James Madison expressed some of the more extreme views on the relationship between government and religion in his later writings and official documents, one being the Detached Memoranda, written around 1817. But his opinions of his later life were at a direct variance to his earlier opinions, and to many of his actions as a Virginia statesman and as president. He and Jefferson’s Virginia Statute of 1786 is misinterpreted today to represent “separation of church and state”,#2 when in actuality its purpose was to secure religious expression equally for all denominations. As president, Madison signed a federal bill that gave financial aid to a Bible Society for the mass distribution of Bibles,#3 and he also issued several proclamations for national days of prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving.#4 Together, Jefferson and Madison proposed bills in Virginia such as “A Bill for Saving the Property of the Church Heretofore by Law Established,” “A Bill for Punishing Disturbers of Religious Worship and Sabbath Breakers,” “A Bill for Appointing Days of Public Fasting and Thanksgiving,” and “A Bill Annulling Marriages Prohibited by the Levitical Law and Appointing the Mode of Solemnizing Lawful Marriage.”#5 Jefferson authored a work entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,#6 and while president, approved several measures assigning federal financial aid for Christian Missionaries to the Indians#7, and signed three separate laws to appropriate government land, again, for the use of Christian Missionaries to evangelize Indians.#8 As a result of their disdain for religious tyranny (but not for “pure” religion in general), these two men were intent upon creating and maintaining a government free from the dictates of any one religious sect, but they were not religion-hostile. Both Jefferson and Madison supported the real purpose of the First Amendment … to prevent the Federal Government from establishing a national denomination. And Jefferson particularly felt that it was the right of the states alone and individually to establish and/or deal with religion as they saw fit.

2) David Barton, Original Intent, The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, (Aledo, TX: WallBuilder Press, 2000), p. 203. [return to document]

3) The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1853), Twelfth Congress, Second Session, p. 1325: “An Act for the relief of the Bible Society of Philadelphia. Be it enacted, &c., That the duties arising and due to the United States upon certain stereotype plates, imported during the last year into the port of Philadelphia, on board the ship Brilliant, by the Bible Society of Philadelphia, for the purpose of printing editions of the Holy Bible, be and the same are hereby remitted, on behalf of the United States, to the said society: and any bond or security given for the securing of the payment of the said duties shall be cancelled. Approved February 2, 1813.” [return to document]

4) James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897 (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), Vol. I, pp. 512-513, June 19, 1812; pp. 532-533, July 23, 1813; p. 558, November 16, 1814; pp. 560-561, March 4, 1815. [return to document]

5) James Madison, The Papers of James Madison, Robert A Rutland, editor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), Vol. VIII, pp. 396. [return to document]

6) Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1858), Vol. III, pp. 451-452. For an alternative view of the purpose of this book, see Jefferson’s Extracts from the Gospel’s, Dickinson W. Adams, editor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 28, n. 87. [return to document]

7) American State Papers, Walter Lowrie and Matthew St. Claire Clarke, editors (Washington, D. C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832), Vol. IV, p. 687. [return to document]

8) Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, Seventh Congress (Washington, D. C.: Gales and Seaton, 1851), p. 1332, “An Act in Addition to An Act, Entitled, ‘An Act in Addition to an Act Regulating the Grants of Land Appropriated for Military Services, and for the Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel Among the Heathen’ ”; Seventh Congress, Second Session, p. 1602, “An Act to Revive and Continue in Force An Act in Addition to An Act, Entitled, ‘An Act in Addition to an Act Regulating the Grants of Land Appropriated for Military Services, and for the Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel Among the Heathen,’ and for Other Purposes”; and Eighth Congress, p. 1279, ”An Act Granting Further Time for Locating Military Land Warrants, and for Other Purposes.” [return to document]