Thomas Jefferson, and the separation of Church and State

[biblthmp]

Who here knows the origin of the statement, "The separation of Church and State?"

What document is it found in, what year what it written. Who was the original audience that it was written to?

Produce evidence to back up any claims.

 

[Jaxom]

Quick search yields:

Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 to answer a letter from them, asking why he would not proclaim national days of fasting and thanksiving, as had been done by Washington and Adams before him. The letter contains the phrase "wall of separation between church and state," which lead to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: "Separation of church and state."

http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html

 

[Raithere]

Need someone to do your research?

Here's another site, in fact the entire site is dedicated to the topic:

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qjeffson.htm

Here are a few quotes by Jefferson:

Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative 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 separation between Church and State (Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802).

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle (letter to Robert Rush, 1813).

I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them, an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands where the Constitution has deposited it... Every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the United States, and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents (letter to Samuel Miller, Jan. 23, 1808).

Jefferson, of course, was not the only one with this opinion. Here are some quotes by James Madison:

The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State (Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819).

Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov't in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history (Detached Memoranda, circa 1820).

Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).

~Raithere

 

[Tiassa]

Well, that wraps it up nicely

It seems people have the bases covered.

One last thing: Judicial history of Freedom of Religion. I'd quote it, but it's just a long list of court decisions.

enjoy,
:m:,
Tiassa

 

[biblthmp]

Re: Re: Thomas Jefferson, and the separation of Church and State

Originally posted by Jaxom
Quick search yields:



http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html

There is just one problem with this argument, Jefferson wrote this letter in January 1802. The Constitution was ratified in December 1791, over 10 years earlier.

Jefferson was in France, when the Constitution was written.

 

[ConsequentAtheist]

Therefore? I'm sure you think you're clever, but why not simply present your position and defend it?

 

[biblthmp]

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.)

 

[Jaxom]

There is just one problem with this argument,

No argument was stated. Just the fact that he wrote the original phrase, and it has been referred to many times since, as Raithere pointed out. That's precisely what you asked for.

Now, if you want to explore the ideas that the Constitution was written with a religous gov't in mind, then just state it...why play with words, trying to set traps? Was it, I don't think so, but we'll have to see what can be dug up. I'm sure it's been covered in the past, and I'm sure some of the founders were more religious than others.

 

[LaoTzu]

T.J. be da D.J. of da U.S.A.

Originally posted by biblthmp
Who here knows the origin of the statement, "The separation of Church and State?"

What document is it found in, what year what it written. Who was the original audience that it was written to?

Produce evidence to back up any claims.

posted later by biblthmp
There is just one problem with this argument, Jefferson wrote this letter in January 1802. The Constitution was ratified in December 1791, over 10 years earlier.

Correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm not, but you asked for the origin of a phrase. You didn't ask for a watertight argument that the constitution of the U.S. explicitly laid out a secular government. Quoting erroneous dates does not rebuke anything said in this thread.

Peace, yo.

 

[Raithere]

Originally posted by biblthmp
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." (John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.)

Cool, a quote tossing contest.

Of course, the primary consideration is:

The First Amendment
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”

Article VI, Section 3
“...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

But regarding Adams, in particular:

Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli (June 7, 1797). Article 11 which states:
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):
“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”

From a letter to Thomas Jefferson:
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”

These last ones I, unfortunately, do not have the source for:

“Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?”

“The Doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

“...Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”

Touche!

~Raithere