The Color of Jefferson's World

By: Norlene M. Gowdy

Much has been written about Thomas Jefferson’s mountain-top home of Monticello, the timeless showcase of Jefferson’s architectural brilliance. It is here where we see how he incorporates classical Greek and Roman design with his own innovative features of the alcove bed, triple sash windows, and octagonal shaped rooms. But what about his use of color, one of the most important elements of design? Even a quick study of Jefferson will show that little in his life was left to chance. So, if that is the case, one could argue that the colors he chose were intentional. What can his paint colors tell us about him, if anything?

A Monticello guide told us that Jefferson “loved a good dinner party and the latest fashion” which was colorfully confirmed as we entered the dining room. Not so long ago, the walls of this room were colonial Williamsburg blue, but after 20 years of analysis by Welsh Color and Conservation, Inc. the room has been restored to the color that Jefferson painted it in 1815. Monticello curator, Susan R. Stein described the chrome-yellow paint color “as the color of an egg yolk from a chicken that dined on marigold petals” (Tackett). At the time Jefferson painted this room he was 72 years old. His service as President of the United States had ended six years earlier, and he had just sold his books to Congress. Is it possible that any of these events influence his decision to splurge on a color that “cost $5.00 per pound, twice as expensive as Blue Prussian and 33 times as expensive as white lead” (Monticello)? Or, was it innately just Jefferson, the man who was a dichotomy for all time … classical yet contemporary, methodical yet excessive, private yet bon vivant?

Monticello Dining Room: https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/monticello-dining-room

Jefferson’s dining room choice intentionally moved beyond what has been identified as classic English Georgian, colors of burgundy, sage green, Wedgewood blue and dusky pink – to bold colors that declare contemporary, fashionable, and expensive. Besides showing his preference for French design this choice also indicates that Jefferson was continually drawn to new ideas, developments, and thoughts, as the new yellow hue had been recently invented. His grand-daughter, Ellen Randolph Coolidge described Monticello as a “feast of reason and a flow of soul” (Monticello), and with the dining room being the center of both entertainment and enlightenment, Jefferson would have purposely designed this space for both beauty and the flow of modern ideas. Jefferson’s innovative use of colors continued in the two-tiered, grey-blue and yellow, wainscot of the entrance hall.

Monticello Entrance Hall: https://www.monticello.org/house-gardens/the-house/room-furnishings/entrance-hall/

While the portion above the chair-rail is whitewashed, allowing emphasis to the artifacts, maps, and pictures, the bottom portion was given to joining the wall to the painted green pine floor, a color Jefferson called grass, which had been personally suggested to him by portraitist Charles Willson Peale. Quite likely, Jefferson appreciated both the aesthetics and the practicality of a painted floor. He continued to push the limits of innovation and style with his colors.

More painted walls can be found in Martha’s sitting room and in Jefferson’s private space. Both rooms are shades of blue.

Jefferson's Bed Chamber: https://www.monticello.org/house-gardens/the-house/room-furnishings/bed-chamber/

The dome room upstairs, which can only be seen in pictures, was restored to its original brilliant yellow hue. Welsh, in his Monticello project paper states that “documentary evidence indicates that Jefferson was intimately involved in the selection of paint finishes, colors and wallpapers.” We can assume then that just as he had picked the yellow color of the dining room, he also picked these colors with a purpose, whether it was for light, tranquility, interest, fashion, or a success statement.

And yet, there are rooms in the mansion which have been left with unpainted white plaster. Welsh informs us that through paint archeology and analyses Jefferson embraced white as his primary color on both the wood trim and the plaster which he contrasted with “stunning colors, such as yellow and green, and imitative, and varnished mahogany … [and] colorful patterned and plain French wallpapers.” The visible use of color and lack of throughout the rooms of Monticello according to Welsh are “distinctly individual” and remain as evidence of the underlying principles of aesthetic Jefferson used in his design.

