The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
Thomas Jefferson, 1786
Well aware that Almighty 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,
who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by
coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that 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, 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, is sinful and
tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of
his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable
liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose
morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most
persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those
temporal rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal
conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors
for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence
on our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or
geometry; that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the
public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to
the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this
or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those
privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he
has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of
that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly
of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and
conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not
withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the
bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his
powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or
propagation of principles, on the 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; that it is
time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its
officers 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.
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 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 nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect
their civil capacities.
And though we well know this Assembly, elected by the people for the
ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no powers equal to our own
and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect
in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights
hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any
act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its
operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right
