The Jefferson Lies (25 page)

I remember well the enthusiasm with which I devoured [Hume's work] when young, and the length of time, the research and reflection which were necessary to eradicate the poison it had instilled into my mind.
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It would, then, not be surprising that during the time of Jefferson's “enthusiasm” about Hume, one might find him making statements or writing letters on religion and government that would reflect Hume's philosophy before he was finally able “to eradicate the poison it had instilled into [my] mind.”

A spiritual change is also apparent in the period of Jefferson's life surrounding his marriage to his wife, Martha. The twenty-nine-year old Jefferson married her in 1772, and those who knew her described her as “saintly.”
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At the time of their wedding, America was four decades deep into the national revival known as the Great Awakening. This revival dramatically impacted the nation, including both Martha and Thomas. In fact, throughout the time of the Great Revival and for well over a decade after it, Jefferson's writings and statements on religious faith can be considered as nothing less than orthodox.

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For example, when elected as a vestryman in his Anglican Church in 1768, Jefferson promised “to conform to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England.”
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Anglican theological doctrine at that time completely embodied orthodox Christian tenets to which Jefferson swore his allegiance. And in 1776 (four years after his marriage to Martha) he penned his
Notes on Religion
in which he affirmed that Jesus was the Savior, the Scriptures were inspired, and that the Apostles' Creed “contain[ed] all things necessary to salvation.”
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Jefferson loved and adored Martha, and they had six children—five daughters and one son. Martha was his constant companion and closest friend, and they were devoted to each other. In fact, the children clearly recalled and spoke of the sweet and precious relationship between the two, including Martha's “passionate attachment to him, and her exalted opinion of him.”
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But the two also shared much loss and grief over their dear children. Of the six, only two lived to adulthood; Martha saw three of her children die, and Thomas saw five of them buried.

Martha's tragic death occurred after only ten years of blissful marriage. It was a stunning blow to Jefferson, and he was emotionally devastated. As presidential biographer William Stoddard affirms:

[H]e was utterly absorbed in sorrow and took no note of what was going on around him. His dream of life had been shattered, and it seemed as if life itself had lost its claim upon him, for no faith or hope of his reached onward and inward to any other.
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Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha, named for her mother, was with him at the time of his wife's death, and she was her father's “constant companion” during “the first month of desolation which followed.”
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She recounted Jefferson's frame of mind during that tragic period, recalling:

A moment before the closing scene, he was led from the room almost in a state of insensibility by his sister Mrs. Carr, who with great difficulty got him into his library where he fainted and remained so long insensible that they feared he never would revive. The scene that followed I did not witness; but the violence of his emotion when, almost by stealth, I entered his room at night, to this day I dare not trust myself to describe. He kept [never left] his room three weeks, and I was never a moment from his side. He walked almost incessantly night and day, only lying down occasionally, when nature was completely exhausted, on a pallet that had been brought in during his long fainting-fit. My aunts remained constantly with him for some weeks—I do not remember how many. When at last he left his room, he rode out, and from that time he was incessantly on horseback, rambling about the mountain in the least frequented roads, and just as often through the woods.
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Not long after Martha's death, Jefferson was sent by the Continental Congress as a diplomat to France. During those years, with the deep impact and clear remembrances and grief over Martha still so real to him, many questions remained, unanswered, and his faith was shaken. This is reflected in his writings. But by the time he became president, he had returned to a stronger and more orthodox position.

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This was evident only four years into his presidency when he faced another personal tragedy. In 1804 his twenty-five-year-old daughter, Mary (Polly), was in poor health after giving birth to her third child. Her husband, a congressman, was away in Washington with her father, so Polly moved into Monticello where she could receive constant attention. As soon as the legislative session was over, Jefferson rushed home to help care for her, but only a few short weeks after he returned, his beloved Polly died. This left only his eldest daughter, Martha, and himself remaining from the family of eight. Martha's daughter (Jefferson's granddaughter) reported his reaction to the death of Polly:

My mother [Martha] has told me that on the day of her sister's death, she left her father alone for some hours. He then sent for her, and she found him with the Bible in his hands. He who has been so often and so harshly accused of unbelief, he, in his hour of intense affliction, sought and found consolation in the Sacred Volume.
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While such events impacted Jefferson's faith, the greatest influence on his personal religious views was the religious disposition of the community around him. In many ways Jefferson was a mirror that accurately reflected the spiritual condition of his cherished central Virginia region around Charlottesville, the region in which he grew up and lived and to which he retired after his presidency.

Jefferson was born in 1743 during the early stages of the Great Awakening, which lasted approximately from 1730 to 1770, but in Virginia both the beginning and end of that revival occurred about a decade behind the rest of the nation. (Interestingly, it was just the opposite with the Second Great Awakening—it began and ended earlier in Virginia than the rest of the country.) The Great Awakening was characterized by an explosive growth of personal faith and piety as well as a period of unprecedented interdenominational cooperation.

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Virginia had been heavily Anglican since its founding, but the revival caused the rapid growth of the Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, and Methodists in the state. Ministers in central Virginia during that time often moved easily between denominations (such as the Reverend Devereaux Jarratt who was trained as a Presbyterian, became an Anglican priest, and spoke regularly in Methodist churches). Similarly, the area's devout laymen were also often active in multiple denominations. Jefferson's good friend and neighbor Henry Fry served with Jefferson on the board of Anglican churches in the area but was converted to Methodism and worked in both denominations.

