was finally passed by the Virginia legislature.
After an impassioned speech by James Madison, and after
some amendments, it became law on January 16, 1786.
At the time, the Anglican Church was officially recognized
as the state religion. The law disestablished that denomination.
RJ&L
Religious Institutions Group
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.
Source:
Thomas Jefferson: Writings 346-48 (Merrill D. Peterson ed.,
1984).
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