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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

     Had Jefferson's works been edited by some pious churchman who
would have expunged or modified his radical sentiments; or had his
works been suppressed after they were published, as some desired,
the clergy might with less fear of exposure claim that their author
was a Christian. But while his writings are accessible to the
public, it adds nothing to their reputation for candor to make the
claims respecting his belief which many of them do; for these
writings clearly prove that he was not a Christian, but a
Freethinker.

     The "Memoirs, Correspondence and Miscellanies from the Papers
of Thomas Jefferson," edited by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, a
grandson of the distinguished statesman, was printed in four large
volumes, and published in 1829. From these volumes, and other
writings of Jefferson, I have culled some of the most radical
thoughts to be found in the whole range of Infidel literature.

     In a letter to his nephew and ward, Peter Carr, while at
school, Jefferson offers the following advice, which though
thoroughly sound, would be considered rather questionable advice
for a Christian to give a schoolboy:

          "Fix Reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal
     every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the
     existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more
     approve the homage of reason than of blindfolded fear. ... Do
     not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its
     consequences. If it end in a belief that there is no God, you
     will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and
     pleasantness you feel in its exercise and in the love of
     others which it will procure for you" (Jefferson's Works, Vol.
     ii., p. 217).

     The God of the Old Testament -- the God which Christians
worship -- Jefferson pronounces "a being of terrific character --
cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust" (Works Vol. iv., p.
325).

     In speaking of the Jewish priests, he denominates them "a
bloodthirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they
represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob, and
the local God of Israel" (Ibid.).

     In a letter to John Adams, dated April 8, 1816, referring to
the God of the Jews, be says:

     "Their God would be deemed a very indifferent man with us"
(Ibid., p. 373).

     To his nephew he writes as follows regarding the Bible:

          "Read the Bible as you would Livy or Tacitus. For
     example, in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still
     for several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or
     Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood,
     speaking of their statues, beasts, etc. But it is said that
     the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, 

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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

     candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired.
     The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions
     believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to
     know how contrary it is to the law of nature" (Works, Vol.
     ii., p. 217).

     In this same letter, he thus refers to Jesus Christ:

          "Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: First, of
     those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin,
     suspended and reversed the laws of Nature at will, and
     ascended bodily into heaven; and second, of those who say he
     was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart,
     enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to
     divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally
     for sedition by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law,
     which punished the first commission of that offence by
     whipping, and the second by exile or death in furea."

     His own opinion respecting the above is expressed in a letter
to John Adams, written a short time previous to his death:

          "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus,
     by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin
     will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in
     the brain of Jupiter" (Works, Vol. iv, p. 365).

     In the gospel history of Jesus, Jefferson discovers what he
terms "a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of
superstitions, fanaticism, and fabrications" (Works, Vol. iv, p.
325).

     He continues: "If we could believe that he [Jesus] really
countenanced the follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanism
which his biographers [Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,] father on
him, and admit the misconstructions, interpolations, and
theorizations of the fathers of the early, and the fanatics of the
latter ages, the conclusion would be irresistible by every sound
mind that he was an impostor" (Ibid..).

     Jefferson, however, did not regard Jesus as an impostor. He
says:

          "Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his
     biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct
     morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others,
     again, of so much ignorance, of so much absurdity, so much
     untruth and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such
     contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I
     separate, therefore, the gold from the dross, restore to him
     the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some and
     the roguery of others of his disciples" (Ibid., 320).

     Jefferson made a compilation of the more rational and humane
teachings of Jesus, the "gold," as he termed it, which has since
been published. Some superficial readers have supposed this to be
an acknowledgment of Christ. Orthodox teachers, however, know.
better and ignore the book.

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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

     For the man Jesus, Jefferson, like Rousseau, Paine, Ingersoll,
and other Freethinkers, had nothing but admiration; for the Christ
Jesus of theology, nothing but contempt.

     In regard to Jesus believing himself inspired he interposes
the plea of mild insanity. He says:

          "This belief carried no more personal imputation than the
     belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition
     of a guardian demon. And how many of our wisest men still
     believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly
     sane on all other subjects" (Works, Vol. iv, p. 327).

     Several of the preceding quotations are from a lengthy
communication to William Short. In the same communication he
characterizes the Four Evangelists as "groveling authors" with
"feeble minds." To the early disciples of Jesus he pays the
following compliment:

          "Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great
     Corypheus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus"
     (Ibid.).

