OUR NON RELIGIOUS FOUNDING
FATHERS
QUOTES
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1. “If I could conceive that the
general government might ever be so administered as
to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg
you will be persuaded, that no one would be more
zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers
against the horrors of spiritual tyranny,
and every species of religious persecution.”~Founding
Father George Washington, letter to the
United Baptist Chamber of Virginia, May 1789
2. “Of all the animosities which have
existed among mankind, those which are caused by
a difference of sentiments in religion appear to
be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought
to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the
enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the
present age, would at least have reconciled
Christians of every denomination so far that we
should never again see the religious disputes
carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of
society.”~Founding Father George Washington,
letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792
3. “We have abundant reason to rejoice that in
this Land the light of truth and reason has
triumphed over the power of bigotry and
superstition… In this enlightened Age and in
this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a
man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the
protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right
of attaining and holding the highest Offices that
are known in the United States.”~Founding Father George
Washington, letter to the members of the New
Church in Baltimore, January 27, 1793
4. “The United States of America have exhibited,
perhaps, the first example of governments erected on
the simple principles of nature; and if men are now
sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves
of
artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition,
they will consider this event as an era in their
history. Although the detail of the formation of the
American governments is at present little known or
regarded either in Europe or in America, it may
hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will
never be pretended that any persons employed in that
service had interviews with the gods, or were in any
degree under the influence of Heaven, more than
those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in
merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be
acknowledged that these governments were contrived
merely by the use of reason and the senses.”~John
Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of
Government of the United States of America”
1787-1788
5. “The Government of the United States of
America is not in any sense founded on the Christian
religion.”~1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by Founding
Father John Adams
6. “Thirteen governments [of the original
states] thus founded on the natural authority of the
people alone, without a pretence of
miracle or mystery, and which are destined to
spread over the northern part of that whole quarter
of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of
the rights of mankind.”~Founding Father John
Adams, “A Defence of the Constitutions of
Government of the United States of America”
(1787-88)
7. “We should begin by setting conscience free.
When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal
liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors
and power we may expect that improvements will be
made in the human character and the state of
society.”~Founding Father John Adams, letter to Dr.
Price, April 8, 1785
8. “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that
act of the whole American people which declared that
their legislature should make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free
exercise thereof, thus building a wall of
separation between church and state.”~Founding
Father Thomas Jefferson, letter to the
Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802
9. “In every country and in every age, the
priest has been hostile to liberty. He is
always in alliance with the despot, abetting
his abuses in return for protection to his own. It
is error alone that needs the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself.”~Founding Father Thomas
Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford,
1814
10. “Question with boldness even the
existence of a God; because, if there be
one, he must more approve of the homage of
reason, then that of blindfolded fear.”~Founding
Father Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter
Carr, August 10, 1787
11. “I am for freedom of religion and against
all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of
one sect over another.”~Founding Father Thomas
Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26,
1799
12. “History, I believe, furnishes no example
of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil
government. This marks the lowest grade
of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious
leaders will always avail themselves for their own
purposes.”~Founding Father Thomas
Jefferson: in letter to Alexander von
Humboldt, December 6, 1813
13. “Because religious belief, or non-belief, is
such an important part of every person’s life,
freedom of religion affects every individual.
Religious institutions that use government power to
support themselves and force their views on persons
of other faiths undermine all our civil rights.
Moreover, state support of the church tends to make
the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to
corruption within religion. Erecting the “wall of
separation between church and state,” therefore, is
absolutely essential in a free society. We have
solved … the great and interesting question whether
freedom of religion is compatible with order in
government and obedience to the laws. And we have
experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which
results from leaving every one to profess freely and
openly those principles of religion which are the
inductions of his own reason and the serious
convictions of his own inquiries.”~Founding Father
Thomas Jefferson: in a speech to the Virginia
Baptists, 1808
14. “Christianity neither is, nor ever was a
part of the common law.”~Founding Father Thomas
Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10,
1814,
15. “The civil government functions with
complete success by the total separation of the
Church from the State.”~Founding Father James
Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene
Garman, “Essays In Addition to America’s Real
Religion”
16. “And I have no doubt that every new example
will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing
that religion & Govt will both exist in greater
purity, the less they are mixed together.”~Founding
Father James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston,
July 10, 1822
17. “Every new and successful example of a
perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil
matters is of importance.”~Founding Father James
Madison, letter, 1822
18. “Strongly guarded as is the separation
between Religion and Government in the Constitution
of the United States, the danger of encroachment by
Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by
precedents already furnished in their short
history.”~Founding Father James Madison; Monopolies,
Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical
Endowments
19. “It is only when the people become ignorant
and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace,
that they are incapable of exercising the
sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment,
and an usurper soon found. The people themselves
become the willing instruments of their own
debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great
cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force.
