The following post is an early paper I wrote in US History Seminar early in my master’s program. It spoke of how Thomas Jefferson had written the Declaration of Independence, but he was away in France when the Constitution was forged. It argues that Jefferson, though absent, has his fingerprints seen all through it. The paper also explores the idea that Jefferson purposefully released ideas and information in a way to influence what was in it. Originally Written: October 29, 2017
Thomas Jefferson was the “Author of the Declaration of American Independance [sic] of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.”[1] He was such an important figure in the history of the United States that in 1943 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to him as the “Apostle of Freedom.”[2] Joseph J. Ellis called him an “American saint” and quoted the inscription of the Jefferson Memorial, “For I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”[3] James Parton stated, “If Jefferson was wrong, America is wrong. If America is right, Jefferson was right.”[4] Certainly a man of Jefferson’s stature, with his résumé, and one of America’s greats, Jefferson would have a direct effect on the creation of American government’s guiding document. Or would Jefferson be involved in any way?
Thomas Jefferson penned the words that created an autonomous free state, independent of British rule. “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them…”[5] While many of the Founders were drafting the new Constitution, Jefferson was absent. In his absence, Jefferson spoke of the Constitutional Convention, “Nothing had transpired from the federal convention… I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise. It is really an assembly of demi-gods.”[6] The creator of the document that began the new nation, the “American saint,”[7] and the “Apostle of Freedom”[8] was noticeably absent from “an assembly of demi-gods.”[9] Could one with such accolades possibly have influenced other strong-willed men?
Dustin A. Gish and Daniel P. Klinghard opined in The Journal of Politics that Thomas Jefferson’s ambassadorship to France and his further absence “has led to the common assumption that Jefferson had little impact on political affairs in America in the critical period from 1786 to 1788, particularly the Convention and the debates over the proposed Constitution.”[10] They theorized and argued “that Jefferson sought to influence events through the publication of his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia.”[11] They further claimed “that Jefferson published the first edition of the Notes for public distribution in America in 1787 in order to present its contents to a wider audience… and that… its structure and its method prepares readers for the vision of republican constitutionalism…”[12]
Gish and Klinghard are correct in their theory that Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia had ideas that found their way into the debate at the Constitutional Convention and even into the Constitution itself, and they are also correct that Jefferson made a concerted effort to spread his ideas among those of influence, who could get his ideas set into the Constitution. Jefferson’s ideas in letters and other printed material were just as influential and found their ways into the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, as well. Jefferson’s influence on the young republic in deeds and writings influenced the Philadelphia Convention, but it was not just limited to his Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson spread his ideas on republicanism and natural rights to all that would listen and attempted to get this into the written code of law at the Constitutional Convention and beyond with the addition of the Bill of Rights even after his return.
Thomas Jefferson’s greatest production, out of all the documents that bore his fingerprints, was easily the Declaration of Independence. The Founders at Independence Hall in 1787 needed to connect the new document they had created to the Declaration of Independence as much as possible to gain ratification. The fact that it was constructed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia was one such connection, but there needed to be another. “At the close of the Constitution … there is a short clause indicating the date on which and the location where the Constitution was concluded and signed. Known as the Attestation Clause, it recorded the date of the Constitution’s completion…”[13] More specifically, the signers of the Constitution dated the signing as “in the Year … of the Independance [sic]of the United States of America the Twelfth.”[14] This use of dating from the twelfth year of the Declaration of Independence was a purposeful, strategic move to forever connect the two documents causing the contemporary and future Americans “to read these two documents as engaged in unique dialogue with each other.”[15] It was even argued at the Supreme Court that the Attestation Clause “legally engrafts the Declaration of Independence into the Constitution as effectively as though it had said, ‘attached hereto and made a part hereof.’”[16] Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas even stated “[o]ne should never lose sight of the fact that the last words of the original Constitution as written refer to the Declaration of Independence, written just eleven years earlier.”[17]
In his “Original Rough Draught” of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson stated that from the moment men are created, they have rights of “the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.”[18] Jefferson’s variance on the ideas of John Locke’s natural rights of “power… to preserve his property…life, liberty, and estate” were Enlightenment beliefs Jefferson had adopted.[19] Each of these ideas found their way into the Constitution in various places, but no place is more evident than both Amendment V and Amendment XIV which both protect the right of “life, liberty, or property.”[20] [21]
To preserve the natural rights Jefferson mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson said that “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”[22] This Jeffersonian statement found its way into the Constitution in the form of Amendment X. It stated, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”[23]
In Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, he listed several things of which King George III was culpable. Several of these abuses mentioned by Jefferson found their remedy in the Constitutional Convention. Jefferson stated that King George III had “dissolved Representative houses repeatedly.”[24] The Constitutional Convention gave the Senate, not the President, the power to try cases of impeachment which could result in elected officials being removed from office.[25] The Executive in the United States, unlike that of Britain, had no power to dissolve a legislative body. In fact, the Founders in Philadelphia reversed that role by allowing the legislative body to remove the Chief Executive.[26]
Jefferson railed against the Monarch’s power over the judiciary and “the tenure of their offices.”[27] The Constitution maintained an executive power over the judiciary that allowed the President of the United States to appoint federal judges[28], but those judges did not answer to the President but gave them a lifetime appointment.[29] This compromise of executive power protected and granted an independent judiciary.
