G. Meet Madison
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involved in the proceedings of 1775 and 1776 gloried in alluding to their
experiences later as "a revolt." Thus when Madison complained in 1774 of
the misery inflicted by one set of christians upon another, he was standing
on the brink of events that transformed the entire poliotical and social
structure of the thirteen colonies in less time then it now takes to send a
First Amendment case from appeal to the Supreme Court. Things happen fast
including me election or Madison himself to the Virginia Convention or
1776. There in Williamsburg, while George Mason and the older leaders
whipped their frothy ideas into the heavy batter of republicanism, Madison
made his first move. Ready to cut all ties with England, the convention
moved to declare independence and write a constitution and bill of rights
for the free state of Virginia. Mason personally handled most of the
business ( he hated committee work), but when it came to his article on
religion the Truro Parish vestryman only saw the need to guarantee "that
all Men shou'd enjoy the fullest Toleration in the Exercise of Religion,
according to the Dictates of Conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the
Magistrate, unless, under Colour of Religion, any Man disturb the Peace,
the Happiness, or Safety of Society, or of individuals."(2) But for
Madison, there the landmark Article 16 of the Virginia Declaration of
Rights would have stood through the final reading, When Madison thought
about it, however, he saw a shorter, broader, and hence a better way of
expressing Mason's idea. So he moved to amend the phrase simply to read:
"all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according
to the dictates of conscience."(3) The wording stuck, and in time the
world read it and marveled that such common sense could come from the
wilderness state of Virginia.
FOOTNOTES:
(2.) Robert A. Rutland, ed., The Papers of George Mason, 3 vols. (Chapel
Hill, N.C.:University of North Carolina Press, 1970), 1, p. 278.
(3). Ibid., 1, pp. 289-91. The final wording seems to have represented a
further compromise, as Madison's first thought was to add a prohibition on
"peculiar emoluments" based on religious ties.
[No two scholars at work today (1985) understand the Madison tradition more
clearly than Robert Rutland and Daniel Boorstin. Together these essays
define the Heritage to which this volume is dedicated.]
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison's Dream: A secular Republic, by
Robert A. Rutland, James Madison on Religious Liberty, edited, with
introductions and interpretations by Robert S. Alley. Prometheus Books,
Buffalo, N.Y. (1985) pp 200-201)
**********************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
"Dedicated to combatting 'history by sound bite'."
Now including a re-publication of Tom Peters
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
and
Audio links to Supreme Court oral arguments and
Speech by civil rights/constitutional lawyer and others.
Page is a member of the following web rings:
The First Amendment Ring--&--The Church-State Ring
Freethought Ring--&--The History Ring
Legal Research Ring
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buc...@exis.net
About the General assessment battle in Virginia
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In this confused situation Presbyterians occupied an ambiguous
position. Convinced that a religious subsidy would pass, the Hanover
Presbytery first declared that "religion as a spiritual System is not to be
considered an obiect of human Legislation" and in the next breath made a
bid to share in the proceeds of "a general assessment for teachers of
Chtiscianity."(5)
Such a compromise was anathema to Madison, who had no intention of
retreating from the high ground he occupied when helping fashion Article
16 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. He had seen conservative forces
in the General Assembly come within an eyelash of passing the legislation
--offcially known as the "Bill establishing a provision for the teachers of
the Christian religion" at the October 1784 session--with some sly
maneuvering needed by its opponents to postpone final action on the bill
and publicize its provisions in the interim. George Nicholas in
neighboring Albemarle County had entreated Madison to bestir himself so
that apathy would not allow the bill to become law.(6) Surely Madison
discussed the matter with his neighbors, including the obstreperous
Elderlohn Leland, a Baptist minister who loathed all forms of church-state
alliances. A host of Episcopalians as well as dissenters were eager to cut
all church-state ties. However, a focal point for the opposition was
needed, and the usual way to protest pending legislation in
the 1780s was by a petition.
