President Jefferson’s mail leads to misunderstanding

On Oct. 7, 1801, three men; Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins and Stephen S. Nelson, penned a personal letter on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association, of Connecticut, to then President Thomas Jefferson. Their request was simple and straight-forward.

The D.B.A., founded in 1790, consisted of 26 churches in the Connecticut Valley. Their representatives had written Jefferson concerning the state of Connecticut’s decision to adopt “Congregationalism” as their state religion.

In reviewing the basic tenets of congregationalism, I found a number of concerns many people may have taken issue with. Many of their practices went back as far as the 1630s, (their “ancient charter”), when the puritan fathers enacted laws decreeing church attendance on Sundays and other appointed days, as well as requiring all residents to contribute to the financial maintenance of local congregational ministers. However, I did not find anything that was necessarily unfriendly to the Protestant faith. That is to say, congregationalism supported salvation through faith in Christ Jesus alone and recognized Jehovah God as the only true God.

The D.B.A. recognized, however that as long as their “religious privileges” were enjoyed as “favors granted” by the state, and “not as inalienable rights,” their recognition was “inconsistent with the rights of freemen,” and they viewed this recognition as a “degrading acknowledgment” of their religious freedoms.

Additionally, they expressed concern that as long as their freedom to worship was granted as favors by the state, there was the potential for ungodly men to seek power and oppress that freedom.

Their request of Jefferson was that he would exercise what influence he could to encourage Connecticut to adopt the position of the federal government and “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The irony in Jefferson’s personal letter responding to their request, dated Jan. 1, 1802, is not without some sad humor. The help the D.B.A. sought from Jefferson was unavailable to them for the very reason they sought it.

For Jefferson to use the influence of his office to exert pressure on Connecticut regarding religious freedoms within their state would violate the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. And he referenced that portion of the First Amendment as that authority preventing his involvement, positively or negatively, into the affairs of the church.

In an effort to provide the D.B.A. with a clear, concrete understanding of the First Amendment’s prohibition on government’s interference into the matters of religion, he used that now famous, and almost always misapplied metaphor — “a wall of separation.”

When you consider the reason the D.B.A. wrote to Jefferson, the context of the Danbury letter itself and the context of Jefferson’s reply, it becomes obvious, even to a political neophyte such as myself, that the only clear intent of Jefferson’s metaphor was to vividly illustrate government’s absolute prohibition to involve itself in the affairs of the church and not the other way around. In fact, the prohibition in the First Amendment is expressly placed upon Congress. The church is not named at all.

Perhaps, the greatest irony of all is that these were personal letters between the D.B.A. and Jefferson. This was not brought before Congress, nor was it brought before the court. It was just a personal letter from the president that very properly cited the first amendment and it’s limitations on Congress not the church.

In fact, on April 26, 1802, just four months following his reply to the D.B.A., Jefferson extended the 1787 act of Congress, which designated special lands for the sole use of Christian Indians and the Moravian Brethren Missionaries for civilizing indians and promoting Christianity.

Neither Jefferson, nor any of his contemporaries ever attempted to place his famous phrase into law or the Constitution. It was Justice Hugo Black, apparently having read Jefferson’s letter, who introduced the phrase into law in a 1947 U.S. Supreme court case; Everson v. Board of Education.

I guess, that’s what happens when you read other people’s mail. Things get taken out of context, misinterpreted and misrepresented. It’s not good to read other people’s mail.

Mark D. Stooksbury,



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