Thomas Jefferson Religious Beliefs Essay

Improved Essays
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 …show more content…
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

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    The Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom Written by one of the United States of America’s founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom is a declaration of the right to religious freedom and separation of church and state. Jefferson first drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1777 but the bill was not passed into law until January of 1786, seven years after being initially introduced to the Virginia General Assembly. Backed by dissenting sects, such as the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc., Jefferson gave voice to the grievances of those paying taxes to fund the Church of England, to the many religions that demanded legal protection to practice their desired religion, and to the people petitioning for the separation of church and state.…

    • 1497 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Thomas Jefferson, one of the most popular founding fathers, the main author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States of America was revered by his contemporaries and is still to this day a well respected figure in American history. But, this does not mean that the man had no faults. Often in todays world Thomas Jefferson is looked back upon and has been scrutinized by many for his apparent hypocrisy on matters such as slavery and on what he believed limitations of the federal government were to be. Although some of Jefferson’s past can be dark and questionable, he was no hypocrite, but a man who understood that his decisions would have lasting effects on the new country, and that putting his own personal…

    • 1033 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In October 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson congratulating him on his Presidential election. Jefferson was an alledged atheist and believed that no special laws should be created with a bias toward or against another religion. He replied his intentions to stay away from religion, creating a “wall of separation” between the federal government and the state government, giving the state government full responsibility with religious affairs. Jefferson’s phrase possibly meant that there should be a clear division between religion and publicities. Daniel Dreisbach made many arguments in “The Mythical Wall of Separation.”…

    • 364 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For Jefferson, his cataloging of the political spheres that developed over time to favor religious freedom was an important cultural production of it’s own. Jefferson’s observations were a body of work that let people of the early Republic see a current point of view; a point of view in which the imagined communities of the early Republic came together as a whole. Although Jefferson’s notes were only a part of the work that he contributed to the founding of the country, the notes hold a great cultural and political significance since they helped explain and develop a portion of the ideology behind some of the Bill of Rights. Apess’ autobiography was also a form of cultural production; however, Apess also made direct contributions to the methodist church; he made contributions that not only addressed the marginalized peoples deprivation- but worked to change it.…

    • 1714 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson discusses religion extensively. Jefferson defines freedom as allowing citizens to express themselves without fear of government or church persecution. He firmly believed in separation of church and state. Jefferson then goes on to use his religious beliefs to show that he prefers rural life to the urban life. Jefferson writes that, “Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar for substantial and genuine virtue” (165).…

    • 1008 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Several religious individuals had immigrated to the U. S for that very cause. Therefore, Jefferson and Madison believed that the state should be irreligious. Moreover, Madison supposed that governmental influence would be a corrupt religion. This bill stabilized the idea of religious freedom in U. S; giving individuals the right to follow their spiritual and religious ways. Jefferson was helpful in making a the state separate from…

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As President, Thomas Jefferson Sought To Set a Democratic Tone and to Reduce the Role of the Federal Government *****ALL ARTICLES AND QUIZZES MUST BE COMPLETED AT THE ASSIGNED READING LEVEL********* Jefferson’s Democratic Style 1. Jefferson was determined to make the government more democratic. Democratic means: in a manner in agreement, or supporting the democratic style. Primary source: “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they preserve them……..…

    • 859 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Thomas Jefferson: Thomas Jefferson was elected to presidency in 1801 with a primarily Federalist cabinet. He held Republican views for the time, advocating westward expansion, supporting farmers. Jefferson thought a good government would promote the “encouragement of agriculture”, which was his main goal for a successful country. This made Jefferson believe in a more simple life focused more on his people’s standards of living rather than the nation’s money in the bank and how other worldly powered viewed America.…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Embargo Act of 1807 Thomas Jefferson’s History Thomas Jefferson had an interesting life growing up. Peter Jefferson, Thomas’s father, was the third or fourth settler in the United States in the year of 1737. Peter Jefferson, immigrated from Wales to America in 1737 (Jefferson with lots of fresh detail, 2012). Thomas’s father’s education was neglected when he was a child but he had a strong mind, sound judgment…

    • 1739 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743, in Shadwell, Virginia. Thomas Jefferson time period was one of the best-educated men in America. At the age of 17 he went to Williamsburg Virginia to study at College of William and Mary, as he got there he got that exciting first glimpses of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed. He started reading widely in the degree of law, in sciences, and also in literature, philosophy, and also both ancient and modern history and much more.…

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Given the only proof of occurrences in that era are what written documents that have survived the time. Thus, pinpointing exact details and dogmata’s from century’s former to our epoch is virtually unattainable. However, assumed the information available; Thomas Jefferson believed that everyone should have the right to worship in their own way.…

    • 125 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Thomas Jefferson argues that the use of American taxpayers was to use the money towards supporting churches. Thomas Jefferson philosophy was based on Christianity, Baptist and Methodists had some former decades towards the religious freedom and separation of church and state. Jefferson was arguing that the Declaration of Independence was entitled to the laws of Nature. It’s stated that not one person has to obligate to a church and support with a tax (Jefferson, Importance of Freedom of Religion, 1779 ). The Freedom of Religion to me means a lot because it helps showcase your own religion and what you believe in.…

    • 127 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson). Web. 4 Nov. 2015. Scherr, Arthur. " Thomas Jefferson Versus The Historians: Christianity, Atheistic Morality, And The Afterlife."…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    His earliest memory was being carried on a soft, fluffy pillow, by one of his father’s slaves, at the early age of two. His mom, Jane Randolph Jefferson, was known as an aristocrat and from one of Americas most prominent families. On the other hand his father, Peter Jefferson, was a very successful self-made man, industrious and fiercely independent, loving liberty and justice, owning over a 5000 acre plantation. Peter would tell Thomas several stories as they walked through the uncharted woods of the Western territory, teaching him about the Indians, liberty, love, and independence. He embraced his fathers’ council and came to have a strong love for liberty and independence.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Thomas Jefferson Legacy

    • 1554 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Once heralded as “The Defender of the Rights of Man”, Jefferson is now ironically regarded by some as nothing more than a slave owning racist, and oppressor of human freedom. These contrasting points of view beg the question, who was this man really? And what is the true legacy that he left behind? This paper will attempt to prove with original sources that Jefferson’s legacy should be as an American Moses for the once enslaved African-American community. More specifically, Jefferson’s political writings were the catalyst needed to bring about their eventual and long overdue…

    • 1554 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays