Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Founders, Religious Freedom, and the First Amendment's Religion Clauses
- PART I THE FOUNDERS' CHURCH-STATE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES
- PART II THE FOUNDERS AND FIRST AMENDMENT RELIGION CLAUSES
- Conclusion: The Founders and Church-State Jurisprudence
- Appendix A “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments” by James Madison, 1785
- Appendix B A Bill “Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion” by Patrick Henry, 1784
- Appendix C A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia by Thomas Jefferson, 1777
- Index
Appendix A - “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments” by James Madison, 1785
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Founders, Religious Freedom, and the First Amendment's Religion Clauses
- PART I THE FOUNDERS' CHURCH-STATE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES
- PART II THE FOUNDERS AND FIRST AMENDMENT RELIGION CLAUSES
- Conclusion: The Founders and Church-State Jurisprudence
- Appendix A “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments” by James Madison, 1785
- Appendix B A Bill “Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion” by Patrick Henry, 1784
- Appendix C A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia by Thomas Jefferson, 1777
- Index
Summary
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia
A Memorial and Remonstrance
We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled “A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion,” and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said Bill,
1. Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, “that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence” [Virginia Declaration of Rights, art. 16]. The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.
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- God and the FoundersMadison, Washington, and Jefferson, pp. 223 - 228Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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