Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1777 (though it was not first introduced into the Virginia General Assembly until 1779) by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his epitaph. It supported the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and freedom of conscience.

Read more about Virginia Statute For Religious Freedom:  Text of Statute

Famous quotes containing the words statute, religious and/or freedom:

    Amidst the downward tendency and proneness of things, when every voice is raised for a new road or another statute or a subscription of stock; for an improvement in dress, or in dentistry; for a new house or a larger business; for a political party, or the division of an estate;Mwill you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the land, speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable or perishable?
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.
    Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)

    It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)