Partly from pressure, then, and partly from personal conviction,
Madison took pen in hand and wrote a cogently reasoned, anonymous attack on
the General Assessment bill. By the end of June it was ready for
distribution, most likely through Nicholas and other young men in the
Piedmont whom Madison could trust to keep his secret--Archibald Sruart,
John Breckinridge, and the tidelands patriarch at Gunston Hall who was
eager to knock the tax-subsidy props from beneath the church he attended
and loved, George Mason. The Library of Congress copy of the protest is in
Madison's hand-writing. No doubt he sent a copy to Mason, who was eager to
see it in print. From an Alexandria press Mason broadcast copies of the
Memorial and Remonmance to friends and neighbors. Mason sent with it a
covering letter that honored Madison's request for anonymity. The petition,
Mason explained, "was confided to me by a particular Freind [sie], whose
name I am not at Liberty to mention."(7) So active was Mason in supporting
Madison's remonstrance that there was speculation that he was its real
author.(8)
Madison's motive in seeking a cloud of anonymity over his attack on the
General Assessment bill is uncertain. He told Jefferson copies had been
dispatched "thro' the medium of confidential persons."(9) Hamilton
Eckenrode speculated that most Virginians were inclined to support the
bill, until the protest movement began to swell.(10)The phalanx committed
to its passage was imposing. A fortuitous circumstance was the fact that
Paaick Henry was still governor and thus unable to use his oratory in the
House of Delegates to overwhelm the opposition. Carter Henry Harrison,
Charles Mynn Thruston, Wilson Miles Cary, John Page, and lesser lights
also were convinced that religion needed bolstering. Richard Henry Lee and
Edmund Pendleton were not legislators, but in Richmond their support of
the General Assessment bill was certainly no secret.(11)
In these circumstances Madison may have thought it prudent to
eschew the role of rabble-rouser. There was much to be done at the October
1785 session of the legislature, and Madison was too good a politician to
go out of his way to alienate those men whose votes or support he would
need if the reforms of the court system and the whole legal code were to
pass a House of Delegates fairly balanced in terms of conservative and
progressive mem bers. So it may have been prudence and expediency that
caused Madison to mantle his authorship of lone of the truly epoch-making
documents in the history of American Church-State separation."(12)
Because of his labors the campaign against the General Assessment bill had
all the aspects of a well-organized endeavor. What is not generally known
is that Madison was not only seeking anonymity but was so circumspect that
another opponent of the General Assessment bill actually had a mote active
following. While at least thirteen of Madison's petitions were circulated
(and in time bore 1,552 signatures), another (also anonymous) petition
writer found that his attack on the "Teachers of Christian Religion"
measure gained more widespread support, Twenty-nine petitions, signed by
4,899 Virginians, came from the pen of this unknown opponent of a
church-state tie. This petition was based on an argument that carries
beyond Madison's--the General Assessment bill was not only contrary to the
Virginia Declaration of Rights and to the enlightened republicanism
pronounced there, but the proposed act was in conflict with "the Spirit of
the Gospel." Whoever wrote this petition, which was easily the most popular
of the several circulating protests, was clearly an active Christian (and
probably a Baptist) who believed the General Assessment bill would do
nothing to check "that Deism with its banefull Influence [which] is
spreading itself over the state."(16)
Obviously, more Virginians were made aware of this zealous protest than
Madison's calmer one, and it is also notable that in Westmoreland County at
least eleven women signed the temonstrance based on "the Spirit of the
Gospel." Thus, while Madison's role in shaping opposition to the bill is
noteworthy, his protest was signed by a minority of all the protesting
Virginians who were recorded as opponents of the General Assessment bill
(since 10,929 signed some kind of anti-assessment petition). Almost eighty
petitions opposed to the General Assessment bill flowed into the
legislative hopper after October 27, 1785. Some were printed, and some came
in longhand, but less than one-fifth of them were based entirely on
Madison's work. Only eleven counties mustered enough support for the bill
to send favorable petitions to Richmond. Faced with such odds, the
conservatives retreated. The bill that seemed so certain of passage in
November 1784 was, one year later, allowed to die in a pigeonhole.
With the passage of time, history tended to forget the other protests of
1785-1786 and focused upon Madison's. Madison himself was no longer shy
about his role, and in his seventy-fifth year he remembered that chiefly
because of the Memorial and Remonmance the churchmen in the General
Assembly were "entirely frustrated, and under the influence of the public
sentiment thus manifested the celebrated Bill 'Establishing Religious
freedom' [was] enacted into a permanent Barrier agst. future attempts on
the Rights of Conscience as declared in the great chatter affixed to the
Constitution of the State."(17) Strengthened by the victory over churchmen
in 1785, Madison resurrected Jefferson's 1729 bill to cut all religious
ties asunder at the 1786 legislative session. With Patrick Henry now
governor and out of the way, it passed handily.