Monticello Parlor: https://classroom.monticello.org/media-item/monticellos-parlor/

Observation and a simple study of Jefferson’s paint colors allows visitors of Monticello to draw a few conclusions. The chrome-yellow color was by far his most bold choice, and as stated earlier, was incorporated into the design of Monticello late in his life. Possibly he chose the brilliant yellow to signify not only his fondness for “all that is French” (Tackett), but also because he was truly happy to be back home at his beloved Monticello with his family. I propose that his unpainted plaster walls are symbolic of the simple life he sought -- time to read, to write, to reflect, all essential components to his well-being, but sometimes overshadowed by his own unrelenting interest in the world around him which would not allow him to be silent. I suggest that the blue walls in his private quarters exemplify the tranquility he sought out of the public eye, which contrast the main entrance’s dazzling green floors that welcomed people into his world. In conclusion, I would submit that Jefferson used colors in his home, like he used words on the page, to emphasize what was most important to him … home, family, friendships, knowledge, education, country, beauty, or in his own words, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
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Photo: Jefferson's Poplar Forest

Works Cited:
“Monticello’s Dining Room – Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.” Thomas Jefferson – Monticello. www.Monticello.org. Accessed on 12 October 2019.
Tackett, John J. “Historic Paint Color at Monticello.” www.tdclassiscist.blogspot.com. Accessed on 12 October 2019.
Welsh, Frank S. “Restoring the Colors of Thomas Jefferson: Beyond the Colors of Independence.” www.welshcolor.com. Accessed on 19 October 2019.

The Puritan Ethic and the American Revolution

Edmund S. Morgan, Ph.D. (1916-2013), Sterling Professor of American History Emeritus at Yale University, was “an award-winning historian who illuminated the intellectual world of the Puritans, explored the paradox of freedom and slavery in colonial Virginia …found his richest material in the religious thought of Puritan New England and endless fascination in the theological debates and spiritual struggles of men like John Winthrop, Roger Williams and Ezra Stiles. “I think that any group of people who have a system of belief that covers practically everything, and who act upon it, are bound to be interesting to any scholar,” he said in a 1987 interview with The William and Mary Quarterly. His elegantly written, succinct biographies and studies of early New England, respected by specialists but accessible to undergraduates, became required reading for several generations of college students… “As a historian of colonial and revolutionary America, he was one of the giants of his generation, and a writer who could well have commanded a larger nonacademic audience than I suspect he received,” said Pauline Maier, a professor of American history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “He characteristically took on big issues and had a knack for conveying complex, sophisticated truths in a way that made them seem, if not simple, at least easily understandable.”[1]

Morgan’s book, “The Challenge of the American Revolution,” published in the bicentennial year of American Independence (1976), includes an important essay titled “The Puritan Ethic and the American Revolution.”[2]  As the cover states, “this volume presents an eminent historian’s progress over thirty years in trying to understand the American Revolution.” This essay in particular conveys what Morgan believes to be the primary ideals that guided the Revolution “in all of its phases.” A selection of quotes from this compelling essay on the Puritan Ethic follow:

“Without pretending to explain the whole exciting variety of the revolution, I would like to suggest that the movement in all its phases, from the resistance to Parliamentary taxation in the 1760’s to the establishment of a national government and national policies in the 1790’s was affected, not to say guided, by a set of values inherited from the age of Puritanism [not to imply that the American Revolutionists were all Puritans].” (89)

“These values or ideas, which I will call collectively the Puritan Ethic, were not unconscious or subconscious, but were deliberately and openly expressed by men of the time. The men who expressed them were not Puritans, and a few of the ideas included in the Puritan Ethic were actually new. Many of them had existed in other intellectual contexts before Puritanism was heard of, and many of them continue to exist today, as they did in the Revolutionary period, without the support of Puritanism. But Puritanism wove them together in a single rational pattern, and Puritans planted the pattern in America.” (89-90)

“The Ethic conveyed the idea of each man’s and woman’s “calling” in life. “The emphasis of [work or labor] was on productivity for the benefit of society. In addition to working diligently at productive tasks, a man was supposed to be thrifty and frugal. It was good to produce but bad to consume any more than necessity required. A man was but a steward of the possessions he accumulated. If he indulged himself in luxurious living, he would have that much less with which to support church and society. If he needlessly consumed his substance, either from carelessness or from sensuality, he failed to honor the God who furnished him with it.” (91)

The Puritans “knew that they must be thankful for prosperity, that like everything good in the world it came from God. But they also knew that God could [allow] it as a temptation, that it could lead to idleness, sloth and extravagance… Adversity, on the other hand, though a sign of God’s temporary displeasure, and therefore a cause for worry, was also God’s means of recalling a people to him.” (92)