     The published writings of Jefferson, which, however, do not
contain many of his most radical thoughts, would indicate that he
regarded Jesus Christ as a historical character. In a contribution
to Frazer's Magazine for March, 1865, Dr. Conway shows that he was
sometimes disposed to entertain the mythical hypothesis. Mr. Conway
says:

          "Jefferson occupied his Sundays at Monticello in writing
     letters to Paine (they are unpublished, I believe, but I have
     seen them) in favor of the probabilities that Christ and his
     Twelve Apostles were only personifications of the sun and the
     twelve signs of the Zodiac."

     This was the opinion held by Paine during the last years of
his life.

     For nearly sixteen hundred years the doctrine of the Trinity
has been a leading tenet of the Christian faith. To doubt this
dogma is the rankest heresy; for denying it thousands have lost
their lives. In a letter to Col. Pickering, Jefferson speaks of
"the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that
three are one and one is three."

     In a letter to James Smith, Jefferson says:

          "The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another
     Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and
     growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs"
     (Works, Vol. iv., p. 360).

     Again, in the same communication, he says:





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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

          "The Athanasian paradox that one is three and three but
     one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid
     man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what
     presents no idea? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself
     He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has
     no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and
     like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With
     such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the
     helm of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck."

     Not at an insignificant minority, not at an unimportant and
unpopular sect, but at nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every
thousand Christians -- at virtually the entire Christian church --
was the above scathing criticism hurled. Even more bitter is the
following from a letter to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse:

     "I should as soon undertake to bring the crazy skulls of
Bedlam to sound understanding, as inculcate reason into that of an
Athanasian" (Works, Vol. iv., p. 353).

     In a letter to John Adams, written August 22, 1813, Jefferson
says:

          "It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to
     pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticism that three are
     one and one is three, and yet, that the one is not three, and
     the three are not one.... But this constitutes the craft, the
     power, and profits of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer
     fabrics of fictitious religion, and they would catch no more
     flies" (Ibid, p. 205).

     Writing to John Adams a year later -- July 5, 1814 -- he again
refers to this subject:

          "The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of
     Christ leveled to every understanding, and too plain to need
     explanation, saw in the mysticisms of Plato materials with
     which they might build up an artificial system, which might,
     from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give
     employment for their order and introduce it to profit, power
     and pre-eminence" (Ibid, p. 242).

     Alluding to the eucharist, he styles the orthodox clergy
"cannibal priests" (Ibid, p. 205).

     Jefferson's hatred of Calvinism was intense. He never ceased
to denounce the "blasphemous absurdity of the five points of
Calvin." Three years before his death he writes John Adams:

          "His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever man
     worshiped a false God, he did. The being described in his five
     points is ... a demon of malignant spirit. It would be more
     pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme him
     by the atrocious attributes of Calvin" (Works, Vol. iv., p.
     363).




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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

     "It is hard to say observes Bancroft, "which surpassed the
other in boiling hatred of Calvinism, Jefferson or John Adams."

     To Dr. Cooper, November 2, 1822, Jefferson writes:

          "I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle
     of toleration and freedom of religion, it [fanaticism] could
     have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to
     the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy of the five
     points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them,
     render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and
     prone to denunciation" (Works, Vol. iv, p. 358).

     In the same letter, after mentioning the fact that in Virginia
where he resides, the Christians being divided into different
sects, including the Presbyterian, are more tolerant, he continues:

          "It is not so in the districts where Presbyterianism
     prevails undividedly. Their ambition and tyranny would
     tolerate no rival if they had power. Systematical in grasping
     at an ascendancy over all other sects, they aim, like the
     Jesuits, at engrossing the education of the country, are
     hostile to every institution they do not direct, and jealous
     at seeing others begin to attend at all to that object."

     In the following significant passage we have Jefferson's
opinion of the Christian religion as a whole:

     "I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of
the world, and do not find in our particular superstition
[Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded
upon fables and mythologies" (Letter to Dr. Woods).

     Could a more emphatic declaration of disbelief in Christianity
be framed than this?

     In his "Notes on Virginia," the following caustic allusion to
Christianity occurs:

     "Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the
introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and
imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity.
What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world
fools and the other half hypocrites."

