The Jefferson Lies (18 page)

111

Mr. Jefferson . . . conceived the idea of taking that occasion to prevent slavery ever going into the northwestern territory . . . and in the first Ordinance (which the acts of Congress were then called) for the government of the territory, provided that slavery should never be permitted therein. . . . Thus, with the author of the Declaration of Independence, the policy of prohibiting slavery in new territory originated. . . . But now [in May 1854], new light breaks upon us. Now Congress declares this [law constructed by Jefferson] ought never to have been.
⁹³

Black abolitionists, such as Fredrick Douglass also regularly invoked Jefferson to assist their own efforts. Douglass had lived in slavery until he escaped to New York, later going to work for the Massachusetts antislavery society and also serving as a Zion Methodist Church preacher. During the Civil War Douglass helped recruit the first black regiment to fight for the Union and advised Abraham Lincoln on the Emancipation Proclamation. Following the war he received presidential appointments from four Republican presidents. Concerning Jefferson, Douglass declared:

It was the Sage of the Old Dominion [Virginia] that said—while speaking of the possibility of a conflict between the slaves and slaveholders—“God has no attribute that could take sides with the oppressor in such a contest. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever.” Such is the warning voice of Thomas Jefferson, and every day's experience since its utterance until now confirms its wisdom and commends its truth.
⁹⁴

112

At a speech in Virginia following the Civil War, Douglass declared:

I have been charged with lifelong hostility to one of the cherished institutions of Virginia [i.e., slavery]. I am not ashamed of that lifelong opposition. . . . It was, Virginia, your own Thomas Jefferson that taught me that all men are created equal.
⁹⁵

And describing Jefferson's dealings with Banneker, Douglass reminded an audience:

Jefferson was not ashamed to call the black man his brother and to address him as a gentleman.
⁹⁶

On numerous other occasions Douglass invoked Jefferson as an authority in his crusade to end slavery and achieve full equality and civil rights.
⁹⁷
Additional civil rights crusaders who invoked Jefferson in a similarly positive manner included Henry Highland Garnet,
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
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Colin Powell,
¹⁰⁰
and others.

Was Jefferson impeccable on race and civil rights? Certainly not. He recognized and admitted that he had some prejudices, but he also openly acknowledged that he wanted to be proven wrong concerning those views. Yet despite his self-acknowledged weaknesses, Jefferson faithfully and consistently advocated for emancipation and civil rights throughout his long life, even when it would have been easier and better for him if he had remained silent or inactive.

113

Had Jefferson been free from the laws of his own state—that is, had he lived in a state such as Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Connecticut—he likely would be universally hailed today as a bold civil rights leader, for his efforts and writings would certainly compare favorably to those of great civil rights advocates in the Northern states. In fact, if Jefferson had proposed his various pieces of legislation in those states, they would certainly have passed, and he would have been deemed a national civil rights hero. But his geography and circumstances doomed him to a different fate. Modern writers now refuse to recognize what previous generations openly acknowledged: Jefferson was a bold, staunch, and consistent advocate and defender of emancipation and civil rights.

115

L
IE
#5
Thomas Jefferson Advocated a Secular Public Square through the Separation of Church and State

M
any of the lies about Jefferson, from education to the Bible, have been made to support one key overarching premise: Jefferson was secular and therefore his overall goal was a public sphere devoid of religion and from which religious expressions had been expunged. Typical of this oft-repeated charge is the claim that “Jefferson's Presidential administration was probably the most purely secular this country has ever had.”
¹

But before determining whether Jefferson really was a secularist, it is important to define that term—a term that did not exist until modern times. By definition,
secularist
means:

• holding a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship

• embracing the view that public education and other matters of civil policy should be conducted without the introduction of a religious element
²

• having indifference to, or a rejection or exclusion of, religion and religious considerations
³

• believing that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs
⁴

116

From what has thus far been presented from Jefferson's own writings and actions, it is indisputable that he was not a secularist by the first three definitions. And this chapter will demonstrate that Jefferson definitely did not embrace the fourth point, that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs.

But for those who maintain otherwise, since they already believe that he was a secularist it is logical to further assert that Jefferson was also the father of the modern separation of church and state doctrine. In fact, they actually believe that Jefferson personally placed the separation of church and state into the First Amendment of the Constitution in order to secure public secularism. Consequently, these modern proponents claim:

Jefferson can probably best be considered the founding father of separation of church and state.
⁵

Jefferson . . . is responsible for the precursor to the First Amendment that is almost universally interpreted as the constitutional justification for the separation of church and state.
⁶

[T]he First Amendment was Jefferson's top priority.
⁷

Thomas Jefferson—the Father of the First Amendment.
⁸

Others similarly claim that Jefferson is responsible for the First Amendment,
⁹
and many modern courts also espouse this position—a trend that began in 1947 when the US Supreme Court asserted:

This Court has previously recognized that the provisions of the First Amendment, in the drafting and adoption of which . . . Jefferson played such [a] leading role.
¹⁰

117

In subsequent cases the Court even described Jefferson was indeed “the architect of the First Amendment.”
¹¹
So firmly does the Court believe this that, in the six decades following its 1947 announcement, in
every
case addressing the removal of religious expressions from the public square it used Jefferson either directly or indirectly as its authority.
¹²

Interestingly, however, the current heavy reliance on Jefferson as the primary constitutional voice on religion and the First Amendment is a modern phenomenon
not
a historic practice.
¹³
Why? Because previous generations knew American history well enough to know better than to invoke Jefferson in such a manner.

