
Jefferson's
1777 Draft of a
Bill for Religious Freedom

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The following text is a draft written by Thomas Jefferson in 1777. It
promoted religious freedom for the state of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
promoted the bill for years before it was finally passed by the Virginia legislature. At
the time, the Anglican Church was officially recognized as the state religion. The law
disestablished that denomination. An alternative proposal that many other denominations be
recognized was rejected.
This bill is often called "the precursor to the Religion Clauses
of the First Amendment" of the U.S. Constitution. 1
It is this Amendment that guarantees religious freedom for the individual, while erecting
a wall of separation between church and government.

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A BILL FOR ESTABLISHING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
SECTION I. Well aware that
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the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow
involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds;
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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;
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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;
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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:
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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;
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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;
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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;
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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,
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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.
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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. 
Reference:
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Message to recognize the 253rd anniversary of the birth of Thomas
Jefferson on 1999-APR-13. Distributed by the Church-State Network.
Originally published: 1999-APR-10
Updated: 1999-JUL-11
Edited by B.A. Robinson

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