     In his letter to Dr. Cooper, prayer meetings and revivals
receive this cruel thrust from his pen:

          "In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly
     among the women. They have their night meetings and praying
     parties, where, attended by their priests, and sometimes by a
     henpecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love
     to Jesus in terms as amatory and carnal as their modesty would
     permit to a merely earthly lover" (Works, Vol. iv., p. 358).

     A short time before his death, Jefferson, in a letter to John
Adams, after commending the morals of Jesus, wrote as follows 
concerning his philosophical belief:

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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

     "It is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all
his doctrines. I am a Materialist."

     In support of his Materialistic creed, he argues as follows:

          "On the basis of sensation we may erect the fabric of all
     the certainties we can have or need. I can conceive thought to
     be an action of matter or magnetism of loadstone. When he who
     denies to the Creator the power of endowing matter with the
     mode of motion called thinking shall show how he could endow
     the sun with the mode of action called attraction, which reins
     the planets in their orbits, or how an absence of matter can
     have a will, and by that will put matter into motion, then the
     Materialist may be lawfully required to explain the process by
     which matter exercises the faculty of thinking. When once we
     quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of
     immaterial existences, is to talk of nothings. To say that the
     human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are
     nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I
     cannot reason otherwise. But I believe that I am supported in
     my creed of Materialism by the Lockes, the Tracys, and the
     Stewarts."

     Noting the absence of the idea of immortality in the Bible and
particularly in the books ascribed to Moses, he writes:

          "Moses had either not believed in a future state of
     existence, or had not thought it essential to be explicitly
     taught to the people." (Works, Vol. iv., p. 326.)

     Jefferson's wife preceded him to the grave by nearly forty-
four years. If ever woman was adored by man this woman was adored
by her husband. The blow stunned him; and for weeks he lay
prostrated with grief. Referring to the sad event, Wm. O. Stoddard,
the Presidential biographer, says:

          "He 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." (Lives of the Presidents, Vol. ii, p.
     270.)

     In the following brave and truthful words we have Jefferson's
estimate of priestcraft:

          "In every country and in every age the priest has been
     hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot,
     abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

     Alluding to his beloved child, the University of Virginia, he
writes:

          "The serious enemies are the priests of the different
     religious sects to whose spells on the human mind its
     improvement is ominous" (Works, Vol. iv., p. 322).



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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

          "We have most unwisely committed to the hierophants of
     our particular superstition the direction of public opinion --
     that lord of the universe. We have given them stated and
     privileged days to collect and catechise us, opportunities of
     delivering their oracles to the people in mass, and of molding
     their minds as wax in the hollow of their hands." (Ibid.).

     His uncomplimentary allusions to the Christian clergy, to the
Christian Sabbath, and to Christianity itself as "our particular
superstition," are as unorthodox as anything to be found in Paine.

     To John Adams he writes as following regarding
disestablishment in New England:

          "I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that
     this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a
     Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American
     history and character." (Works, Vol. iv., p. 301).

     Jefferson's hatred of priestcraft was life-long; for while the
above was written but a few years prior to his death, the following
from a letter to Mr. Whyte, was written nearly half a century
before:

     "If anybody thinks that kings, nobles and priests, are good
conservators of the public happiness, send him here [Paris]. It is
the best school in the universe to cure him of that folly. He will
see here with his own eyes that these descriptions of men are an
abandoned confederacy against the happiness of the mass of the
people."

     While he detested the entire clergy, regarding them as a
worthless class, living like parasites upon the labors of others,
his denunciation of the Presbyterian priesthood was particularly
severe, as evinced by the following:

          "The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most
     intolerant of all sects; the most tyrannical and ambitious,
     ready at the word of the law-giver, if such a word could now
     be obtained, to put their torch to the pile, and to rekindle
     in this virgin hemisphere the flame in which their oracle,
     Calvin, consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not
     subscribe to the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have
     a right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinistic creed!
     They pant to re-establish by law that holy inquisition which
     they can now only infuse into public opinion" (Works, Vol.
     iv., p. 322).

     He charges the early church in this country with uniform
cruelty -- in Virginia as well as New England. Re says:

          "If no capital execution [of Quakers) took place here it
     was not owing to the moderation of the church." (Notes on
     Virginia, p. 262.)

