[Our] principles [are] founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:379
An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to George Hay, 1807. ME 11:341
Here are some actual and accurate Jefferson quotes (CUT and PASTE of course):
"Force [is] the vital principle and immediate parent of
despotism." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801
"Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not
be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or
the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.
"Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours
his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to...the general
prey of the rich on the poor." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward
Carrington, 1787.
"Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to
the higher classes of society." --Thomas Jefferson to William
Short, 1825.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Archibald Stuart (1791)
That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio Gates (1798)
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H Tiffany (1819)
The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.
-- Thomas Jefferson, note in Destutt de Tracy, "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:465
To unequal privileges among members of the same society the spirit of our nation is, with one accord, adverse."
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Hugh White, 1801. ME 10:258
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.
-- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.... error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.... I deem the essential principles of our government.... Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; ... freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
-- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:8
Of distinction by birth or badge, [Americans] had no more idea than they had of the mode of existence in the moon or planets. They had heard only that there were such, and knew that they must be wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:89
[The] best principles [of our republic] secure to all its citizens a perfect equality of rights.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Reply to the Citizens of Wilmington, 1809. ME 16:336
It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the authority of names so artificially magnified.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, August 4, 1820 (see Positive Atheism's Historical section)
In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.
-- Thomas Jefferson, from Henry Wilder Foote, Thomas Jefferson: Champion of Religious Freedom (1947), quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Green Mumford, June 18, 1799
May it [the Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day [July 4th] forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them....
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C Weightman, June 24, 1826, Jefferson's last letter, declining, due to ill health, an invitation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of that document; Jefferson died ten days later, the very day ot the 50th anniversary of the Declaration's signing (John Adams died a few hours later, not knowing that Jefferson had also died)
Religious Liberty
Among the most inestimable of our blessings is that ... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Reply to Baptist Address, 1807
From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers, 1:545
The rights [to religious freedom] are of the natural rights of mankind, and ... if any act shall be ... passed to repeal [an act granting those rights] or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 2:546 (see Positive Atheism's Historical section)
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82 (capitalization of the word god is retained per original; see Positive Atheism's Historical Section)
Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and 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. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
I know it will give great offense to the clergy, but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor forgiveness from them.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Levi Lincoln, 1802. ME 10:305
I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this [that a bookseller is prosecuted for selling books advocatig what was then presumed by the statusuo to be pseudoscience] can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.
If M de Becourt's book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose....
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to N G Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller (1814), after being prosecuted for selling de Becourt's book, Sur la Création du Monde, un Systême d'Organisation Primitive, which Jefferson himself had purchased (check Positive Atheism's Historical library for a copy of the entire letter).
[N]o 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.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779), quoted from Merrill D Peterson, ed, Thomas Jefferson: Writings (1984), p. 347
I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1799 (see Positive Atheism's Historical section)
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803
The 'Wall of Separation,' Again:
Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists (1808) ME 16:320. This is his second kown use of the term "wall of separation," here quoting his own use in the Danbury Baptist letter. This wording of the original was several times upheld by the Supreme Court as an accurate description of the Establishment Clause: Reynolds (98 US at 164, 1879); Everson (330 US at 59, 1947); McCollum (333 US at 232, 1948)
Supreme Court: Clause erects 'Wall of Separation'
In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation' between church and state.
-- Hugo Black, Everson v. Board of Education (1947)
Government Intermeddling
Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to Richard Rush, 1813
In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378
Our Constitution ... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Reply to New London Methodists, 1809
To suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers, 2: 546 (see Positive Atheism's Historical Section)
The impious presumption of legislators and 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;...
-- Thomas Jefferson, expressing concern over the authoritarian interpretation of religious views, and advocating, rather, that states allow an individual to use her or his own reason to establish or settle these opinions, in the opening passage to Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), quoted from Merrill D Peterson, editor, Thomas Jefferson: Writings (1984), page 346
We have solved by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government, and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving everyone to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason, and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Baptist Association at Chesterfield Virginia, November 21, 1808, Andrew Lipscomb and Albert Bergh, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, volume 16, page 320. (Please note that a similar quote, found on page 47 of the 1991 edition of Menendez and Doerr's wonderful volume, The Great Quotations on Religious Liberty is incorrect in that this wording is not found in any known letters to James Madison and certainly not that of December 16, 1786; for some forgotten reason, we omitted that quote from our otherwise exhaustive use of Menendez and Doerr's then-rare collection. Cliff Walker, editor. Added on February 24, 2008)
Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Miles King, 26 September 1814, quoted from Roche, OIA, ed. The Jeffersonian Bible (1964) p. 328
SpurHunter - 1/11/2010 8:40 AM
.....Of course no real arguments can be made against these statements,....
DOH they are statements; how do you argue statements?
