On July 4th, 1776, the words of the Declaration of Independence, which Thomas Jefferson penned, stated: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitles them.... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life.... We, Therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.... And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. Shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a committee was appointed to draft a seal for the newly united states which would express the spirit of this new nation. Thomas Jefferson proposed: The children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. During the period between 1779-1781, Thomas Jefferson served as the Governor of Virginia. On November 11, 1779, Governor Thomas Jefferson issued a Proclamation Appointing a Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer. Public and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God....That He would in mercy look down upon us, pardon all our sins, and receive us into His favour; and finally, that He would establish the independence of these United States upon the basis of religion and virtue, and support and protect them in the enjoyment of peace, liberty and safety. In 1781, Thomas Jefferson made this statement in Query XVIII of his Notes on the State of Virginia. Excerpts of these statements are engraved on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.: God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event. In Query XIX of his Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote: Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God...whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. On August 19, 1785, in a letter to Peter Carr, Thomas Jefferson wrote: He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the worlds believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. Thomas Jeffersons Notes on the State of Virginia were also part of the Republican Notes on Religion and an Act Establishing Religious Freedom, Passed in the Assembly of Virginia, in the Year 1786: Our rulers can have no other authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them (in a social compact). The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God... In Thomas Jeffersons Republican Notes on Religion and an Act Establishing Religious Freedom, Passed in the Assembly of Virginia, in the Year 1786, reference is made to a law passed in 1705: By our own act of assembly of 1705, c. 30, if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the Scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office of employment, ecclesiastical, civil or military; on the second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor, or administrator, and by three years imprisonment without bail. On January 16, 1786, Thomas Jefferson and the Committee on Religion drafted a bill for the Virginia Assembly guaranteeing religious freedom: An Act for establishing Religious Freedom. I. Well aware...that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested His Supreme Will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraints; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to begat habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of 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. Americas God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 03:12:40 +0000
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