On Religious Freedom ~Thomas Jefferson

The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read, “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.     The Founders’ Constitution Volume 5, Amendment I (Religion), Document 45 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions45.html The University of Chicago Press   The Works of Thomas Jefferson. Collected and edited by Paul Leicester Ford. Federal Edition. 12 vols. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904–5.   © 1987 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2000 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/ Author of the Declaration of Independence [and] of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.