Let us by all wise and constitutional measures
promote intelligence among the people as the best
means of preserving our liberties.”~Founding Father
James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817
20. “When a religion is good, I conceive it will
support itself; and when it does not support itself,
and God does not take care to support it so that its
professors are obligated to call for help of the
civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being
a bad one.”~Founding Father Benjamin Franklin,
letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
21. “Manufacturers, who listening to the
powerful invitations of a better price for their
fabrics, or their labor, of greater cheapness of
provisions and raw materials, of an exemption from
the chief part of the taxes burdens and restraints,
which they endure in the old world, of greater
personal independence and consequence, under the
operation of a more equal government, and of what is
far more precious than mere religious toleration–a
perfect equality of religious privileges; would
probably flock from Europe to the United States to
pursue their own trades or professions, if they were
once made sensible of the advantages they would
enjoy, and were inspired with an assurance of
encouragement and employment, will, with difficulty,
be induced to transplant themselves, with a view to
becoming cultivators of the land.”~Founding Father
Alexander Hamilton: Report on the Subject of
Manufacturers December 5, 1791
22. “In regard to religion, mutual toleration in
the different professions thereof is what all good
and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced,
and both by precept and example inculcated on
mankind.”~Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists
(1771)
23. “That religion, or the duty which we owe to
our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can
be directed only by reason and conviction, not by
force or violence; and therefore all men are equally
entitled to the free exercise of religion, according
to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the
mutual duty of all to practice Christian
forebearance, love, and charity towards each
other.”~Founding Father George Mason, Virginia Bill
of Rights, 1776
24. “It is contrary to the principles of reason
and justice that any should be compelled to
contribute to the maintenance of a church with which
their consciences will not permit them to join, and
from which they can derive no benefit; for remedy
whereof, and that equal liberty as well religious as
civil, may be universally extended to all the good
people of this commonwealth.”~Founding Father George
Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776
25. “A man of abilities and character, of any
sect whatever, may be admitted to any office or
public trust under the United States. I am a friend
to a variety of sects, because they keep one another
in order. How many different sects are we composed
of throughout the United States? How many different
sects will be in congress? We cannot enumerate the
sects that may be in congress. And there are so many
now in the United States that they will prevent the
establishment of any one sect in prejudice to the
rest, and will forever oppose all attempts to
infringe religious liberty. If such an attempt be
made, will not the alarm be sounded throughout
America? If congress be as wicked as we are foretold
they will, they would not run the risk of exciting
the resentment of all, or most of the religious
sects in America.”~Founding Father Edmund Randolph,
address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June
10, 1788
26. “I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church —
an equality in the teacher of Religion, and a
dependence on the people, are republican sentiments
— but if the Clergy combine, they will have their
influence on Government.”~Founding Father Rufus
King, Rufus King: American Federalist, pp. 56-57
27. “A general toleration of Religion appears to
me the best means of peopling our country… The free
exercise of religion hath stocked the Northern part
of the continent with inhabitants; and altho’ Europe
hath in great measure adopted a more moderate
policy, yet the profession of Protestantism is
extremely inconvenient in many places there. A
Calvinist, a Lutheran, or Quaker, who hath felt
these inconveniences in Europe, sails not to
Virginia, where they are felt perhaps in a (greater
degree).”~Patrick Henry, observing that immigrants
flock to places where there is no established
religion, Religious Tolerance, 1766
28. “No religious doctrine shall be established
by law.”~Founding Father Elbridge Gerry, Annals of
Congress 1:729-731
29. “Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in
this country, that I do not believe that the United
States would ever be disposed to establish one
religious sect, and lay all others under legal
disabilities. But as we know not what may take place
hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly
injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot
think it altogether superfluous to have added a
clause, which secures us from the possibility of
such oppression.”~Founding Father Oliver Wolcott,
Connecticut Ratifying Convention, 9 January 1788
30. “Some very worthy persons, who have not had
great advantages for information, have objected
against that clause in the constitution which
provides, that no religious test shall ever be
required as a qualification to any office or public
trust under the United States. They have been afraid
that this clause is unfavorable to religion. But my
countrymen, the sole purpose and effect of it is to
exclude persecution, and to secure to you the
important right of religious liberty. We are almost
the only people in the world, who have a full
enjoyment of this important right of human nature.
In our country every man has a right to worship God
in that way which is most agreeable to his
conscience. If he be a good and peaceable person he
is liable to no penalties or incapacities on account
of his religious sentiments; or in other words, he
is not subject to persecution. But in other parts of
the world, it has been, and still is, far different.
Systems of religious error have been adopted, in
times of ignorance. It has been the interest of
tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates, to maintain
these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to
vanish, and the people grew more enlightened, there
was no other way to keep them in error, but to
prohibit their altering their religious opinions by
severe persecuting laws. In this way persecution
became general throughout Europe.”~Founding Father
Oliver Ellsworth, Philip B Kurland and Ralph Lerner
(eds.), The Founder’s Constitution, University of
Chicago Press, 1987, Vol. 4, p. 638
31. “Persecution is not an original feature in
any religion; but it is always the strongly marked
feature of all religions established by law. Take
away the law-establishment, and every religion
re-assumes its original benignity.”~Thomas Paine,
The Rights of Man, 1791
32. “God has appointed two kinds of government
in the world, which are distinct in their nature,
and ought never to be confounded together; one of
which is called civil, the other ecclesiastical
government.”~Founding Father Isaac Backus, An Appeal
to the Public for Religious Liberty, 1773
33. “Congress has no power to make any religious
establishments.”~Founding Father Roger Sherman,
Congress, August 19, 1789
34. “The American states have gone far in
assisting the progress of truth; but they have
stopped short of perfection. They ought to have
given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy
his religion and an equal title to all civil
emoluments, without obliging him to tell his
religion. Every interference of the civil power in
regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take
the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and
every preference given to any religious
denomination, is so far slavery and
bigotry.”~Founding Father Noah Webster, calling for
no religious tests to serve in public office,
Sketches of American Policy, 1785
35. “The legislature of the United States shall
pass no law on the subject of religion.”~Founding
Father Charles Pinckney, Constitutional Convention,
1787