“Whether they derived their ideas from history thus interpreted or from Puritan tradition or elsewhere, Americans in the Revolutionary period in every colony and state paid tribute to the Puritan Ethic and its injunctions. Although it was probably strongest among Presbyterians and Congregationalists like Benjamin Rush and Samuel Adams, it is evident among Anglicans like Henry Laurens and Richard Henry Lee and even among deists like Franklin and Jefferson. Jefferson’s letters to his daughters sometimes sound as though they had been written by Cotton Mather [popular American Congregational minister and author 1663-1728]: “It is your future happiness which interests me, and nothing can contribute more to it (moral rectitude always excepted) than the contracting a habit of industry and activity.” (94)

 “…the major developments, the resistance to Great Britain, independence, the divisions among the successful revolutionists, and the formulation of policies for the new nation, were all discussed and understood by men of the time in terms derived from the Puritan Ethic. And the way men understood and defined the issues before them frequently influenced their decisions.” (95)

“And so it proved in the years that followed [the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, the Townshend Acts and Coercive Acts]: as their Puritan forefathers had met providential disasters with a renewal of virtue that would restore god’s favor, the Revolutionary generation met taxation with self-denial and industry that they hoped would restore their accustomed freedom and enable them to identify with their virtuous ancestors.” (96)

On December 13, 1773, the Newport Mercury (Rhode Island) stated, “The Americans have plentifully enjoyed the delights and comforts, as well as the necessities of life, and it is well known that an increase of wealth and affluence paves the way to an increase of luxury, immorality and profaneness, and here kind providence interposes; as it were, obliges them to forsake the use of their delights, to preserve their liberty.” (97)

“In these appeals for self-denial, the Puritan Ethic acquired a value that had only been loosely associated with it hitherto: it became an essential condition of political liberty. Americans like Englishmen had long associated liberty with property. They now concluded that both rested on virtue.” (97)

The Boston Evening Post, November 16, 1767, asserted that, “by consuming less of what we are not really in want of, and by industriously cultivating and improving the natural advantages of our own country, we might save our substance, even our lands, from becoming the property of others, and we might eventually preserve our virtue and our liberty, to the latest posterity.” (98)

To tax a man without his consent, Samuel Adams wrote in the Boston Gazette (December 19, 1768), was “against the plain and obvious rule of equity, whereby the industrious man is entitled to the fruits of his industry.” (102)

“Students of the American Revolution have often found it difficult to believe that the colonists were willing to fight about an abstract principle and have sometimes dismissed the constitutional arguments of the time as mere rhetoric. But the constitutional principle on which the colonists rested their case was not the product either of abstract political philosophy or the needs of the moment. In the colonists’ view, the principle of no taxation without representation was a means, hallowed in history, of protecting property and of maintaining those virtues, associated with property, without which no people could be free.” (102-03).

 “The calling of a ruler, as the colonists and their Puritan forebearers saw it, was like any other calling: it must serve the common good; it must be useful, productive; and it must be assiduously pursued.” (103)

 “A principal means of corruption had been the multiplication of officeholders who served no useful purpose but fattened on the labors of those who did the country’s work. Even before the dispute over taxation began, few colonists who undertook trips to England failed to make unflattering comparisons between the simplicity, frugality, and industry that prevailed in the colonies and the extravagance, luxury, idleness, drunkenness, poverty, and crime that they saw in the mother country.” (103)

 “By the time the First Continental Congress came together in 1774, large numbers of leading Americans had come to identify Great Britain with vice and America with virtue, yet with the fearful recognition that virtue stands in perennial danger from the onslaughts of vice.” (105-06)

As John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on July 3rd 1776 – the day following the vote of the Continental Congress to adopt Richard Henry Lee’s resolution of Independence – many of the themes of the Puritan Ethic highlighted by Morgan are clearly manifest:

“Yesterday the greatest Question was decided, which ever was de­bated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was or will be decided among Men. A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony ‘that these united Colonies, are, and of right ought to be free and independent States, and as such, they have, and of Right ought to have full Power to make War, conclude Peace, establish Commerce, and to do all the other Acts and Things, which other States may rightfully do.’ You will see in a few days a Declaration setting forth the Causes, which have impelled Us to this mighty Revolution, and the Reasons which will justify it, in the Sight of God and Man. A Plan of Confederation will be taken up in a few days.