Madison did not pause to rest. His dominant role in drafting the
Constitution and forcing the First Amendment upon a reluctant Congress in
1789 is well known. In the light of history, it would have been an irony
had any other man performed the task--certainly no one in the House of
Represenmtives or Senate could match his record as a fighter for religious
freedom.
[No two scholars at work today (1985) understand the Madison tradition more
clearly than Robert Rutland and Daniel Boorstin. Together these essays
define the Heritage to which this volume is dedicated.]
[No two scholars at work today (1985) understand the Madison tradition more
clearly than Robert Rutland and Daniel Boorstin. Together these essays
define the Heritage to which this volume is dedicated.]
FOOTNOTES:
(5). Virginia Historical Society: Records of the Proceedings of Hanover
Presbytery from the Year 1755 to the Year 1786 (typed copy by George S.
Wallace, 1930), pp. 327-27.
(6). Nicholas to Madison, Apr. 22, 1785, in Hutchinson, 8, pp. 264-65.
(7). Mason to Washington, Oct. 2, 1785, in Rutland, 2, p. 830.
(8). Kate Mason Rowland, The Life of George Mason, 1725-1792, 2 voIs. (New
York, 1892), 2, p. 87.
(9). Madison to Jefferson, Aug. 20, 1785, in Hutchinson, 8, p. 345
(italicized words in code).
(10). Hamilton J. Eckenrode, Separation of church and State in Virginia
(Richmond, 1910), p. 95.
(11). David John Mays, ed., The Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton,
I734-I802, 2 vols. (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia,
1967), 2, p. 474.
(12). Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, 3 vols.
(New York, 1950), 1, p. 391.
(16). Virginia State Library: Westmoreland County petition.
(17). Madison to George Mason [of Green Spring], July 14, 1826 (Virginia
Historical Society).
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison's Dream: A secular Republic, by
Robert A. Rutland, James Madison on Religious Liberty, edited, with
introducatios and interpreatations by Robert S. Alley. Prometheus Books,
Buffalo, N.Y. (1985) pp 202-204)
buc...@exis.net
A comparison between the fifteen-paragraph Memorial and
Remonstrance and John Locke's "Letter on Toleration" (1685) leads to the
speculation that Madison had occasion to use Locke's treatise in preparing
his own. Assertions ofintellectual dependence are often based on slender
textual coincidences, but there are a number of similarities between the
views of Madison and Locke toward religious ties between church and state.
For example, Madison speaks of the "metes and bounds" between the temporal
and spiritual establishments while Locke marked "the true bounds between
the church and the commonwealth." Madison denies to "the Civil Magistrate"
any power over religion because "Religious truth" and "the means of
salvation" are beyond the concerns of the state. With Locke, the whole
jurisdiction of the magistrate is concerned only with "civil goods" such as
life, liberty, and property and ought not "in any way to be extended to
the salvation of souls." Indeed, Locke held that "the magistrate ought not
to forbid the holding or teaching of any speculative opinions in any
church, because they have no beating on the civil rights of his subjects."
(13)
If this comparison of Locke and Madison seems strained, there is
one indisputable similarity between the "Letter on Toleration" and the
Memorial and Remonstrance. Neither Locke nor Madison wanted his authorship
revealed. A modern scholar has noted that "Locke's timid anxiety to conceal
his identity was excessive"; Madison sent his petition to a close circle of
friends who were enjoined to secrecy.(14) "My choice is that my name may
not be associated with it," Madison wrote his friend Edmund Randolph.(15)
Whether Madison gleaned his "wall of separation" arguments from a
growing number of volumes in his personal library or drew upon experience
and practical politics as his guides, the result is beyond doubt.
[No two scholars at work today (1985) understand the Madison tradition more
clearly than Robert Rutland and Daniel Boorstin. Together these essays
define the Heritage to which this volume is dedicated.]
FOOTNOTES:
(12). Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, 3 vols.
(New York, 1950), 1, p. 391.
(13). John Locke, Epistolia de Tokrantia: A Letter of Toleration, ed. by
Raymond Klibansky and J. W. Gough (Oxford, 1968), pp. 65, 67, 121.
(14). Locke, p. 45; Rutland, 2, pp. 830, 832.
(15). Madison to Randolph, July 26, 1785, in Hutchinson, 8, p. 328.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison's Dream: A secular Republic, by
Robert A. Rutland, James Madison on Religious Liberty, edited, with
introductions and interpretations by Robert S. Alley. Prometheus Books,
Buffalo, N.Y. (1985) pp 200-201)