Virginia Statute for
Religious Freedom
Draft for a Bill to Establish Religious Freedom in Virginia (1779).
Thomas Jefferson |
 
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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 theseare 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 hispowers into the field of opinion
and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their
ill tendency is adangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty,
because he being of course judge of that tendency will make hisopinions 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.
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.
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.