“When I look back to the Year 1761, and recollect the Argument concerning Writs of Assistance, in the Superior Court, which I have hitherto considered as the Commencement of the Controversy, between Great Britain and America, and run through the whole Period from that Time to this, and recollect the series of political Events, the Chain of Causes and Effects, I am surprised at the Suddenness, as well as Greatness of this Revolution. Britain has been filled with Folly, and America with Wisdom, at least this is my Judgment.—Time must determine. It is the Will of Heaven, that the two Countries should be sundered forever. It may be the Will of Heaven that America shall suffer Calamities still more wasting and Distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the Case, it will have this good Effect, at least: it will inspire Us with many Virtues, which We have not, and correct many Errors, Follies, and Vices, which threaten to disturb, dishonor, and destroy Us.—The Furnace of Affliction produces Refinement, in States as well as Individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming, in every Part, will require a Purification from our Vices, and an Augmentation of our Virtues or they will be no Blessings. The People will have unbounded Power. And the People are extremely addicted to Corruption and Venality, as well as the Great.—I am not without Apprehensions from this Quarter. But I must submit all my Hopes and Fears, to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the Faith may be, I firmly believe.” (spelling modernized). 

We as Americans would do well to study, ponder and reflect on the principles of faith in God - the Hand of Providence, prayer, work, thrift, frugality, stewardship, self-denial, humility, sacrifice, morality and virtue that guided our Revolutionary forefathers and mothers in establishing this land of liberty.
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[1]  Williams Grimes, New York Times, July 9, 2013.
[2] (Edmund S. Morgan, The Challenge of the American Revolution (W.W. Norton & Co, New York, 1976), pp. 88-138. See also, William and Mary Quarterly, XXIV (Jan., 1967), 3-43). 

Alexander Hamilton & the American Republic

“I consider civil liberty, in a genuine unadulterated sense, as the greatest of terrestrial blessings. I am convinced, that the whole human race is entitled to it; and, that it can be wrested from no part of them, without the blackest and most aggravated guilt.” –Alexander Hamilton, “The Farmer Refuted,” February 23, 1775.

“The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be Rummaged for Among Old Parchments or Musty Records. They are Written, as with a Sunbeam, in the Whole Volume of Human Nature, by the Hand of The Divinity Itself, and Can Never Be Erased or Obscured by Mortal Power.” –Alexander Hamilton, “The Farmer Refuted.”

The Washington, Jefferson & Madison Institute is pleased to announce its next teacher education workshop on the topic of “Alexander Hamilton & the American Republic.” The program will include 3 x 1.0 hour class sessions. Along with presentations, the format will include a “roundtable” discussion with participation by all. The outline of the sessions and agenda are as follows:

8:30–9:00 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast

9:00–10:00 a.m. First Classroom Session -- “Alexander Hamilton and George Washington — the Revolutionary War and their Political Alliance.” Presentation by Tony Williams (30-40 minutes), followed by Q&A and discussion (20-30 minutes).

10:15–11:15 a.m. Second Classroom Session -- “Alexander Hamilton and Washington’s Farewell Address.” Presentation by Dr. Jeffry Morrison, Ph.D. (30-40 minutes), followed by Q&A and discussion (20-30 minutes).

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Third Classroom Session -- “Alexander Hamilton, the Constitutional Convention and the Federalist Papers.” Presentation by J. David Gowdy (20 minutes), followed by Roundtable Discussion (40 minutes).

12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Luncheon

WJMI welcomes Dr. Jeffry H. Morrison, Ph.D., author, Director of Academics at the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation and Professor in Leadership and American Studies at Christopher Newport University, and Tony Williams, author and Senior Fellow at the Bill of Rights Institute as presenters and discussion leaders.

The workshop is designed primarily for public and private Virginia secondary school teachers who teach Social Studies, U.S. Government, Virginia Government, or U. S. History. Teachers from other states are also welcome. The workshop, meals and class materials all complimentary (no cost) to teachers.

The event will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday, October 25th, 2019 at to be held at Prospect Hill Plantation Inn. The Seminar qualifies for four Virginia recertification points or 4 hours. Seating is limited. Teachers wishing to attend should pre-register. All registrations are requested by October 21st.

Prospect Hill Plantation Inn, Louisa, Virginia

Quotes from the Founders on the Constitution

“The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can and undoubtedly will be recalled.” – George Washington, Letter to Bushrod Washington, 1787.

