Quotes by Thomas Jefferson on Religion

Few of the other Founders were as strong or prolific supporters of the principle of separation of church and state as Jefferson. His most famous statement, where he popularized that phrase as an interpretation of First Amendment principles, was to the Danbury Baptist Association, which asked him to issue a Thanksgiving proclamation:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, 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 there,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

His other pronouncements on the proper role of government are equally explicit:

“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. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

“...no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no way...affect their civil capacities.”

“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”

“...our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”

“I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”

“I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”

Additionally, Jefferson made it quite clear that religious liberty included all people, not just Christians:

“The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it would read ‘A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;’ the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohametan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”