Letters & Documents

Second Annual Message to Congress, President Thomas Jefferson, 1802

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson December 15, 1802 Even though he supported separation of church and state and criticized much religion, Jefferson still seemed to believe that God protected America. December 15, 1802 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: When we assemble together, fellow-citizens, to consider the state of our beloved country, our just attentions are first drawn to those pleasing circumstances which mark the goodness of that Being from whose favor they flow and the large measure…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Canby (on Jesus), September 18, 1813

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson September 18, 1813 Jefferson praises Jesus but says those who believe in the “those moral precepts in which all religions concur” will go to heaven. MONTICELLO, September 18, 1813 SIR, — I have duly received your favor of August 27th, am sensible of the kind intentions from which it flows, and truly thankful for them. The more so as they could only be the result of a favorable estimate of my public course. During a long life, as…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 1814

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson June 13, 1814 Jefferson wrestles with the role of God and religion in the formation of morality. The copy of your Second Thoughts on Instinctive Impulses, with the letter accompanying it, was received just as I was setting out on a journey to this place, two or three days’ distant from Monticello. I brought it with me and read it with great satisfaction, and with the more as it contained exactly my own creed on the foundation of…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Smith, February 21, 1825

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson February 21, 1825 In his later years, Jefferson offers his religious and moral creed to the son of a friend. This letter will, to you, be as one from the dead. The writer will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your affectionate and excellent father has requested that I would address to you something which might possibly have a favorable influence on the course of life you have to run, and I too, as…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson January 1, 1802 The Danbury Baptist Association was founded in 1790 as a coalition of about 26 churches in the Connecticut Valley. Connecticut had established Congregationalism as its official state religion. It was as a persecuted religious minority that they wrote to President Jefferson asking for his help in overthrowing the establishment. Jefferson’s response was not some throwaway courtesy note but the product of careful deliberation involving several of his top advisors. We know this with some certainty…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson June 24, 1826 This is thought to be one of Jefferson’s final letters. Asked to participate in a Fourth of July celebration, he reflected on the meaning of American Independence, declaring freedom of conscience to be one of the greatest achievements. RESPECTED SIR, The kind invitation I receive from you, on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration on the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, as one of…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith, August 6, 1816

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson August 6, 1816 After a friend reports that she’d heard that Jefferson had become religious, Jefferson scathingly explains that his views had long been mischaracterized by his enemies. have received, dear Madam, your very friendly letter of July 21st, and assure you that I feel with deep sensibility its kind expressions towards myself, and the more as from a person than whom no others could be more in sympathy with my own affections. I often call to mind…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson April 9, 1803 In 1803, Jefferson had hoped that someone other than he would write a book on the true merits of Christianity. He eventually wrote a “Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus.” Here is a letter he sent to Joseph Priestley, the scientist who discovered Oxygen and had written extensively on Christianity, explaining his project. He later would return to the project and create what came to be known as the…

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Jefferson Condolence Letter to John Adams After the Death of Abigail

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson November 13, 1818 Jefferson wrote this extraordinary condolence letter upon hearing of the death of John Adams’ wife, Abigail. MONTICELLO, November 13, 1818. The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you…

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Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, April 11, 1823

May 31, 2017 Religious Freedom Archive

Thomas Jefferson April 11, 1823 Jefferson attacks Calvin, predestination, the immaculate conception and other facets of Christianity. DEAR SIR, — The wishes expressed, in your last favor, that I may continue in life and health until I become a Calvinist, at least in his exclamation of `mon Dieu! jusque à quand’! would make me immortal. I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism….

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