     His noble fight against the church and in behalf of religious
freedom for Virginia, in which he acknowledged the valiant support
of Madison, entitles him to the everlasting gratitude of every 

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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

lover of liberty. From his argument in favor of the
disestablishment of religion, to be found in his "Notes on
Virginia," (pp. 234-237,) the following extracts are taken:

          "By our own act of Assembly of 1705, c. 30, if a person
     brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of 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 or 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. A fathers right to the custody of his own
     children being founded in law on his right of guardianship,
     this being taken away, they may of course be severed from him,
     and put by the authority of the court, into more orthodox
     hands. This is a summary view of that religious slavery under
     which a people have been willing to remain, who have lavished
     their lives and fortunes for the establishment of civil
     freedom."

          "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts
     only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for
     my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. Constraint
     may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will
     never make him a truer man."

          "Reason and persuasion are the only practicable
     instruments. To make way for these free inquiry must be
     indulged; how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse
     it ourselves? But every state, says an inquisitor, has
     established some religion. No two, say I, have established the
     same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments?"

          "It is error alone which needs the support of government.
     Truth can stand by itself."

     There are still existing on the statute books of many states
laws but little less intolerant than those which Jefferson and his
friends removed from the statute books of Virginia. To those who
Contend that these laws are not dangerous because no longer
enforced, I commend these words of Jefferson:

          "I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer
     an execution for heresy, or a three months' imprisonment for
     not comprehending the mysteries of the Trinity. But is the
     spirit of the people infallible -- a permanent reliance? Is it
     government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in
     return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the
     times may alter -- will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt,
     our people careless. A single zealot may become persecutor,
     and better men become his victims." (Notes on Virginia, p.
     269.)





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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

     Jefferson's Presidential administration was probably the most
purely secular this country has ever had. During his eight years' 
incumbency of the office not a single religious proclamation was
issued. Referring to his action in this matter, he says:

          "I know it will give great offense to the clergy, but the
     advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace nor
     forgiveness from them."

     In answer to a communication from the Rev. Mr. Miller relative
to this subject, he writes as follows:

          "I consider the Government of the United States as
     interdicted by the Constitution from meddling with religious
     institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. But
     it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a
     day of fasting and praying. That is, I should indirectly
     assume to the United States an authority over religious
     exercises, which the Constitution has directly precluded them
     from. ... Every one must act according to the dictates of his
     own reason and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been
     given to the President of the United States, and no authority
     to direct the religious exercises of his constituents."

     A favorite claim with the church is that we are indebted to
the Bible and Christianity for our moral and civil law, and
especially that the teachings of the Bible and Christianity are a
part of the common law. This claim is universally urged by
Christians and generally conceded by jurists. In a letter to Major
John Cartwright, Jefferson exposes the fraudulent character of the
claim. Of such importance is the question, and so thorough is the
refutation, that I give it entire:

     "I was glad to find in your book a formal contradiction at
length of the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such
the judges have usurped in their repeated decisions, that
Christianity is a part of the common law. The proof of the contrary
which you have adduced is incontrovertible; to wit, that the common
law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans, at a time when
they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew
that such a character had ever existed. But it may amuse you to
show when and by what means they stole the law in upon us. In a
case of quare impedit in the Year Book 34 H. 6, folio 38, (anno
1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical law was to
be respected in a common law court. And Prisot, Chief Justice,
gives his opinion in these words: 'A tiel leis qu'ils de seint
eglise ont en ancien scripture covient a nous a donner credence,'
etc. See S.C. Fitzh. Abr. Qu. imp. 89. Bro.; Abr. Qu. imp. 12.
Finch, in his first book, c. 3 is the first afterwards who quotes
this case, and mistakes it thus: 'To such laws of the church as
have warrant in Holy Scripture our law giveth credence;' and cites
Prisot, mistranslating 'ancien scripture' into 'Holy Scripture.'
Whereas Prisot palpably says 'To such laws as those of holy church
have in ancient writing it is proper for us to give credence;' to
wit, to their ancient written laws. This was in 1613, a century and
a half after the dictum of Prisot. Wingate, in 1658, erects this
false translation into a maxim of common law, copying the words of 


