Thomas Jefferson · Politics
Jefferson counted his Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom among the three achievements he wished carved on his tomb - the law that made conscience free and severed the state from the church.
Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States, Secretary of State, Vice President, Governor of Virginia, founder of a university, and author of the Declaration of Independence. Yet when he composed his own epitaph, he left out every office he had held, including the presidency. He asked to be remembered for exactly three things: author of the Declaration of Independence, father of the University of Virginia, and author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. That he ranked the Statute among the three proudest achievements of his life - above being President - tells us how central the cause of religious liberty was to his understanding of human freedom.
The Statute, drafted by Jefferson in 1777 and passed by the Virginia legislature in 1786 after a long fight led by Madison, did something radical for its age. It disestablished the official church, ended compulsory taxes for religion, and declared that no one could be compelled to support or attend any worship, nor suffer any civil penalty or disadvantage on account of their religious opinions. Belief, Jefferson insisted, was to be entirely free, and entirely outside the reach of the state. It was one of the first laws anywhere to guarantee complete religious liberty, and it became a model for the First Amendment’s protection of free exercise and its bar on establishment.
One of Jefferson’s most striking arguments for religious liberty anticipates the liberal ‘harm principle’ that John Stuart Mill would later make famous: government may rightfully restrain only those actions that injure others, and a person’s religious beliefs, however erroneous, injure no one but possibly themselves. ‘The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others,’ Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia; ‘but it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ What another believes about God costs me nothing and is therefore none of the state’s concern.
This is the opening of the lesson. The rest — the dialogue, the primary source, and the recall — is in the app.
You learned that Jefferson held religious belief to be entirely outside the authority of government. In your own words, why did he think compelling belief was both tyrannical and futile?
Leads to James Madison.
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