Religious Liberty: "That Nest of Dutchmen"

The following article was written by Robert G. Morrison. At the time of it's publishing Morrison was the Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at Family Research Council (I do not know if he still holds that position). It is a five-part overview on the perspective and history of the impact of faith on the Founders.

I.N.A.F.I.A.S,

Lee

Psalm 91

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What the Founders Really Did on Religious Liberty: “Deeds not Words”

BY ROBERT G. MORRISON

Dispatch No. 2.Mr. Madison and “that nest of Dutchmen”

BY 1789, YOUNG James Madison already had enough achievements to bring fame to any man. He had worked diligently with Thomas Jefferson to advance religious freedom in the newly independent Commonwealth of Virginia. Jefferson’s Bill for Religious Freedom had been introduced into the General Assembly in 1779, but the lawmakers hesitated to enact it. By 1785, however, the War of Independence was over and Jefferson was in Paris representing the United States.

Madison was an Episcopalian (as the American Anglicans of the old Church of England called themselves). But he felt keenly the injustice of persecution against Virginia’s Baptists. A number of their preachers had been jailed for refusing to tell state authorities where they would preach and to whom. They answered only to God, they stoutly maintained. Madison joined with Rev. George Eve and Elder John Leland to defend the Baptists.

When Patrick Henry suggested a bill to tax all Virginians for the support of their churches, but to let each man decide how his tax should be apportioned, his proposed measure would have been the most tolerant, most enlightened of any religion law in the English-speaking world. Allowing a taxpayer to determine to what denomination his money would go was radical.

Even so, Madison responded powerfully with his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessment (1785). Madison showed with clear and compelling logic how giving the state the power to tax and distribute church funds necessarily involved giving the state the power to determine who was genuinely Christian. This was exactly the principle that the fearless Baptists had been fighting against. They rallied to support Mr. Jefferson’s bill.

Soon, the log jam in the legislature was broken and Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom sailed home on a Madisonian tide (1786). The Virginia Statute was, and is, the Magna Carta of religious freedom. The statute was the first in the world to establish not a particular religion or church, but religious freedom itself. Madison said this measure would add to the “lustre of our country.”

Years later, when first running for Congress, Madison ran into serious political opposition. Patrick Henry and George Mason, anti-Federalist leaders in Virginia, had recruited the young war hero, James Monroe, to run against Madison. Madison was determined to maintain his good friendship with Monroe, despite being opponents for Congress. One Sunday in January, 1789, Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe rode to Hebron Lutheran Church.

That “nest of Dutchmen (Germans),” as Madison recalled, was canvassed because “they generally voted together and [their] vote might probably turn the scale.” Those serious Virginia Lutherans welcomed the two candidates, letting them attend their worship service and enjoy the playing of their fiddles. Afterwards, the two candidates addressed the congregation in the snowy churchyard for three hours.

Madison won the election handily. He then proceeded to New York City, the temporary capital of the United States. There, he single-handedly pressed the new Congress to honor the pledges he had given Rev. Eve, Elder John, and all the good folks in his district, including that Nest of Dutchmen.

James Madison is rightly honored as the Father of the Constitution, and the Author of the Bill of Rights. Can we imagine that author of the Bill of rights intended to make unconstitutional the very practice he had employed to get elected? Office-seekers today should be allowed to appeal for the votes of church-goers, as Madison did.

“Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government” (JAMES MADISON-4th President of the United States).

NEXT POST: Dispatch No. 3–George Washington Kisses the Bible.

ROBERT G. MORRISON is Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at Family Research Council. He is a former teacher of American history at the high school and college levels. He served in the U.S. Department of Education and as the Washington repre­sentative of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. He re­searched Bill Bennett’s two-volume history of the U.S., America: The Last Best Hope.