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Finch, but citing Prisot. Wing, Max. 3. And Sheppard, title
'Religion,' in 1675, copies the same mistranslation, quoting the
Y.B. Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses it in these words:
'Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.' 1 Ventr. 293. 3
Keb. 607. But he quotes no authority. By these echoings and
reechoings from one to another it had become so established in 1728
that, in case the King vs. Woolston, 2 Stra. 834, the court would
not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against Christianity
was punishable in the temporal courts at common law. Wood,
therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and say that all
blasphemy and profaneness are offenses by the common law, and cites
2 Stra. Then Blackstone, in 1763, 4.59, repeats the words of Hale,
that 'Christianity is part of laws of England,' citing Ventris and
Strange. And finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification
in Evans's case, in 1767, says that 'the essential principles of
revealed religion are part of the common law.' Thus engulfing
Bible, Testament, and all, into the common law, without citing any
authority. And thus we find this chain of authorities hanging link
by link, one upon another, and all ultimately on one and the same
book, and that a mistranslation of the words 'ancien scripture'
used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot; Wingate does the same.
Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch, and Wingate. Hale cites nobody. The
court in Woolston's case cites Hale. Wood cites Woolston's case.
Blackstone quotes Woolston's case and Hale. And Lord Mansfield,
like Hale, ventures on his own authority. Here I might defy the
best read lawyer to produce another scrip of authority for this
judiciary forgery; and I might go on further to show how some of
they Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the texts of Alfred's
laws 20th, 21st, 22d, and 23d chapters of Exodus, and the 15th of
the Acts of the Apostles, from the 23d to the 29th verse. But this
would lead my pen and your patience too far. What a conspiracy this
between church and state! Sing Tantarara, rogues all, rogues all!
aling Tantarara, rogues all!" (Works, Vol. iv., pp. 397, 398).

     It is claimed by Christian apologists that the grossest
intolerance prevailed in Pagan Rome, that Christians were punished
for their opinions merely, that religious freedom was denied. The
student of Roman history knows this to be untrue. Religious
intolerance in the Roman Empire was virtually unknown. The so-
called "Christian persecutions" are mostly Christian myths, and the
Christian martyrs of the early church were mostly Christian
criminals. To this Christian claim Jefferson pertinently replies:

          "Had not the Roman Government permitted free enquiry
     Christianity could never have been introduced" (Notes on
     Virginia, p. 265).

     The Fourth of July, 1826, was the fiftieth anniversary of the
Declaration of American Independence. The people of Washington had
decided to celebrate the memorable occasion in a fitting manner,
and Mr. Weightman was deputed to invite the illustrious author of
the Declaration to attend. On the 24th of June Jefferson wrote a
letter declining, on account of his infirmities, to be present. In
this letter a new Declaration of Independence is proclaimed.
Bravely he writes:

 


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          "All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The
     general spread of the light of science has already laid open
     to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has
     not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few
     booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the
     grace of God."

     Those were the last words Jefferson penned. Ten days later --
on the day that he had contributed so much to make immortal -- the
Sage of Monticello breathed his last. On the same day, too, died
John Adams. Politically at variance these men differed but little
in theology. Writing to Jefferson on the 5th of May, 1817, Adams,
giving expression to the matured conviction of eighty-two eventful
years, declares.

          "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there
     were no religion in it."

     To this radical declaration Jefferson replied:

          "If by religion, we are to understand sectarian dogmas,
     in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that
     hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of worlds if
     there were no religion in it' " (Works, Vol. iv., p. 301).

     Referring to another letter he received from Adams, he says:

          "Its crowd of skepticism kept me from sleep" (Ibid, p.
     331).

     Writing to Adams in 1817, Jefferson says:

          "The result of your fifty or sixty years of religious
     reading in the four words: 'Be just and good,' is that in
     which all our enquiries must end; as the riddles of all the
     priesthood end in four more: 'Ubi panis ibi Deus.' What all
     agree in is probably right; what no two agree in most probably
     wrong" (Ibid, p. 300).

     These anti-Christian views of Jefferson were for the most part
written after he had retired to private life; but that the public
had always been apprised of his unbelief, there can be no doubt.
When he ran for President, the more bigoted orthodox journals
opposed his election upon these grounds. At his inauguration, some
of these journals appeared in mourning, while flags were displayed
at half-mast, in token of grief because an Infidel had been
elevated to the Presidency. It is true that Washington and Adams,
both disbelievers in Evangelical Christianity, had filled the
office before him; but they were reticent in regard to the subject,
openly expressing no opinions that would offend the church.

     That Jefferson's Deistic opinions were well known before he
retired from public life is shown by a letter which Paine wrote to
Jefferson after his reelection. Paine says:





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                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

          "When I was in Connecticut the summer before last, I fell
     in company with some Baptists among whom were three ministers.
     The conversation turned on the election for President, and one
     of them who appeared to be a leading man said, 'They cry out
     against Mr. Jefferson because they say he is a Deist. Well, a
     Deist may be a good man, and if he think it right, it is right
     to him. For my own part,' said he, 'I had rather vote for a
     Deist than for a blue-skin Presbyterian.'"