“The Constitution is the guide, which I will never abandon.” – George Washington, Letter to The Boston Selectmen, July 28, 1795.

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” – James Madison, Federalist No. 45 (1788)

“The "Federalist" may fairly enough be regarded as the most authentic exposition of the text of the federal Constitution as understood by the Body [Constitutional Convention] which prepared & and the Authorities [state ratifying conventions] which accepted it.” –James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, February 8, 1825. 

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” – Thomas Jefferson, Opinion against the constitutionality of a National Bank (1791).

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” –Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820.

"Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people. They fix, too, for the people the principles of their political creed." –Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1802. Writings, Memorial Edition (“ME”), 1905, 10:325.

"I am persuaded no Constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government." –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1809. ME 12:277.

"If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws -- the first growing out of the last. ... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government." –Alexander Hamilton, Essay in the American Daily Advertiser, 1794.

“I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars: ‑‑ The utility of the UNION to your political prosperity ‑‑ The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that Union ‑‑ The necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed, to the attainment of this object ‑‑ The conformity of the  proposed Constitution to the true principles of republican government ‑‑ Its analogy to your own State constitution ‑‑ and lastly, The additional security which its adoption will afford the preservation of that species of government, to liberty, and to property.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1 (1788).

“I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies.” – Benjamin Franklin, Speech for Adoption of the Constitution, September 17, 1787.

“Much of the strength & efficiency of any Government in procuring and securing happiness to the people depends, on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of the Government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own sakes as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution … wherever our Influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts & endeavours to the means of having it well administered.” – Benjamin Franklin, Id.

“We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams to the Massachusetts Militia, October 11, 1798.

“Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.” – John Adams letter to Abigail Adams, July 7, 1775

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue…” – Samuel Adams, Essay published in the American Daily Advertiser, 1848.

“The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy the gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people; then shall we both deserve and enjoy it. While, on the other hand, if we are universally vicious and debauched in our manners, though the form of our Constitution carries the face of the most exalted freedom, we shall in reality be the most abject slaves.” – Samuel Adams, Id.

Celebrate Constitution Day September 17th!

The Buena Vista and Lexington, Virginia Celebration of Constitution Day will be held Tuesday evening, September 17th from 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at the historic Wesley Chapel in Lexington. The event is co-sponsored by the local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Virginia Frontier-Lexington and Natural Bridge) (https://www.dar.org/) and by the George Washington Center for Constitutional Studies (GWCCS) (http://georgewashingtoncenter.org/). GWCCS is a nonpartisan academic institute that promotes Civic Education, and the instruction, study, and ideological defense of the principles of the American Founding, the Constitution of the United States of America, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, based on natural law principles using primary sources.

The Daughters of the American Revolution ask local government leaders to issue annual proclamations honoring Constitution Day and have also established the tradition of the “Ringing of the Bells” at 4:00 p.m. EDT on that day.  The mayors of both Lexington and Buena Vista and the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors will be issuing proclamations. Lee Chapel at Washington & Lee University and several local churches have agreed to toll their bells. 

Music for the event will be provided by students from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and Southern Virginia University.  Additionally, there will be two speakers:

Tony Williams will speak on the statesmanship of James Madison and the art of compromise. He is currently employed as a Senior Fellow at the Bill of Rights Institute in Washington D.C. and  is the Program Director of the Washington, Jefferson & Madison Institute. Tony attended Syracuse University where he earned a B.A. in history and Ohio State University where he earned an M.A. in American history.  He has written six books on colonial and Revolutionary America: Hamilton: An American Biography (2018), Washington & Hamilton: The Alliance that Forged America (2015)(co-authored with Stephen P. Knott), The Jamestown Experiment (2011), America’s Beginnings (2010), The Pox and the Covenant (2010) and Hurricane of Independence(2008). He has taught history at the secondary school level for fifteen years. 

J. David Gowdy will speak on the relationship between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. He is the President and Executive Director of the George Washington Center for Constitutional Studies.  He received his B.A. from Kansas State University and his J. D. degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. He is also the founder of the Washington, Jefferson & Madison Institute which has been providing continuing education courses to Virginia U.S. government and history teachers since 2007. He currently serves on the Board of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society (Charlottesville). 

The public is invited to attend.

Civil and Religious Liberty

“In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.” – James Madison (Federalist No. 51, 1788).