This type of interdenominational cooperation was possible primarily because leading ministers during the Great Awakening began emphasizing the vital areas of the Scriptures on which nearly all Christians agreed rather than the few areas about which they vigorously disagreed. Under the influence of this revival and its interdenominational cooperation even the Anglican Church in Virginia, softened its policy. As affirmed by Virginia historian William H. B. Thomas, “[t]he necessity of attending an Anglican church was relaxed—provided every man attend some church regularly.”
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Most pastors in the Charlottesville region at this time can be described as evangelical, regardless of their denominations. They also preached a practical Christianity that specifically addressed daily personal behavior and provided relevant Biblical teaching and social applications. It touched issues such as interpersonal interactions, business dealings, and one's personal relationship with God as well as moral issues such as integrity, courage, drunkenness, profanity, and immorality. Many sermons also addressed legislative policies of the day, contrasting public policies with Biblical positions on those issues, including taxation, good government, gambling, and slavery. In fact, when Quaker leader John Woolman visited Virginia during this period and witnessed Southern slavery for the first time, he began advocating vigorously in behalf of emancipation. This eventually resulted in the Quakers becoming national leaders in the abolition movement.

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Another characteristic of the First and Second Great Awakenings was that blacks were very active and involved. Many ministers, both black and white, would preach to mixed crowds. National leaders such as Harry Hoosier, the famous black evangelist, spent time in and preached to groups across central Virginia, as did black evangelist John Early. Of this period the Reverend John Leland observed:

The poor slaves, under all their hardships, discover as great inclination for religion as the free-born do. When they engage in the service of God, they spare no pains. It is nothing strange for them to walk twenty miles on Sunday morning to meeting, and back again at night. . . . [T]hey are remarkably fond of meeting together to sing, pray, and exhort, and sometimes preach. . . . When they attempt to preach, they seldom fail of being very zealous.
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It was during this time of revival in Virginia that many of the Dissenting (that is, non-Anglican) churches and ministers became active in politics, working to separate the church from the state and to keep the government from interfering with their own religious expressions and activities. For example, the Separate Baptists refused to comply with the Anglican requirement in state law mandating that they obtain government permission before conducting religious services. They asserted that it was their right to do what God had told them, without need of government approval. The Great Awakening not only promoted the concepts of individualism and inalienable rights (personal liberty, religious expression, freedom of conscience, and so on), but also that such rights should be protected by government rather than regulated by it.

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While these traits were common in Charlottesville and across most of the nation during the Great Awakening, there was one area in which Charlottesville differed from the rest of the country. It tended to be a bit more Armenian and less Calvinistic—a characteristic that greatly influenced Jefferson in the years following. And generally speaking, many of the spiritual practices apparent in Charlottesville during that time became established features of Jefferson's personal religious views.

For example, he developed a lifelong affinity for things such as interdenominational cooperation and emphasizing the doctrinal majors uniting Christians rather than the things dividing them. He also focused on identifying and protecting God-given inalienable rights; separating state from church and thereby preserving the freedom of conscience; emancipating slaves; leaning against Calvinism; etc.

The first Great Awakening had barely ended in Virginia before the Second Great Awakening began. But by 1810, while the revival was still going strong in other parts of the country, the spiritual condition of the Charlottesville area had turned in a very unsatisfactory direction. According to evangelical minister John Rice Holt, who had helped Jefferson found the University of Virginia:

Presbyterian congregations are decreasing every year, and appear as if they would dwindle into nothing. The Baptists and Methodists are at a stand. A strange apathy has seized the people. . . . The people feel about nothing but money. As to religion, the very stillness of death reigns amongst us. I can find no resemblance to this part of the country but in Ezekiel's valley of dry bones [Ezekiel 37: 1–14].
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In fact, Holt said that the Methodists were not just “at a stand,” but that “Mr. O'Kelly, the chief of the Christian Methodists, . . . is nearly deserted by his followers.”
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During that time, many evangelical churches could find no replacements as their pastors died off or retired, and so they closed their doors. In other churches, the pulpit remained unfilled for more than a decade.
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Concurrent with these gloomy developments in Virginia, several ministers in other parts of the country began a parallel spiritual movement that was to take a deep root in Charlottesville. This new movement was characterized by what became a radical call for a return to the primitive form of Christianity practiced by the Apostles. It decried the corruption of the modern Christian church and wanted to revive an earlier and simpler version of Christianity. This movement became known as Christian Primitivism or the Restoration Movement, and it developed from four primary leaders.

One was Presbyterian minister Barton Stone of Kentucky, who led the famous Cane Ridge revival. He called for an end to denominations and advocated that Christians have no creed but the Bible. He therefore used only the simple descriptive title “Christian” for his congregations. (Stone had grown up Anglican but had also been a Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian.)

Another Restoration leader was Presbyterian minister Thomas Campbell of Pennsylvania. He held many of the same beliefs as Stone and Campbell's son, Alexander, advocated those positions in the western parts of Virginia. Their followers also embraced the unpretentious title of “Christian.” Alexander explained that their purpose was to “espouse the cause of no religious sect, excepting that ancient sect called Christians first at Antioch” [Acts 11:26].
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