     Jefferson's library contained the leading Freethought works of
his day. They gave evidence of having been carefully studied and
the marginal annotations from his pen showed that the most radical
sentiments were endorsed by him.

     He wrote letters to Volney, and placed the bust of Voltaire in
his library. He manifested the strongest attachment for Paine,
which continued till the latter's death. When Paine signified his
intention of returning from France to America, Jefferson furnished
a national ship to convey him home. After his return he became the
honored guest of the President, both at Washington and Monticello.

     Alluding to Paine's visit to Washington, the editor of the
"Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris" Says that "Jefferson
received him warmly, dined him at the White House, and could be
seen walking arm in arm with him on the street any fine afternoon."
This was eight years after Paine published his "Age of Reason," and
when in the eyes of Christians he had become infamous.

     President Jefferson continued to correspond with Paine on
theological subjects up to Paine's last illness, which occurred
about the time he retired from the Presidency.

     To Paine and the great English Deist, Bolingbroke, Jefferson
paid the following tribute:

          "You ask my opinion of Lord Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine.
     They were alike in making bitter enemies of the priests and
     Pharisees of their day. Both were honest men; both advocates
     for human liberty" (Letter to Francis Eppes).

     To the English heretic, Dr. Priestley, he extended the
following welcome:

          "It is with heartfelt satisfaction that in the first
     moments of my public action, I can hail you with welcome to
     our land, tender to you the homage of its respect and esteem,
     and cover you under the protection of those laws which were
     made for the good and the wise like you."

     When Jefferson's works were first published, the New York
Observer, then the leading Christian journal of this country, gave
them the following notice:

          "Mr. Jefferson, it is well known, was never suspected of
     being very friendly to orthodox religion, but these volumes
     prove not only that he was a disbeliever, but a scoffer of the
     very lowest class."


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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

     What is remarkable, the Observer has never claimed that
Jefferson recanted; while it has claimed that Paine did. According
to this authority Jefferson was more confirmed in his disbelief
than Paine.

     The clergy circulated a story to the effect that Jefferson
admitted his indebtedness to the church by declaring that it was to
a preacher, Dr. Small, of William and Mary College, that he owed
the destinies of his life. Being in doubt as to whether the Dr.
Small referred to was really a preacher or not, Mr. Wm. Edmonds, of
Texas, in 1887, addressed a letter to Governor Fitzhugh Lee, of
Virginia, on the subject. Gov. Lee instructed his private
secretary, Mr. J.E. Waller, to send the following reply':

          "The Governor directs me to say, in reply to your letter
     of inquiry of August 26th, that, from the beat information he
     can get, he is satisfied that Dr. Small was either an M.D., or
     scientist, which would entitle him to the degree of Doctor.
     Mr. Jefferson was a Freethinker and, as there is no record of
     Dr. Small ever having a church in Virginia, the natural
     conclusion is that this Dr. Small was of the same belief. John
     Randolph claims to have imbibed some of his skeptical ideas
     from a Dr. Small."

     The Rev. Thornton Stringfellow, D.D., a prominent Christian
divine of Jefferson's own state, in his "Scriptural View of
Slavery," a work showing that the Bible sanctions slavery, says:

          "My correspondent thinks with Mr. Jefferson, that Jehovah
     has no attributes that will harmonize with slavery; and that
     all men are born free and equal. Now, I say let him throw away
     his Bible as Mr. Jefferson did his and then they will be fit
     companions. But never disgrace the Bible by making Mr.
     Jefferson its expounder, nor Mr. Jefferson by deriving his
     sentiments from it. Mr. Jefferson did not bow to the authority
     of the Bible, and on this subject I do not bow to him."

          John S.C. Abbot, the panegyrist of Napoleon Bonaparte, in
     his "Lives of the Presidents" (p. 142), referring to one of
     Jefferson's most distinguished efforts in behalf of religious
     liberty, says:

     "He devoted much attention to the establishment of the
University at Charlottesville. Having no religious faith which he
was willing to avow, he was not willing that any religious faith
whatever should be taught in the University as a part of its course
of instruction. This establishment, in a Christian land, of an
institution for the education of youth, where the relation existing
between man and his Maker was entirely ignored, raised a general
cry of disapproval throughout the whole country. It left a stigma
upon the reputation of Mr. Jefferson, in the minds of Christian
people, which can never be effaced."

