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Two hundred years ago, on January 1, 1802,
President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter
observing that the First Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution had built "a wall
of separation between Church and State."
In the 1947 case Everson v. Board of Education,
the Supreme Court quoted Jefferson's phrase
as expressing the intent of the Establishment
Clause, and the "wall of separation"
metaphor has been an important part of constitutional
law ever since.
Jefferson's letter was addressed
to Nehemiah
Dodge (Tristram, Israel, John,
John), Ephraim
Robbins and Stephen S. Nelson,
a committee
of the Danbury Baptist Association,
in response
to a letter they had sent him
in October.
The handwriting of this letter
matches a
later letter from Dodge to Jefferson,
so
it appears that Dodge drafted
the Danbury
Baptist's letter. He wrote, in
part:
"Our Sentiments are uniformly
on the
side of Religious Liberty - That
religion
is at all times and places a
matter between
God and Individuals - That no
man ought to
suffer in Name, person or effects
on account
of his religious Opinions - That
the legitimate
Power of Civil Government extends
no further
than to punish the man who works
ill to his
neighbor. But, Sir our constitution
of government
is not specific. Our infant charter,
together
with the Laws made coincident
therewith,
were adopted as the Basis of
our government
at the time of our revolution;
and such had
been our Laws and usages, and
such still
are; that religion is considered
as the first
object of Legislation; and therefore
what
religious privileges we enjoy
(as a minor
part of the State) we enjoy as
favor granted,
and not as inalienable rights:
And these
favors we receive at the expense
of such
degrading acknowledgements, as
are inconsistent
with the rights of freemen. It
is not to
be wondered at therefore; if
those, who seek
after power and gain under the
pretence of
government and Religion should
reproach their
fellow man - should Reproach
their Chief
Magistrate, as an enemy of Religion,
Law
and good order because he will
not, dare
not assume the prerogative of
Jehovah and
make Laws to govern the kingdom
of Christ."
Jefferson wrote in reply: "Believing
with you that religion is a matter
which
lies solely between man and his
God, that
he owes account to none other
for his faith
or his worship, that the legislative
powers
of government reach actions only,
and not
opinions, I contemplate with
sovereign reverence
that act of the whole American
people which
declared that their legislature
would 'make
no law respecting an establishment
of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof,'
thus building a wall of separation
between
Church and State."
"The constitution of government"
about which Dodge complained
was Connecticut's.
That state had long taxed its
citizens to
support the Congregational Church.
Although
the certificate act of 1791 allowed
Baptists
and other dissenters to avoid
such taxes
by certifying that they attended
another
church, dissenters who failed
to file certificates
continued to be taxed and were
sometimes
imprisoned for failing to pay
taxes. From
1800 to 1807, the Baptists petitioned
Connecticut's
Federalist legislature repeatedly
but unsuccessfully,
seeking disestablishment of the
Congregational
Church. Disestablishment came
only in 1818,
after the Republican Party gained
power in
Connecticut and the state adopted
a new constitution.
Dodge was a Baptist minister,
who preached
in Hampton, Southington, Berlin,
Middletown,
and Lebanon, before moving to
New London,
and was a strong proponent of
disestablishment.
He was active in the petition
movement, but
also became a supporter of Jefferson's
Republican
Party earlier than most Baptists.
He spoke
at Republican Fourth of July
celebrations
in 1801 and 1802 and delivered
a sermon on
church and state in 1805 to celebrate
Jefferson's
reelection. See 2 William G.
McLoughlin,
New England Dissent, 1630-1833:
The Baptists
and the Separation of Church
and State 1006-08,
1017-18 (1971). Professor McLoughlin
describes
Dodge as a "liberal Baptist
. . . evangelical
in temper, but far more liberal
theologically
than the average Baptist."
Id. at 1024.
Several of Dodge's published
sermons were
quite political, which was delicate
for a
believer in church-state separation.
In the
preface to a 1802 sermon, Dodge
explained
"that ministerial influence
in political
affairs has done much more hurt
than good
in the world for a long time"
and "that
gospel ministers, as such, have
nothing to
do with political matters, except
being set
for the defence of the gospel
of Christ,
are sometimes called to defend
it from political
invasions." Dodge believed
that God
would support the church and
ridiculed "the
common complaint of many in the
New England
states . . . that religion will
come to naught,
and religious privileges be abolished,
unless
supported by civil power, and
the fostering
hand of legislative bodies!!"
As explained
in a 1805 sermon, Dodge also
believed that
the separation of church and
state had a
religious basis. He admitted
that they had
been united under the Covenant
of Abraham,
but "Christ came and fulfilled
that
Covenant, and reformed the christians,
from
a national church state, into
gospel churches,
founded upon a new constitution,
which forbid
their blending church and state,
as formerly."
Connecticut's certificate act
was not just
a blending of church and state
but also an
invasion of religious freedom,
for "[i]f
rulers say we many worship God
. . . by lodging
a certificate, does it not imply
that we
may not without their liberty?"
And
Dodge defended Jefferson against
the Federalist
charge that he was an enemy of
religion,
a charge of which there was no
proof "except
his being unwilling to encourage,
support,
and vindicate such abominable
hypocritical
regulations."
Dodge appears to have been most
actively
politically from 1801-08, during
Jefferson's
administration. He does not seem
to have
helped frame Connecticut's new
constitution
in 1818. Shortly after disestablishment,
Dodge exercised his own religious
liberty
and became a Universalist, no
small step
for a man over 50 who had been
a Baptist
preacher for more than 30 years.
Ironically,
he was persecuted by his former
associates
and moved to New York City, where
he continued
to preach. A sermon delivered
at a state
prison in 1825 reflects a change
in tone.
He told the inmates that "[a]ll
mankind
are the children of God"
and that "God
loves them all impartially."
He continued:
"It is in the power of any
criminal,
or prisoner in this place, to
render his
own condition less painful and
gloomy . .
. . Give none offence to Jew
or gentile,
or the church of God. . . . Do
good to all
according to your opportunity.
Treat every
person you see with due respect,
according
to their place and standing in
society. Commend
yourselves to every man's conscience
in the
sight of God."
Nehemiah Dodge both advocated
and practiced
religious freedom. And his letter
to Jefferson
contributed in a small way to
the birth of
a metaphor -- the "wall
of separation
between Church and State"
-- that helps
guard that freedom today.
Further Reading: Photographic
reproductions
of Dodge's letter to Jefferson
and Jefferson's
reply can be found by searching
for the word
"Danbury" in the Thomas
Jefferson
Papers at the Library of Congress,
<memory.loc.gov/ammem/mtjhtml/mtjhome.html>.
The texts of these letters are
transcribed
at <www.wallbuilders.com/et_danbury.html>.
An interesting article on the
drafting of
Jefferson's reply may be found
at <www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danbury.html>.
The author, a descendant of Nehemiah
Dodge,
is a Professor of Law at the
University of
California, Hastings College
of the Law,
in San Francisco, California.
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