The history of the connection between civil and religious liberty extends back to England in the 1600’s. “The parliamentarians of the English civil war fought against grievances on two fronts: political and religious. In politics they fought for ‘liberty’, in religion for ‘reformation’…Over the course of the revolution, the two causes became linked, so that by 1659–60 the phrase ‘civil and religious liberty’ had become ubiquitous. It would be a defining feature of English political vocabulary for a quarter of a millennium,”[1]  and it extended into the heart of the American Revolution in the 1700’s. “American colonists widely agreed with this sentiment. “Civil and religious liberty” went together, but religious liberty was more fundamental, as it dealt with eternal matters, not just temporal ones. Moreover, many believed that the loss of civil liberty generally preceded the loss of religious freedom. As one pastor put it in 1766, “We could not long expect to enjoy our religious liberties, when once our civil liberties were gone.”[2]

To the Founders and most American colonists, both civil liberty and religious liberty were viewed as companion “natural rights,” inherent in the divine nature of man. They firmly believed, fought, and bled for the self-evident truth in the Declaration of Independence that, “...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” In this regard, the revolutionary war was as much a battle against “the corruption of 18th century British high society,”[3]  as it was against financial oppression. While the Founders and American colonists were very concerned with their civil liberty and economic freedom, demanding “no taxation without representation,” they were as much or more concerned with their religious liberty, particularly in preserving their rights of individual conscience and public morality.[4]  In fact, as General, George Washington confirmed that, “the establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of battle.”[5]

Our first two Presidents, George Washington and John Adams, were patrons of religion (Washington was an Episcopal vestryman, and Adams was a devoted Congregationalist and Unitarian) and both offered strong rhetorical support for religion and morality as the basis for civil liberty and freedom. In his Farewell Address of September 1796, Washington stated, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens,” and concluded that “reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Adams wrote that statesmen “may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.”[6]  With respect to freedom of conscience, Washington stated, “While we are contending for our own liberty, we should be very cautious not to violate the conscience of others, ever considering that God alone is the judge of the hearts of men, and to Him only in this case are they answerable.”[7]  Our third President, Thomas Jefferson, agreed with Washington and his language became part of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia: “[T]hat the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty.”[8]

While the Founders and colonists were concerned that the loss of their civil liberties would precede the loss of their religious liberties, the opposite may now be true. In our day, there is a concerted effort by some to elevate civil liberties or secular rights above religious liberties, including the right of conscience. For example, according to Chairman Martin R. Castro of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, phrases such as ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ should now be considered “code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, …or any other form of intolerance.” In this document (issued in September 2016), the United States Commission on Civil Rights—purportedly a bipartisan, independent federal commission—makes the unambiguous determination that status-based civil liberties should supersede religious liberties.[9]  More recently, the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act (H.R. 5, 116th Congress). The Equality Act provides no protections for religious freedom. It would instead repeal long-standing religious rights under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Such efforts tend to undermine the crucial, stabilizing influence of religion in public life and may jeopardize the equal rights of each individual under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

All citizens should study and lend their voices and opinions to these critical issues. As we do so, we would be wise and prudent to consider the historical and long-held conviction that in our nation civil rights and religious rights are inextricably connected, rely on one another, and must be maintained in balance. While sometimes difficult, fairness for all may be achieved. We, as Americans who have inherited both civil and religious liberty, and whose principles and traditions set our nation apart from all others, should reflect on the timeless precept that, “The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.”[10]
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Footnotes:
 [1] Blair Worden, “Civil and Religious Liberty”, Chapter 8 in God's Instruments: Political Conduct in the England of Oliver Cromwell (Oxford Scholarship Online, May 2012). https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570492.001.0001/acprof-9780199570492-chapter-9 
 [2] Thomas Kidd, The American Founding: Understanding the Connection between Religious and Civil Liberties-Religious Freedom Institute (June 4, 2016).
 [3] Marvin Olasky, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue (Regnery Publishing, Washington D.C., 1996) p. 142.
 [4] See, e.g., Id., Olasky, Fighting for Liberty and Virtue; Richard Vetterli and Gary Bryner, In Search of the Republic: Public Virtue and the Roots of American Government (Rowman & Littlefield, New Jersey, 1987).
 [5] Letter to the Ministers, Elders, Deacons, and Members of the Reformed German Congregation of New York, November 27, 1783, in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, 37 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1931-1940), 27:249.
 [6] Adams to Zabdiel Adams, Philadelphia June 21. 1776; see also Library of Congress, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic, Religion and the Federal Government, Part 1, https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel06.html 
 [7] Letter to Benedict Arnold, September 14, 1775.
 [8] Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779); Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (Virginia, 1777).
 [9] Deseret News, U.S. Civil Rights Commission chairman says religious freedoms 'stand for nothing except hypocrisy':
 https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865662326/US-Civil-Rights-Commission-chairman-says-religious-freedoms-stand-for-nothing-except-hypocrisy.html; https://www.usccr.gov/press/2016/PR-09-07-16.pdf
[10] Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1819, Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, Washington, D.C., 1905), 19:416.

The Preamble to the Constitution

"...the Constitution is the guide,
that I will never abandon." 

--George Washington to The Boston Selectmen, July 28, 1795

The Preamble to the Constitution has no force in law, nor is it a grant of power -- instead, it establishes the "Why" of the Constitution. Why did the Constitution come to be? It reflects the desires of the Framers to improve upon their previous government (to be "more perfect" than the Articles of Confederation), to ensure that that government would be just, and would protect its citizens from internal strife and from any foreign attacks. It is based on principles of natural law. It is intended to secure the blessings of liberty to the people and all future generations of Americans. We should become familiar both with the Preamble and the Constitution itself.

WE the People of the United States… “The Framers of our Constitution were trained and experienced in the Common Law. They remembered [the Magna Carta forged by] the barons and King John at Runnymede. They were thoroughly indoctrinated in the principle that true sovereignty rests in the people.” (J. Reuben Clark, Jr.). It confirms this truth in the Declaration of Independence that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;” and, it was “a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal …a government, of the people, by the people, for the people.” (Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address).

…in Order to form a more perfect Union The Framers were dissatisfied with the United States under the Articles of Confederation, and they were striving for something better. The framers desired that the new Constitution would form a more perfect union of both the states and the people. They knew that unity would prove essential to their future political success. George Washington stated, “you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness …accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as the Palladium [safeguard] of your political safety and prosperity” (Farewell Address).

…establish Justice Injustice, unfairness of criminal and civil laws, especially in trade and taxation, was of great concern to the citizens of 1787. They wanted a nation of equal justice -- where courts would be established with uniformity, the laws administered with fairness and equity, and where trade within and outside the borders of the country would be open and unmolested. They longed for judges who would do their duty as faithful guardians of the Constitution.

…insure domestic Tranquility One of the events that caused the Constitutional Convention to be held was the revolt of Massachusetts farmers known as Shays' Rebellion. The taking up of arms by war veterans revolting against the state government was a shock to the system. Keeping the peace was on everyone's mind, and tranquility at home was a prime concern. The framers hoped that the new powers granted to the federal government in the Constitution would thwart seditions and such rebellions in the future.

…provide for the common defense The new nation was fearful of attack from all sides —and no one state was really capable of fending off an attack from land or sea by itself. With a wary eye on Britain and Spain, and ever-watchful for Indian attack, no state in the new United States could survive such attacks alone. The people and the states needed to bond together in order to survive in the harsh world of international intrigue and aggression.

…promote the general Welfare The whole point of having tranquility, justice, and a common defense was to promote the general welfare — to allow every state and every citizen of those states the benefits that the new republic could provide. The framers looked forward to the expansion of agriculture, manufacturing, trade and investment, and they knew that a strong national government would be the precursor. However, it is not a granting clause – i.e., it does not grant Congress (or any other branch) the power to legislate for the general welfare of the country, but is merely intended as a guidepost for the federal government to carry out its enumerated powers in promoting the common good.

…and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity The framers sought for the blessings of both civil and religious liberty — something they had all fought hard for in the Revolutionary War just a decade before. They desired to create a virtuous nation that would secure the unalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to all citizens, and remain free from tyranny. And more than for themselves, they wanted to be sure that their children and future generations of Americans would enjoy the same.

…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. In the final clause of the Preamble, "We the People" delegate and invest their authority in the new government, pronounce the official name for this great charter of liberty, and restate the name of the new nation for whom they are adopting the Constitution.

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See also: http://www.liberty1.org/ConstitutionBrief.pdf

Reference: http://www.usconstitution.net/constquick.html