[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 39 (Wednesday, March 7, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E482-E483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  HONORING THE 220TH ANNIVERSARY OF VIRGINIA'S STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS 
                                FREEDOM

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. BILL SALI

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 7, 2007

  Mr. SALI. Madam Speaker, this year is the 220th anniversary of 
Virginia's passage of its historic Statute for Religious Freedom. This 
measure, authored by Thomas Jefferson, was so important to the future 
President that he insisted that his authorship of this bill be 
memorialized for all time on his tombstone.
  As Bryan Fischer, executive director of the Idaho Family Alliance, 
noted in a recent article in the Idaho Statesman, Jefferson's ``statute 
is problematic for groups who like to cite Jefferson in support of 
their effort to remove all mention of God, and Christianity in 
particular, from the public square'' (January 29, 2007).
  As Mr. Fischer observes, ``In the first line of the statute 
(Jefferson) refers to `Almighty God,' '' and also includes references 
to ``the Holy Author of our religion'' and the ``Lord both of body and 
mind.'' Most historians agree that Mr. Jefferson is referring to Jesus 
Christ.
  The respected American University historian Daniel Dreisbach, an 
Oxford Ph.D. and careful student of Jefferson's understanding of church 
and state issues, echoes the same theme: ``Jefferson firmly believed 
that the First Amendment, with its metaphoric `wall of separation,' 
prohibited religious establishments by the federal government only. 
Addressing the same topic of religious proclamations, Jefferson 
elsewhere relied on the Tenth Amendment, arguing that because `no power 
to prescribe any religious exercise' has been delegated to the `General 
[i.e., federal] Government . . . it must then rest with the States, as 
far as it can be in any human authority'.''
  Put simply, Jefferson never envisioned that the ``wall of 
separation'' would be used as a pretext for government hostility to 
religion. To the contrary, he first used this phrase in a letter to the 
Baptist congregations of Danbury, Connecticut. Here's the phrase used 
in its

[[Page E483]]

original context: ``I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of 
the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 
`make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting 
the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between 
Church & State.''

  In other words, the ``wall'' was designed not to prevent people of 
faith from expressing their views in the public square, or to 
discourage them from applying their faith to public life, but rather to 
prevent the Federal Government from suppressing Judeo-Christian beliefs 
or their adherents.
  What of President Jefferson's own practice as a public figure? 
Consider the words of James Hutson, Chief Manuscript Historian at the 
Library of Congress, in a recent article on the ``wall of separation:''

       Jefferson's public support for religion appears . . . to 
     have been more than a cynical political gesture. Scholars 
     have recently argued that in the 1790s Jefferson developed a 
     more favorable view of Christianity that led him to endorse 
     the position of his fellow Founders that religion was 
     necessary for the welfare of a republican government, that it 
     was, as Washington proclaimed in his Farewell Address, 
     indispensable for the happiness and prosperity of the people. 
     Jefferson had, in fact, said as much in his First Inaugural 
     Address. His attendance at church services in the House (of 
     Representatives) was, then, his way of offering symbolic 
     support for religious faith and for its beneficent role in 
     republican government.

  In summary, it was because of his firm conviction that the state 
should never impede the liberties of religious citizens or 
organizations in the public square that Mr. Jefferson penned the Statue 
for Religious Freedom, not because of a secular desire to stamp out 
religion under the foot of government power. His Statute was not borne 
out of an enmity to religion, but a desire to protect it. And for that, 
on its 220th anniversary, the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom and 
its author Thomas Jefferson should be honored by this body.

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