A PAGE FROM JEFFERSON'S "COMMONPLACE BOOK"
From the manuscript in the possession of the Library of Congress
Bolstered up with his texts, references, and authorities, Jefferson could now, if need be, confute the redoubtable Mr. Pendleton in the Committee of Revisors, but such a legal technical presentation of the facts would evidently not appeal either to the Assembly at large or to the public. These had to be approached in an entirely different way; for to speak of frauds, forgeries, and monkish fabrication would not do at all in a public document and, on the contrary, might create a revulsion of feeling. It became necessary to present the reform in an entirely different light and Jefferson did so in the first section of the bill.
The phrasing of these lofty principles is well known; still it may not be out of place to reproduce them once more:
Well aware that the opinions of 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 susceptible 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 ... to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical;... that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry;... that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government.
In Section II, after that preamble, the religious independence of the individual was proclaimed:
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, or shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or beliefs; 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.
Furthermore, in the first section, Jefferson gave the first and final expression of his understanding of freedom of thought:
That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its offices 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.
It is not surprising that the bill was savagely attacked in the Assembly and did not pass until 1786. It simply shows that the Church of England had more supporters than Jefferson led us to believe, when he wrote in the "Notes on Virginia" that "two-thirds of the people had become dissenters at the commencement of the present revolution." The remaining third, if such was the proportion, were at least well organized and offered a strong resistance. This bill marked the beginning of the accusations of impiety and infidelity so often launched at Jefferson. Whatever his private sentiments on the matter may have been, he was not the man to discriminate against any one because of religious beliefs; and at the very time when he was engaged in preparing his bill, he took the initiative of starting a subscription towards the support of the Reverend Mr. Charles Clay of Williamsburg. The document, never before published, is entirely written in his hand and is of such importance that I may be permitted to reproduce it here: