Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

But Leland and his congregation were staunch Jeffersonians.

For them, Jefferson was a hero, the champion of religious freedom and the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, a document that was profoundly important to minority denominations like the Baptists, who had long suffered under state-sponsored churches.

When Jefferson was elected president in 1800, Leland sought a way for his small community to make a grand gesture of support, one that would be impossible for the nation and the Federalist press to ignore.

The idea was born.

He signs the abolition of the international slave trade at the earliest instant the Constitution allows, effective the first day of 1808, and means it.

His Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom is a genuine light in the world.

He pardons every man convicted under the Sedition Act, dismantles the machinery of the last chapter, shrinks the army, pays down the debt.

And he knew.

Here were a couple of their big projects.

Number one, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

In January of '17, '7, they worked at a tavern in Fredericksburg.

Now, is it just me, or did these guys spend a lot of time working in taverns? But they drafted this really famous state law, and it said that, "Almighty God hath created the mind free." So because God gave us these free minds, states shouldn't force people to pay taxes to one specific church, in this case, the Church of England.

End of To a Stranger by Martin Luther

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom by Thomas Jefferson.

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This act, now commonly called the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, began simply as Bill Number eighty-two, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, adopted in seventeen eighty-five by the Virginia legislature.

Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds, that Almighty God hath created the mind free and manifested His supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint.

That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, 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, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone.

Then Craig Vasey and Bill Beck and Brooke DeLauro talked about three different aspects of France, the history of the Eiffel Tower, which was illuminating, and how it related to the Statue of Liberty.

And then Bill Beck talked about the philosophical relationship between French philosophers and the Statute of Religious Freedom, which is a cornerstone of American foundation.

And then Brooke DeLauro talked about French cuisine and its influence on American culture.

Yeah,

Mm-hmm.

And the, the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom or something.

I, yeah, I think those are, I think he might've gone three for three.

Let's see.