SECTION V
Chapter 15 - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) -"Enlightened" American Father

   "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."   -- Thomas Jefferson

  "In matters of principle, stand like a rock;
    in matters of taste, swim with the current."   -- Thomas Jefferson


   "Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught
    and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of distress,
    the soil soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.  
    Where is the heart that can contemplate such a scene without shivering 
    with horror."
                                     (article in THE NEW ENGLAND COURANT
                                     upon the election of Thomas Jefferson
                                     in 1800)
                                     



   When asked what he wanted to be most remembered for, Thomas Jefferson
replied that he considered his most important achievements to be:

 "Author of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Statute of
  Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of
  Virginia."

In fact, these very words are inscribed on his gravestone.  It is
interesting to note that Thomas Jefferson did not deem his term as the
third president of the United States of America to be one of his greatest 
achievements!  (Indeed, vicious barbs by his enemies, as demonstrated by the 
quote above, show that Jefferson's enlightened philosophy was not well 
received by everyone.)

  Although American Fundamentalists commonly claim that our Founding
Fathers would be shocked at the secularization of America, actually just
the opposite is true.  The amendments in the Constitution regarding the
separation of State and Religion came about as no accident!  They were
hard won victories pushed through by some of our MOST revered Founding
American Fathers--Jefferson, Madison, and Adams.

Writings on Religious Tolerance

  In a letter to Benjamin Rush in September, 1920 Jefferson wrote
the famous words that are now inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial
in Washington D.C.:

     "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against
      every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

   Jefferson was very concerned about religious freedom. Being a true child 
of the Enlightenment, he hated the horrors of the previous century's 
religious wars, inquisitions, and tortures. As noted above, Jefferson 
considered one of his GREATEST efforts to be his authorship of the Statute 
of Virginia for Religious Freedom. He had been shocked to find that the law 
of Virginia had previously allowed the burning of heretics. On this subject 
he wrote the following passage in his NOTES ON VIRGINIA :

     Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the
     introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured,
     fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward
     uniformity.  What has been the effect of coercion?  To make
     one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

In arguing for using reason and persuasion instead of religious laws:

     Let us reflect that [the earth] is inhabited by a thousand
     millions of people.  That these profess probably a thousand
     different systems of religion.  That ours is but one of that
     thousand.  That if there be but one right, and ours that one,
     we should wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering
     sects gathered into the fold of truth.  But against such
     a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and
     persuasion are the only practical instruments. To make way
     for these, free inquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish
     others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves?

    Jefferson compared his state of Virginia with Pennsylvania and New
York which had NO religious establishment laws. According to Jefferson,
these states did not hang more wrongdoers than Virginia, yet they enjoyed
harmony among their religious sects.  He attributed this happy state to
"nothing but their unbounded tolerance." He concluded "that the way to
silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them." Instead, "let
us give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those
tyrannical laws."

  To Jefferson, forced submission to any church or theology was wrong.
In one of his most prized works, THE ACT ESTABLISHING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
IN VIRGINIA, he wrote:

     Well aware that God hath created the mind free; that all
     attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens,
     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...

     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, 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, is sinful
     and tyrannical;

     That it tends also to corrupt the principles that every
     religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing...those who
     will externally profess and conform to it;...

     and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left
     to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist
     to error...

     BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY,

     That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any
     religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall
     be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body
     or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his
     religious opinion or belief;  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 nowise
     diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."


     It is also significant that Jefferson felt so strongly about mandating 
the separation of Church and State, that with the help of James Madison, he 
procured its passage IN THE VERY FIRST AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution. 
Jefferson explained his concept of the separation of Church and State in a 
letter he wrote to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut in 1792:

         I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole
         American people which declared that their legislature
         should make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
         or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a
         wall of separation between church and state.

Jefferson, the Deist

  Although most historians stress Jefferson's public letters which are
generally moderate and friendly towards Christianity, Jefferson's private
letters show him to be a Deist. In them, Jefferson revealed that he believed
that the pure religion of Jesus of Nazareth had been perverted by priests:

        The priests have so disfigured the simple religion of
        Jesus that no one who reads the sophistications they
        have engrafted on it, from the jargon of Plato, of
        Aristotle, and other mystics, would conceive these could
        have been fathered on the sublime preacher of the Sermon
        on the Mount.
        (as quoted by Edward L. Ericson, THE FREE MIND THROUGH
        THE AGES, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1985)

   and,


   "The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled
    to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw, in
    the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up
    artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit
    everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce
    to profit, power and preeminence.  The doctrines which flowed from
    the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehensions of a child;
    but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms
    engrafted on them; and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can
    never be explained."

  Jefferson believed that it was Platonic thought that had corrupted the
original doctrines of Jesus Christ.  Jefferson denounced Plato's REPUBLIC in 
1814, saying:

    "While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities and unintelligible
     jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could 
     have been, that the world should have so long consented to give
     reputation to such nonsense as this? Fashion and authority apart, and  
     bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, 
     futilities and incomprehensibilities and what remains? His foggy mind."
     (THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON (Washington, C.C.: The Thomas Jefferson 
      Memorial Association, 1903, XIV, p. 148.)

  In 1810, Jefferson spelled out his views on the real origin of
Christian doctrine in a letter:

        But a short time elapsed after the death of the great
        reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles
        were departed from by those who professed to be his
        special servants, and perverted into an engine for
        enslaving mankind... The purest system ever before
        preached to man has been adulterated and sophisticated
        by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to
        filch wealth and power...They raise the hue and cry of
        infidelity, while themselves are the greatest obstacles
        to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and
        do, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
        (Ibid, p 110-1)

     Replying to the religious objection (used even today!) that either Jesus 
was the Son of God--or else was a lunatic or fraud, Jefferson explained:

      That Jesus did not mean to impose himself on mankind as the son 
      of God, physically speaking, I have been convinced by the writings 
      of men more learned than myself in that lore. But that he might 
      conscientiously believe himself inspired from above, is very possible...
      Elevated by the enthusiasm of a warm and pure heart, conscious of 
      the high strains of an eloquence which had not been taught him, he 
      might readily mistake the coruscations of his own fine genius for
      inspirations of an higher order.

    Regarding the concept of the Trinity Jefferson wrote in a letter to
John Adams, that it was "too late in the day for men of sincerity to
pretend to believe in the Platonic mysticisms that three are one, and
one three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not one."

    Jefferson held his greatest contempt for priests:

      You judge truly that I am not afraid of the priests.
      They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of
      pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering,
      without being able to give me one moment of pain.
      (letter to Ritchie, January 21, 1816. Ford, XI, 507,510)

In a letter to M. Correa de Serra, Jefferson wrote that priests
"dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight."

   Of all Christian sects, Jefferson most admired the Quakers and Unitarians, 
who did not use priests in their religion:

      We should all, then like the Quakers, live without an
      order of priests, moralize for ourselves, follow the
      oracle of conscious, and say nothing about what no man
      can understand, nor therefore believe; for I suppose
      belief to be the assent of the mind to an intelligible
      proposition.
      (letter to John Adams, Aug. 22, 1813, L & B, XIII, 350)

and,
     I rejoice that in this blessed country of free enquiry and
     belief, which has surrendered its creed and conscience to
     neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only
     God is reviving, and I trust there is not a young man now
     living in the U.S. who will not die a Unitarian.
     (letter to Benjamin Waterhouse, 1822)

    Jefferson once approvingly wrote in a letter to William Canby how a 
Quaker preacher had "exclaimed aloud that he did not believe there was a 
Quaker, Presbyterian, Methodist or Baptist in heaven."   This preacher had 
correctly reasoned (in Jefferson's mind) that "in heaven God knew no 
distinctions, but considered all good men as his children, and brethren of 
the same family."

   Regarding himself, Jefferson wrote,

  "I believe, with the Quaker preacher, that he who steadily observes
  these moral precepts in which all religions can concur will never be
  questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all
  differ." (Edward L. Ericson, THE FREE MIND THROUGH THE AGES, Frederick
Ungar Publishing Co., 1985, p 112)

     Of all the Christian sects, Jefferson most despised the Calvinists,
whose concept of original sin served to corrupt man's moral sense and
dignity:

       I can never join Calvin in addressing HIS GOD. He was
       indeed an atheist, which I can never be; or rather his
       religion was demonism.  If ever a man worshipped a false
       God, he did.  The being... is not the God whom you and I
       acknowledge and adore, the creator and benevolent governor
       of the world, but a daemon of malignant spirit.  It would
       be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, then to
       blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.
       (Ibid, p 113)

On the Presbyterians, who shared much of Calvin's theology, Jefferson wrote:

       The Presbyterian clergy are loudest; the most intolerant
       of all sects, the most tyrannical and ambitious; ready
       at the world of the lawgiver ... to rekindle ...the flames
       in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus...
       they pant to reestablish, BY LAW, that holy inquisition,
       which they can now only infuse into PUBLIC OPINION."
       (Ibid)

Many of Jefferson's views were similar to those of his friend--the English 
Unitarian theologian Joseph Priestley. (Priestley was also a practioner of 
science--and the discoverer of oxygen).  In his book A HISTORY OF THE 
CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANTY, Priestley argued that orthodox Christian doctrines 
regarding the deity of Christ, original sin, atonement, and the immortality of 
the soul did NOT originate with Jesus, but instead were "corruptions" or 
additions from  classical pagan Greece.

  Contrasting himself with the religious orthodox of his times, Jefferson 
wrote, "I am a REAL Christian, very different from the Platonists who call 
ME infidel and THEMSELVES Christian and preachers of the gospel, while they 
draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw."

   The historian Daniel J. Boorstin, wrote on Jefferson and his circle of
friends, summarizing their creed as follows: "The essence of religion was
not theology but morality; not what men thought but how they acted."

 Jefferson believed that morality was independent of religious creed:

  "Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of
  society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all
  religion agree (for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, or bear false
  witness) and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in
  which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality.
  In all of them we see good men, and as many in one as another."
  (Ibid, p 111)

   He noted that the atheists Diderot, d'Alembert, d'Holbach, Condorcet "are
known to have been the most virtuous of men...their virtue, then, must have
had some other foundation that the love of God." (TJ to Thomas Law, June 13,
1814. Cousins, 141.)

  Upon his death, a truncated version of Jesus' life written by Jefferson
(known as "The Jefferson Bible") was published. All of Jesus' gospel
reported miracles were removed in Jefferson's version, including references
to the resurrection. After Jesus dies on the cross, the narrative ends as
follows: "Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden;
and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid.
There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the
sepulcher, and departed." (Douglas E. Lurton, ed., THOMAS JEFFERSON:
THE LIFE AND MORALS OF JESUS OF NAZARETH (New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc,
1943) , P 132.

  Jefferson was a true spirit of the Age of Enlightenment--believing it
is mankind's duty to use reason instead of faith in our daily living.  In a
letter to his nephew Peter Carr (dated August 10, 1787) Jefferson wrote:

       Religion.  Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object.
       Fix Reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact,
       every opinion...  Question with boldness even the existence of God;
       because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of
       reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

       You will naturally examine first, the religion of your own country.
       Read the Bible, then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus.  The facts
       which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on
       the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in
       Livy and Tacitus.  The testimony of the writer weighs in their
       favor in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature,
       does not weigh against them.  But those facts in the Bible which
       contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care,
       and under a variety of faces.  Here you must recur to the pretensions
       of the writer to inspiration from God.

       Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether
       that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more
       improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates.
       For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still
       several hours.  Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we
       should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues,
       beasts, etc. But it is said, that the writer of that book was
       inspired.  Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of
       his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry
       because millions believe it.  On the other hand, you are astronomer
       enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body
       revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should
       not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees,
       buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution,
       and that without a second general prostration.  Is this arrest of 
       the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most with the
       law of probabilities?

       You will read next the New Testament.  It is the history of a 
       personage called Jesus.  Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions:
       1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin,
       suspended and reversed the laws of nature at will, and ascended
       bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of
       illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who
       set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them,
       and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according
       to Roman law...

       These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under
       the head of Religion.  They will assist you in your inquiries;
       but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all. Do
       not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences.
       It is ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements
       to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise,
       and the love of others which it will procure you.  If you find reason
       to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under
       his eyes, and that he approves you, will be a vast additional
       incitement if that there be a future state, the hope of a happy
       existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus
       was also a God, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid and love...
       (PAPERS, XII, 14-18)

Criticism of Jefferson

  The efforts of great men like Jefferson began the tradition of keeping
totalitarianism and authoritarianism away from the shores of the United
States.  However the new freedoms and liberty were reserved largely for
whites--Both Indians and blacks, (and to a lesser extent Orientals and
Jews) did not share equally in this new vision--until centuries later.

  Yet, clearly the question arises whether this was due to Jefferson's
vision, or whether he merely accepted it as a situation which he could
not change. Jefferson HAD attempted to write a condemnation of slavery
into the Declaration of Independence. (He argued in vain on the injustice
that only whites had a God-given right to liberty). Slaveholding interests
in both the south and New England eventually defeated these lines from being
included. (Alf J. Mapp, Jr. THOMAS JEFFERSON, (Madison Books, 1987), p 406)

  As we shall see, the institution of slavery was thoroughly grounded in
Christian doctrine and culture--and, especially in the South, popular
opinion would have denounced as ANTI-BIBLICAL any move to elevate the black
man to a level with the rest of the human race! Still, critics have noted
that, despite his idealism, Jefferson maintained slaves on his Virginia
plantation during his lifetime. According to his historian Alf J.
Mapp, Jefferson believed that because the law of Virginia forced freed
slaved to leave the state, they were better off in his care.  Thus,
Jefferson's "attitude was paternalistic [although] it was still far too
liberal for most of his contemporaries.  If we abide by the sensible cliché
that one should be judged in the context of his times, Jefferson is relieved
of the charge of hypocrisy." (Ibid, p 407)  (Footnote: Jefferson also had
an economic incentive for keeping his slaves.--For he was heavily in debt
following the Revolutionary War, and would certainly have had to declare
bankruptcy if he freed them.  Possibly Jefferson would have endured bankruptcy
for himself, but was more concerned with raising his daughters up in a good
environment following the death of his wife.   Thus, we see Jefferson was
morally opposed to the institution of slavery, but hesitated over whether
the benefit his slaves would receive would offset his financial ruin.
Jefferson questioned whether they would really live that much better a life
in what was still a very prejudiced society-- and he reasoned he would take
good care of them.)

   Regarding the Indians, Jefferson found them surprisingly intelligent.
Thomas Jefferson sympathized with the plight of the American Indian,
standing opposed to the popular belief of his time that "the only good
Indian is a dead Indian."  He had gained respect for Indians going back
to when his father had personally entertained Indian chiefs in their
home.  In his NOTES TO VIRGINIA, Jefferson included an eloquent speech by a
Mingo chief named Logan--whose family had been murdered by whites. Jefferson
concluded the speech with the lines-- that were to sum up the essence of
what many Indian tribes would experience at the hands of the white man:

 "Who is there to mourn for Logan--Not one."

                           *  *  *

  Jefferson was a visionary--a man before his time.  The ideas that he put forth
in the American constitution gave the U.S. a model government--possibly the
best form of government ever devised in the world!  Special provisions were
made within the constitution to protect a tyrannical majority from imposing
their views upon the rest of society.  However, because these were interpreted
to protect primarily WHITES  (an important step, even though not comprehensive)-
- great abuses followed during the next centuries against other nonwhite 
minorities.

  As we shall see in the next chapter, as whites desired more and more of the
American Indian lands--the latter were cheated, abused, and even murdered on
a massive scale--sometimes at the hands of official representatives of the
U.S. government.