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Freedom of Conscience
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John Henry
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Jun 23, 2007 01:53 PDT
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Freedom of Conscience
"Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof . . .”
Thomas Jefferson's Letter to Danbury
Baptist Association
January 1, 1802
Gentlemen:
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and appreciation which you are so
good to express toward me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association,
give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and
zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as
they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them
becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter that
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. Adhering to this
expression of the supreme will of the Nation in behalf of the rights of
conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those
sentiments which tend to restore to man his natural rights, convinced
that he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the
Common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your
religious association, assurances of high respect and esteem.
Thomas Jefferson
Source: A. A. Lipscomb and A. E. Bergh,
eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, 1907), vol. 16, p.
281.
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The Supreme Court and
Jefferson’s Letter
The Supreme Court has often cited Jefferson’s Danbury letter in
discussions of the original intent of the First Amendment. One of
the most important cases was the Everson case of 1947 that ruled that the
Fourteenth Amendment required that the First Amendment’s separation of
church and state also applies to the states.
Several justices dissented from the majority opinion of the Everson case,
but their argument was with whether the practice at issue in the case had
in fact breached the “wall of separation.” That the full court
assumed that the First Amendment intended to separate church and state is
evident from Justice Rutledge’s dissenting opinion which was endorsed by
all the dissenting justices:
“The Amendment’s purpose was not to strike merely at the official
establishment of a single sect, creed or religion, outlawing only a
formal relation such as had prevailed in England and some of the
colonies. Necessarily it was to uproot all such relationships. ...
But the object was broader than separating church and state in this
narrow sense. It was to create a complete and permanent separation
of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by
comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for
religion.”
Source: Leonard Levy’s The
Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment.
(University of North Carolina Press, 1994), pp. 150-151.
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