Two centuries ago a Jefferson supporter penned a work foreshadowing modern claims by declaring Jefferson to be a leading constitutional influence. When Jefferson read that claim, he promptly instructed the author to correct that mistake, telling him:

One passage in the paper you enclosed me must be corrected. It is the following, “and all say it was yourself more than any other individual, that planned and established it,” i.e., the Constitution.
¹⁴

What did Jefferson see wrong in stating the very claim repeated today? He bluntly explained:

I was in Europe when the Constitution was planned and never saw it till after it was established.
¹⁵

A simple fact unknown or ignored by many of today's writers and scholars is that Jefferson did
not
participate in framing the Constitution. He was not even in America when it was framed; so how could he be considered a primary influence on it? And he was also out of the country when the First Amendment and Bill of Rights were framed. As he openly acknowledged:

118

On receiving [the Constitution while in France], I wrote strongly to Mr. Madison, urging the want of provision [lack of provision] for the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, trial by jury, habeas corpus, the substitution of militia for a standing army, and an express reservation to the States of all rights not specifically granted to the Union. . . .
This is all the hand I had
in what related to the Constitution.
¹⁶
(emphasis added)

Jefferson's only role with the Constitution was to broadly call for a general Bill of Rights. While this is no insignificant thing, it was the same action taken by dozens of other Founders. So how can Jefferson be the father of the First Amendment if he never saw it until months after it was finished? Significantly, there were fifty-five individuals who framed the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention and ninety in the first federal Congress who framed the Bill of Rights; Jefferson was among neither group.

So why have so many courts and modern writers made him the singular go-to expert on religion clauses from documents in which he had no direct involvement? Why has he been given a position of “expert” that he himself properly refused? It is because he penned a letter containing the eight-word phrase “a wall of separation between church and state.” Courts and modern scholars have found that simple phrase, when divorced from its context, useful in providing the appearance of historical approval for their own efforts to secularize the public square.

Historically speaking, Jefferson was a latecomer to the separation phrase. The famous metaphor so often attributed to him was introduced in the 1500s by prominent ministers in England. And throughout the 1600s it was carried to America by Bible-oriented colonists who planted it deeply in the thinking of Americans, all long before Jefferson ever repeated it. So what was the historic origin of that now-famous phrase?

119

Jefferson was familiar with the writings of the Reverends John Wise, Joseph Priestly, and many others who divided the history of Christianity into three periods.
¹⁷
In Peroid I (called the Age of Purity), the followers of Jesus did just as He had taught them and retained Bible teaching uncorrupted. In Period II (the Age of Corruption), State leaders declared themselves also to be the Church leaders and seized control of the Church, assimilating it into the State and thus merging the two previously separate institutions into one. But in Period III (the Age of Reformation), Bible-centered leaders began loudly calling for reinstating the Bible-ordained separation between the two entities.

In the Scriptures, God had placed Moses over civil affairs and Aaron over spiritual ones. The nation was one, but the jurisdictions were two with separate leaders over each. In 2 Chronicles 26, when King Uzziah attempted to assume the duties of both State and Church, God Himself weighed in; He sovereignly and instantly struck down Uzziah, thus reaffirming the separation He had placed between the two institutions.

Period III Christian ministers understood these Biblical precedents and urged a return to the original model. As early Methodist bishop Charles Galloway affirmed:

The miter and the crown should never encircle the same brow. The crozier and the scepter should never be wielded by the same hand.
¹⁸

Of the four items specifically mentioned—the miter, crown, crozier, and scepter—two reference the Church and two the State. Concerning the Church, the miter was the headgear worn by the high priest in Jewish times (see Exodus 28:3–4, 35–37) and later by popes, cardinals, and bishops. The crozier was the shepherd's crook carried by Church officials during special ceremonies. Pertaining to the State, the crown was the symbol of authority placed upon the heads of kings, and the scepter was held in their hand as an emblem of their extensive power (see the book of Esther). Therefore, the metaphor that “the miter and the crown should never encircle the same brow” meant that the same person should not be the head of the Church and the head of the State. Galloway's declaration that “the crozier and the scepter should never be wielded by the same hand” meant that authority over the Church and authority over the State should never be given to the same individual.

120

Galloway's phrases not only provided clear and easily understandable visual pictures, but also referenced specific historical incidents—as when Period II Roman Emperor Otto III (980–1002 AD) constructed his king's crown to fit atop the miter worn by Church officials.
¹⁹
This type of jurisdictional blending had been common in England before American colonization, as when the English Parliament passed civil laws stipulating who could take communion in the church or who could be a minister of the Gospel, thus governmentally controlling what should have been purely ecclesiastical matters.
²⁰