Different things were happening on some levels, but not on others. Jefferson and Madison started their remarkable collaboration in 1776, when the young Madison was appointed to the legislature in Virginia and showed up just after George Mason had decided the work on the Virginia bill-of-rights-to-be was done (according to Ralph Ketcham); it was a good bill of rights Mason had crafted, with the help of Jefferson and others on the committee. But Madison thought it needed a stronger protection for religious freedom. Against advice he went up against the formidable and usually unmovable Mason, and convinced Mason to add the clause. Religious freedom was a major tributary river of thought that ran through the partnership in freedom Madison and Jefferson forged for the next 50+ years, at least until Jefferson's death (Madison carried on after, and I'll leave it to you to figure out Jefferson's role then!).
Religious freedom was important to them both, and a lifelong project of Madison. I do not think we can separate out the different laws at different times and attribute them to different motives. It's not demonstrated in their actions or their writings.
Madison had kept Jefferson somewhat informed of the Philadelphia convention's work, but not all the details. When Madison finally sent a copy to Jefferson, Jefferson's first response was that it lacked a bill of rights. Thinking Madison made this deletion deliberately and with prejudice against it, Jefferson's letter then seeks to justify the need, and the first right he mentions is freedom of religion. Considering that Madison had carefully crafted the circumstances in Virginia to get the Statute for Religious Freedom passed into law just a year before, after its having sat waiting for seven years, Jefferson's passion on the point is probably understandable.
Explaining himself, Madison responded that a national bill of rights was unnecessary, since each colony already had one. Madison remarked on the religious clauses in each charter. The colonies would not retrench, Madison said. Jefferson responded that he did not believe one such protection enough -- he used as an example the French provinces, and he argued that various provinces might take different directions, that the American charters would be subject to suspension by each of the colonies, and a national charter offered the opportunity to cement the rights for all citizens. Madison then replied with the real reason: It was September when they got to it, writing a bill of rights would have taken a couple of weeks, and by that time there would not have been enough delegates left to pass the thing on to the Continental Congress.
At no point did these two discuss even the possibility that a state might establish its own church legitimately, and especially they didn't approve of the idea. The drive was to secure religious rights for all citizens and make sure the rights remained.
With Patrick Henry as the sole significant exception, the "founders," the colonies of Britain, were united in the direction they moved on religious freedom. Between 1775 and 1778, each of the colonies which still had establishments, disestablished either completely or almost completely. Four of the colonies were committed to religious liberty before -- Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Anglican establishments died in five colonies when hostilities broke out -- New York, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia -- and the establishments in the Carolinas were limited, granting almost complete freedom to non-Anglicans (John Locke had written the original charters there, recall). North Carolina had refused to renew the Vestry Act in 1773, jumping the gun a bit. Virginia's history we know; that leaves only New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Except for Patrick Henry's proposal in 1785 to pay clergy !
as
teachers, no colony re-established at any point. By 1787 only three colonies had any vestige of establishment left -- voluntary collection of tithes, for the most part -- and the trend was against those vestiges in each of those colonies, as well. Connecticut erased all vestiges in 1818, New Hampshire in 1819, and Massachusetts clung on until 1833 (to John Adams regret and extreme irritation).
It is also important to note how the revolutionaries dealt with Jews, I think. South Carolina had an active and vibrant Jewish community (the synagogue in Charleston is still in use). That group asked and got religious freedom in the colony, and their financial support of the delegation in Philadelphia was probably conditioned on the delegation's support of religious freedom for Jews. The Jews of Philadelphia petitioned Washington to make certain their freedoms were preserved in all colonies. Washington appointed Madison to meet with them to assure them that religious freedom for all beliefs would be protected by the changes the convention would make. We know that Jefferson and Madison both anticipated that such pluralism would also include faiths other than Jews and Christians.
The "different things that were occurring" did not include any drive to impose a state-sponsored religion anywhere (Utah was two generations in the future). The First Amendment accurately reflects the laws in 77% of the colonies at the time, and sets a bar just slightly higher for the other 23%. The First Amendment was not a top-down imposition on the colonies or the people, but was instead an accurate reflection of the wishes and practices of Americans at the time.
Of course, as Winthrop Hudson wrote, we should not mistake a complete separation of church and state as requiring a separation of church and politics. The preamble to the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom puts religion in the role of a great persuader, but keeps any church from holding the fasces of power. Madison explained that no one person, and especially no one faith, is right all the time. Sometimes I think it is that view that most irritates the modern-day re-establishers.
I think history demonstrates that Madison's, Jefferson's and Virginia's views on religious freedom are accurately captured in the First Amendment. There is an unbroken trend to religious freedom there. To the extent that our laws are informed by history, I think it's quite clear.
Ed Darrell
Dallas
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 7/29/2005 6:33:44 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:Any alternative argument must have Madison flip-flopping on religious freedom, and I don't think there is any evidence to support such a claim. From his first success persuading Mason to put religious liberty into the Virginia Bill of Rights, Madison's views on what the law should be never varied.The Virginia Statute had as its objective the governance of affairs internal to Virginia. It could, by the act of a subsequent legislature, be overcome. It did not affect the religious establishments or inclinations of any other of the States.The First Amendment, was, to borrow from Tolkien, "one ring to find them all (all 13 of them) and in the darkness bind them."I will grant that Madison's views did not change. But why must we ignore that different things were occurring when the Virginia Statute was put forward and when the First Amendment was crafted for propounding to the States?Jim HendersonSenior CounselACLJ_______________________________________________
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