     The noted divine, Dr. Wilson, in his celebrated sermon on "The
Religion of the Presidents," has this to say of Jefferson:

 


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                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

          "Whatever difference of opinion there may have been as to
     his religious faith at the time [of his election to the
     Presidency], it is now rendered certain that he was a Deist.
     That fact after his 'Notes on Virginia' ought never to have
     been doubted by any reasonable man. That work itself contains
     sufficient evidence of the fact, and I believe the influence
     of his example and name has done more for the extension of
     Infidelity than that of any other man. Since his death, and
     the publication of Randolph, [Jefferson's Works,] there
     remains not the shadow of doubt of his Infidel principles. If
     any man thinks there is, let him look at the book itself. I do
     not recommend the purchase of it to any man, for it is one of
     the most wicked and dangerous books extant."

     The Rev. Dr. D.J. Burrell, of New York, recently said:

          "No man could be elected President of the United States
     to-day who is an avowed opponent of Christianity. Thomas
     Jefferson would not be an available candidate to-day for
     either party."

     The "International Cyclopedia edited by Daniel Coit Gilman,
LL. D., President of Johns Hopkins University, says:

          "In religion it is probable that he [Jefferson] was not
     far from what was then known and execrated as a Freethinker."

     The "New American Cyclopedia," in its edition of 1860, makes
the following frank and truthful statement of Jefferson's belief:

          "Discarding faith as unphilosophical, he became an
     Infidel."

     This statement was offensive to some, and the edition of 1874
substituted the following which means the same thing:

          "He carried the rule of subjecting everything to the test
     of abstract reason into matters of religion, venerating the
     moral character of Christ, but refusing belief in his divine
     mission."

     Bancroft, referring to Jefferson, says:

          "He was not only a hater of priestcraft and superstition
     and bigotry and intolerance, he was thought to be indifferent
     to religion" (History of United States, Vol. v., p. 323).

     Benson J. Lossing, in his "Lives of the Signers of the
Declaration of American Independence," sums up the religious and
moral character of Jefferson in the following brief words:

          "In religion he was a Freethinker; in morals pure and
     unspotted" (p. 183).

     Morse, in his "Life of Jefferson," which forms a part of the
"American Statesman" series, says:



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           SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS -- THOMAS JEFFERSON.

          "To my mind it is very clear that Jefferson never
     believed that Christ was other than a human moralist" (p.
     341).

     Tucker, in his biography of Jefferson, says:

          "It is very certain that he did not believe at all in the
     divine origin of Christianity, and of course not in the
     inspiration of the Scriptures; even of the New Testament."

     Theodore Dwight, in "The Character of Jefferson, (p. 364)
given expression to the following sensible conclusion:

          "It cannot be necessary to adopt any train of reasoning
     to show that a man who disbelieves the inspiration and divine
     authority of the Scriptures -- who not only denies the
     divinity of the Savior, but reduces him to the grade of an
     uneducated, ignorant and erring man -- who calls the God of
     Abraham (the Jehovah of the Bible), a cruel and remorseless
     being, cannot be a Christian."

     In an article on Jefferson's religious belief, the Chicago
Tribune says:

          "A question has been raised as to Thomas Jefferson's
     religious views. There need be no question, for he has settled
     that himself. He was an Infidel, or, as he chose to term it,
     a Materialist. By his own account he was as heterodox as Col.
     Ingersoll, and in some respects even more so."

     Surely, Christians, your cause must be growing desperate,
when, to sustain it, you must needs claim for its support so bitter
an enemy as Thomas Jefferson -- a man who affirmed that he was a
Materialist; a man who recognized in your religion only "our
particular superstition," a superstition without "one redeeming
feature;" a man who divided the Christian world into two classes --
hypocrites and fools; a man who asserted that your Bible is a book
abounding with "vulgar ignorance;" a man who termed your Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, a "hocus-pocus phantasm;" a man who denounced
your God as "cruel, vindictive, and unjust;" a man who intimated
that your Savior was "a man of illegitimate birth;" a man who
declared his disciples, including your oracle, Paul, to be a "band
of dupes and impostors," and who characterized your modern
priesthood as "cannibal priests" and an "abandoned confederacy"
against public happiness.


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