Some of Jefferson’s other complaints were that the king kept standing armies during tranquil times, terminated “trade with all parts of the world,” and ended trial by jury.[30] Each of those powers was taken from the head of the Executive Branch. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the United States Constitution gave Congress the power “to raise and support Armies.”[31] Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 gave Congress the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” And finally, the 6th Amendment enshrined that right that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed…”[32]
Beyond his work on the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson also had a large impact on the laws of his home state of Virginia. He recounted some of those in his autobiography. Jefferson referred to himself as “the mover & draughtsman.”[33] Within that endeavor, Thomas Jefferson mentions several men who he worked with in writing those laws or whom he debated with in getting those laws passed: George Mason, George Wythe, and James Madison.[34] Those three men also were members of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia not many years later as the Articles of Confederation were being debated and replaced, though not all of them signed onto the Constitution itself.
Many of Thomas Jefferson’s ideas on republicanism would be evident in a proposed Constitution for his home state of Virginia which he proposed in 1783 to replace Virginia’s own constitution that was adopted in 1776. He proposed a government with an executive, a judiciary, and a bicameral legislature with a senate made of different classes.[35] He also proposed making ex post facto laws illegal and gave a specific date by which slavery would or at least could end.[36] Each of those proposals found its way into the US Constitution.
Jefferson proposed that the Governor of Virginia be a position chosen by the Virginia state legislature.[37] The Constitutional Convention debated a similar action in allowing the Congress to elect the President of the United States, though Jefferson’s idea in Virginia would have combined that with term limits.[38]
Jefferson’s idea for the governorship would also have created a “Council of State” which would simply have the power “to attend and advise the governor.”[39] This would have been like what became the President’s Cabinet. Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution mentioned the Cabinet as an advising force when it stated, “[H]e may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective offices…”[40]
Jefferson included an idea known as civilian control of the military. He stated, “The military shall be subordinate to the civil power.”[41] This was an idea that spread throughout Virginia and even to those at the Constitutional Convention. Fellow Virginian and delegate to the Constitutional Convention, George Mason went as far as to say, “I am not acquainted with the military profession.”[42]
Also in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson authored a bill that was so important to himself, he included it as an achievement on his gravestone. The bill, popularly known as the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, opened Section I by focusing on the intimate relationship between action and the beliefs of the mind. Jefferson wrote that “opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds…” and that penalties against such “are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet choose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do…”[43]
In Section II of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, Jefferson stated what the religious freedom he espoused in Section I actually meant. He stated that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever…”[44] He went further to explain that not only would someone not be forced to support any particular religion, but “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion…”[45]
The whole bill, all three sections, are evident in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The religious freedom clause of the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”[46] Section I of the bill refers to freedom of religion as a “natural right.”[47] Section II laid out the two-fold nature of religious freedom: no one can be forced to follow a religion, nor can one be kept from following the religion of his or her choice.[48] Finally, Section III spoke of a desire to make the bill permanent, but there was no way to do that. It did warn, however, that any attempt to do so would “be an infringement of natural right.”[49] This coincides with the difficulty to amend the Constitution when the First Amendment was placed into the Constitution, while honoring the idea that the Bill of Rights was not simply a creation of rights but an acknowledgment of rights that already existed.
Justice John Rutledge, in his dissenting opinion in Everson v. Board of Education (1947) stated Jefferson’s effect on the First Amendment.
No provision of the Constitution is more closely tied to or given content by its generating history than the religious clause of the First Amendment. It is at once the refined product and the terse summation of that history. The history includes not only Madison’s authorship and the proceedings before the First Congress, but also the long and intensive struggle for religious freedom in America, more especially in Virginia, of which the Amendment was the direct culmination. In the documents of the times, particularly of Madison, who was leader in the Virginia struggle before he became the Amendment’s sponsor, but also in the writings of Jefferson and others and in the issues which engendered them is to be found irrefutable confirmation of the Amendment’s sweeping content.[50]
This right to freedom of religion that found its way into the Constitution through the Bill of Rights and other rights listed in the Bill of Rights were ideas that Jefferson publicized, but they were also ideas that Jefferson pushed to have included in the Constitution shortly after it was finished. In a letter from Paris on December 20, 1787, written to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson lobbied hard for a Bill of Rights to be added and he was very specific in what he wanted to see in it.
I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly & without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restrictions against monopolies, the eternal & unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land & not by the law of nations… Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth.[51]
Finally, Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia was heavily influential to the debate and creation of the Constitution of the United States and fit in with his other writings that were influential to the development of the US Constitution. Jefferson’s Notes was written between 1780 and 1783, just before he left for France.[52] Some of the subjects it covered were specific topics that the Framers of the Constitution had to deal with in Philadelphia such as Indians,[53] the role of religion,[54] and the correction of a flawed constitution.[55]
Just as his Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom was important to the development on religious freedom in the Constitution, so did his Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson opened the section titled Query XVII describing the story of the Quakers who came to America, seeking religious freedom only to find that previous groups who had sailed across the Atlantic seeking religious freedom had created colonies that allowed that freedom but only for themselves. Also, Virginia had itself created laws mandating that children be baptized, which Quakers did not do, and Virginia passed other anti-Quaker laws such as a law which forbade “any master of a vessel to bring a Quaker into the state.”[56]
Jefferson then recounted the path Virginia took to provide a path for freedom of religion. He stated that Virginia’s 1776 constitution maintained the anti-Quaker, anti-religious freedom law; he even went as far as to refer to it as “religious slavery.”[57] Jefferson believed it was not a legitimate act of government to control acts that were not “injurious to others” especially when it came to matters of “rights of conscience.”[58] Jefferson then pointed to the successes that the “experiment” of free religion had in the state of Virginia.[59] That experiment would become an experiment the whole United States would take with the Constitution and the First Amendment.
When the Framers met in Philadelphia, they were charged with reconstructing the Articles of Confederation. That endeavor soon changed from correcting the Articles of Confederation to the creation of a whole new document. In his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson addressed problems that Virginia’s own constitution had. Virginia had begun in 1607 as a colony at the settlement of Jamestown, but once independence was declared, Virginia moved quickly to create its constitution. Jefferson addressed the defects stating, “This constitution was formed when we were new and unexperienced in the science of government. It was the first, too, which was formed in the whole United States. No wonder then that time and trial had discovered very capital defects in it.”[60] The experience of the oldest English state within the United States and Jefferson’s critiques could be very influential in helping the new nation avoid some of the same pitfalls that befell Virginia.
Jefferson listed a problem with representation in the state of Virginia. Virginia created a representative government based on each county having an equal amount of power. An example was that “the county of Warwick, with only one hundred fighting men, has an equal representation with the county of Loudon, which has 1,746. So that every man in Warwick has as much influence in the government as 17 men in Loudon. Jefferson suggested a solution of division into proportional districts for representation.[61] This concept would be engrained into the American Legislative Branch in the House of Representatives.[62]
Jefferson then deconstructed the bicameral legislature of Virginia. His problem was not that there were two houses of a legislature, but that both houses were too similar. He referenced the British Parliament which he described as containing “the house of commons for honesty, and the lords for wisdom…”[63] He believed the different houses would only work if each was “to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles.”[64] He then used the example that some states followed with the lower house representing the people and the upper house representing “the property of the State.”[65] At the Constitutional Convention, the Framers took on the bicameral legislature with the first representing the people[66] and the second representing the interests of the states.[67]
Thomas Jefferson also argued against the abuses of a legislature that was all-powerful to the point that it became an “elective despotism” that was “exercised by a plurality of hands.” Virginia had developed a government in which the legislature was more powerful than the judiciary and the executive. This concentrated power did not make things freer as Jefferson believed that many people or one person holding unchecked power was still despotism. The Constitution was then modeled after his ideas so that it was “divided and balanced among several bodies… so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time.”[68]
There is no doubt that all of Jefferson’s writings proved influential on the development of the Constitution of the United States. J. Jefferson Looney estimated that Jefferson wrote about 18,000 letters in his lifetime.[69] Those letters were written to influential leaders throughout the new states. Jefferson’s official documents such as the Declaration of Independence, various bills, and a proposed Virginia Constitution had pieces that were adopted into the federal Constitution. His commentaries such as Notes on the State of Virginia also were influential as parts of it were debated and adopted at the Constitution as well. There were many ideas that Jefferson also had which did not make it into the Constitution but were part of the debate and were influential even decades after the Constitution was adopted.
With all the influence that Jefferson wielded, looming questions remained. Did Jefferson write those letters, government documents, and commentaries with the hope of influencing the future of America? Did Jefferson make sure to disseminate those works in a way to influence other influential men? Those answers are important because they will prove not only that Jefferson did influence the writing of the Constitution, but they will also prove that he did so purposefully with great effort.
Many of Jefferson’s letters were written to leaders in each state. These were men who would have great influence on the nation moving forward. The content of those letters often showed his purpose was to influence policy. He wrote a letter to James Monroe, a future delegate to the Virginian convention tasked with debating ratification of the Constitution about government service and liberty in 1782.[70] A letter to a political writer, Dr. Richard Price, explained some of the many problems with the Articles of Confederation.[71] In 1786, Jefferson wrote to George Wythe, who would go on to serve at the Constitutional Convention, concerning freedom of religion and education.[72] In 1787, Jefferson wrote a letter to James Madison in which he defended the participants in Shays’ Rebellion.[73] Again in 1787, Jefferson wrote a letter to the“Father of the Constitution” about his concerns with the Constitution, including the lack of a bill of rights.[74] He continued to write other letters to Madison for a bill of rights, but he also wrote to John Adams with his concerns of the Constitution.[75] Adams, himself, was not a member of the Framers of the Constitution as he was in Europe, but Adams is given credit for his impact with the Constitution.[76]
Jefferson’s contributions to government documents and proposed government documents were by their very definition used to influence government. The Declaration of Independence created an independent country and set up a blueprint for the government that would form to run that country. His proposal for free religion that was adopted in Virginia was a direct attempt to influence government. His proposed constitution for the state of Virginia was then an attempt to not only influence government, but it was also an attempt to replace a guiding document of government with an improved version.
Finally, Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia was evidently a highly coordinated effort to influence the Philadelphia convention. Soon after finishing the Notes, Jefferson only offered a limited distribution of the work, but after his arrival in France and the pending adjustment of the Articles of Confederation, Jefferson went all in allotting many more, especially in the United States where he engaged in a focused delivery to the leaders of the various states who were to be influential in drafting the new Constitution.[77] Furthermore, in a letter written from Paris on August 13, 1786 to George Wythe, Jefferson stressed his desire to send more copies to America.[78]
Furthermore, Gish and Klinghard addressed the literary aspects of Jefferson’s Notes. They argued that by looking only at small sections of the work and not the whole, the reader only received a partial view of his writings. They argued that by using religious narratives, “Jefferson supplants the authority of the Old Testament itself… obstructing any serious effort to ascertain a natural rather than divine basis for human government.” Thus, they argue that Jefferson, as other Founding Fathers, used “Biblical images” for political purposes.[79]
Most historians have ignored Jefferson’s contributions to the Constitutional Convention, especially as it related to his Notes simply based on his absence.[80] A deeper look at the evidence shows that Jefferson’s fingerprints were all over not only works that were widely read by the influential, but his fingerprints ended up all over the Constitution itself and the several debates that took place in its taking shape.
Jefferson’s philosophical intelligence put him in a desirable position to be highly influential in the formation and development of the new American states. This position was meticulously used by Jefferson in a way to maximize his strength to affect the development of the Constitution even in absentia.
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Footnotes
[1] Thomas Jefferson, “Thomas Jefferson, no date, Epitaph,” Correspondence Image, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib024905.
[2] Francis D. Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2006), 262.
[3] Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 11.
[4] James Parton, Life of Thomas Jefferson: Third President of the United States (Boston: Rand, Avery, & Co., 1874), iii.
[5] Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s ‘Original Rough Draught’ of the Declaration of Independence,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 1, 1760-1776, Ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1950), https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html.
[6] Thomas Jefferson, Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers, of Thomas Jefferson: Vol. 1 (London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1829), 228.
[7] Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 11.
[8] Francis D. Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2006), 262.
[9] Thomas Jefferson, Memoirs, 228.
[10] Dustin A. Gish and Daniel P. Klinghard, “Republican Constitutionalism in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia,” The Journal of Politics 74, no. 1 (January 2012): 35, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381611001125.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Jesse Cross, “Done in Convention: The Attestation Clause and the Declaration of Independence,” The Yale Law Journal 121, no. 5 (March 2012): 1238. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41509915.
[14] Jesse Cross, “Done in Convention: The Attestation Clause and the Declaration of Independence,” The Yale Law Journal 121, no. 5 (March 2012): 1238. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41509915.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid., 1239.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s ‘Original Rough Draught’ of the Declaration of Independence,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 1, 1760-1776, Ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1950), https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html.
[19] John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (London: Whitmore and Fenn, Charing Cross, and C. Brown, 1821), 259.
[20] U.S. Constitution, amendment V.
[21] U.S. Constitution, amendment XIV, sec. 1.
[22] Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s ‘Original Rough Draught’ of the Declaration of Independence,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 1, 1760-1776, Ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1950), https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html.
[23] U.S. Constitution, amendment X.
[24] Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s ‘Original Rough Draught’ of the Declaration of Independence.”
[25] U.S. Constitution, art. I, sec. 3, cl. 6-7.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s ‘Original Rough Draught’ of the Declaration of Independence.”
[28] U.S. Constitution, art. 2, sec. 2, cl. 2.
[29] U.S. Constitution, art. 3, sec. 1.
[30] Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s ‘Original Rough Draught’ of the Declaration of Independence.”
[31] U.S. Constitution, art. 1, sec. 8, cl. 12.
[32] U.S. Constitution, amendment XI.
[33] Thomas Jefferson, “From the Autobiography,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 321.
[34] Thomas Jefferson, “From the Autobiography,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 321-322.
[35] Thomas Jefferson, “Proposed Constitution for Virginia (June 1783),” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 339-340.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid., 342.
[38] David S. Ferriero, “To Choose a President,” Prologue Magazine 44, no. 2 (Summer 2012), https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/archivist.html.
[39] Thomas Jefferson, “Proposed Constitution for Virginia (June 1783),” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 343.
[40] U.S. Constitution, art. II, sec. 2, cl. 1.
[41] Thomas Jefferson, “Proposed Constitution for Virginia (June 1783),” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 348.
[42] Samuel P. Huntington, “Civilian Control and the Constitution,” The American Political Science Review 50, no. 3 (Sept. 1956): 679. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1951551.
[43] Thomas Jefferson, “A Bill for Religious Freedom (1777),” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 390.
[44] Thomas Jefferson, “A Bill for Religious Freedom (1777),” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 391.
[45] Ibid.
[46] U.S. Constitution, amendment I.
[47] Thomas Jefferson, “A Bill for Religious Freedom (1777),” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 391.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ibid., 391-392.
[50] Daniel L. Dreisbach, “A New Perspective on Jefferson’s Views on Church-State Relations: The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in Its Legislative Context,” The American Journal of Legal History 35, no. 2 (April 1991): 175, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381611001125.
[51] Thomas Jefferson, “To James Madison, Dec. 20, 1787,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 360-361.
[52] Dustin A. Gish and Daniel P. Klinghard, “Republican Constitutionalism in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia,” The Journal of Politics 74, no. 1 (January 2012): 36, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381611001125.
[53] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XI,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 508-515.
[54] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XVII,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 392-395.
[55] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 324-335.
[56] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XVII,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 392.
[57] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XVII,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 393-394.
[58] Ibid., 394.
[59] Ibid., 395.
[60] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 324.
[61] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 324.
[62] U.S. Constitution, art. I, sec. 2, cl. 3.
[63] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” 325.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid., 325-326.
[66] U.S. Constitution, art. I, sec. 2, cl. 1.
[67] U.S. Constitution, art. I, sec. 3, cl. 1.
[68] Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia: Query XIII,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 324.
[69] J. Jefferson Looney, “Thomas Jefferson’s Last Letter,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 112, no. 2 (2004): 179, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4250177.
[70] Thomas Jefferson, “To James Monroe, May 20, 1782,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 5-8.
[71] Thomas Jefferson, “To Dr. Richard Price, Feb. 1, 1785,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 358-359.
[72] Thomas Jefferson, “To George Wythe, Aug. 13, 1786,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 249-252.
[73] Thomas Jefferson, “To James Madison, Jan. 30, 1787,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 107-109.
[74] Thomas Jefferson, “To James Madison, Dec. 20, 1787,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 360-363.
[75] Thomas Jefferson, “To John Adams, Nov. 13, 1787,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 359-360.
[76] Dustin A. Gish and Daniel P. Klinghard, “Republican Constitutionalism in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia,” The Journal of Politics 74, no. 1 (January 2012): 35, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381611001125.
[77] Dustin A. Gish and Daniel P. Klinghard, “Republican Constitutionalism in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia,” The Journal of Politics 74, no. 1 (January 2012): 35-37, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381611001125.
[78] Thomas Jefferson, “To George Wythe, Aug. 13, 1786,” in Jefferson: Political Writings, ed. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 249-252.
[79] Dustin A. Gish and Daniel P. Klinghard, “Republican Constitutionalism in Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia,” The Journal of Politics 74, no. 1 (January 2012): 38-39, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s0022381611001125.
[80] Ibid., 35.
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