Much is known about Thomas Jefferson as a politician and philosopher. He authored the Declaration of Independence, founded the University of Virginia, and served as third President of the United States. However, from his explicit instructions on the inscription for his gravestone, Jefferson wanted to be remembered for three achievements, which did not include his presidency. Instead, he listed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom as his other important accomplishment. To understand this third pillar of Jefferson’s life, this paper focuses on Jefferson’s religious journey from his youth to his retirement, revealing a man deeply conflicted by the rituals, practices, and mysticism of many established religions, but also a devoutly religious
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He once commented, when asked for information on his beliefs, “Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone.” Particularly in his early life, Jefferson’s desire to keep his religious beliefs private, along with a fire destroying his early papers in 1770, left little documented evidence remaining of his religious journey as a youth. However, looking at colonial Virginia’s religious climate reveals some part of that lost information as Jefferson grew up in a Virginia entrenched in an Anglican belief system that the Church of England heavily enforced. The Anglican Church officially enforced attendance and rejected the practice of any other religion through legislation in 1610, which carried increasing levels of punishment for dissent including whippings and six month imprisonment on ships going to sea. Colonists who chose not to attend Anglican services paid a stiff fine, and dissenters found themselves heavily taxed. Further, government officials had to claim allegiance to the Anglican Church, and Anglican ministers served as the primary teachers at local schools; in fact, Anglicans served as the faculty and staff of Virginia Colony’s solitary source of higher education, the College of William and Mary. Religion, then, dominated life for colonists in nearly every respect, including the law and
He once commented, when asked for information on his beliefs, “Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone.” Particularly in his early life, Jefferson’s desire to keep his religious beliefs private, along with a fire destroying his early papers in 1770, left little documented evidence remaining of his religious journey as a youth. However, looking at colonial Virginia’s religious climate reveals some part of that lost information as Jefferson grew up in a Virginia entrenched in an Anglican belief system that the Church of England heavily enforced. The Anglican Church officially enforced attendance and rejected the practice of any other religion through legislation in 1610, which carried increasing levels of punishment for dissent including whippings and six month imprisonment on ships going to sea. Colonists who chose not to attend Anglican services paid a stiff fine, and dissenters found themselves heavily taxed. Further, government officials had to claim allegiance to the Anglican Church, and Anglican ministers served as the primary teachers at local schools; in fact, Anglicans served as the faculty and staff of Virginia Colony’s solitary source of higher education, the College of William and Mary. Religion, then, dominated life for colonists in nearly every respect, including the law and