proposed assessment, to be circulated among the people. In this masterly paper, he discussed the question of an establishment of religion by law from every possible point of view,- of natural right, the inherent limitations of the civil power, the interests of religion itself, the genius and precepts of Christianity, the warning lessons of history, the dictates of a wise and sober policy, -and treated them all with a consummate power of reasoning, and a force of appeal to the understandings and hearts of the people, that bore down every opposing prejudice, and precluded reply. It was diffused extensively through the State, and was rapidly covered with the signatures of the voters.

When the Assembly met in October, the table of the House of Delegates almost sunk under the weight of the accumulated copies of the memorial sent forward from the different counties, each with its long and dense column of subscribers. The fate of the assessment was sealed. The manifestation of the public judgment was too unequivocal and overwhelming to leave the faintest hope to the friends of the measure was abandoned without a struggle.1

1 Some very intelligent writers appear to have confounded the act "incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church" with the General Assessment Bill. It has been stated, for example, that in 1785 the Rev. John Blair Smith was heard for three successive days, at

It

the bar of the House of Delegates, in opposition to the assessment bill. (Evan. and Lit. Mag. vol. IX. pp. 43-47, cited by Mr. Howison in his interesting History of Virginia, vol. II. p. 298.) And yet another most respectable authority, belonging to the same religious denomination

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Under cover of this signal victory won before the people by the irresistible voice of truth, the declaratory act for the "establishment of relig ious freedom," which had been drawn by Mr. Jefferson, as one of the committee of revisors, and presented to the legislature in 1779, with the rest of the revised bills, was taken up and passed into a law. The "Memorial and Remonstrance" had cleared away every obstruction, and so smoothed the ground before it that its passage became a matter of course.

When the early and conscientious zeal of Mr. Madison in the cause of religious freedom, so beautifully and strikingly displayed, even before the Revolution, in his correspondence with his friend Bradford; his sagacious and pregnant amendment to the Virginia Bill of Rights in 1776; his brave and manly struggle against the embattled hosts of the assessment in the legislature of 1784; and his glorious authorship of the "Memorial and Remonstrance" in 1785-the crowning victory in the momentous contestare considered; to him, of all the men of his age, posterity will award the meed of preeminence for long, earnest, persevering, and efficient exerwith Dr. Smith, (Baird's Religion in America, p. 110,) relates that he had been won over by Patrick Henry in favor of the assessment. Dr. Smith was warmly opposed, as his correspondence with Mr. Madison shows, to the act incorporating the Protestant Epis

copal Church; and the probability, therefore, is that the reported argument at the bar of the House was in opposition to that act more particularly, and in order to obtain its repeal, which took place a year afterwards.

tions in defence of one of the most precious rights of human nature- the basis of every other, and the indispensable guarantee of civil and political liberty.

As a triumphant plea in that great cause, never surpassed in power or eloquence by any which its stirring interests have called forth, and as a monument of the genius, ability, and love of liberty of the author, which, if he had left no other behind him, would suffice to transmit his name with honor to future ages, and ought to render it forever dear to his country, we annex here this noble production of the mind and heart of Mr. Madison, that the reader may be enabled to form his own estimate of its merits, as well as to profit by its lessons of wisdom and justice.

Memorial and Remonstrance against the Bill "establishing a legal Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion.”

To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia :

We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration a bill printed by order of the late session of the General Assembly, entitled "A Bill establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," and conceiving that the same, if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound, as faithful members of a free State, to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said bill;

Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by

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force or violence." * The religion, then, of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is, in its nature, an inalienable right. It is inalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men; it is inalienable also, because what is here a right towards men is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to Him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of civil society. Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe; and if a member of civil society who enters into any subordinate association must always do it with a reservation of his duty to the general authority, much more must every man who becomes a member of any particular civil society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain, therefore, that, in matters of religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of civil society, and that religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is that no other rule exists by which any question which may divide a society can be ultimately determined than the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.

Because, if religion be exempt from the authority of the society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the legislative body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited. It is limited with regard to the coördinate departments; more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituent. The preservation of a free government requires, not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained, but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great barrier which defends the rights of the people. The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.

Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The

* Virginia Bill of Rights, art. 16.

freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle; and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity to the exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute threepence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment, in all cases whatsoever?

Because the bill violates that equality which ought to be the basis of every law, and which is more indispensable in proportion as the validity or expediency of any law is more liable to be impeached. "If all men are by nature equally free and independent,"* all men are to be considered as entering into society on equal conditions, -as relinquishing no more, and therefore retaining no less, one than another, of their natural rights. Above all, are they to be considered as retaining "an equal title to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience."† Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man. Το God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered. As the bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle by granting to others peculiar exemptions. Are the Quakers and Menonists the only sects who think a compulsive support of their religions unnecessary and unwarrantable? Can their piety alone be intrusted with the care of public worship? Ought their religions to be endowed, above all others, with extraordinary privileges, by which proselytes may be enticed from all others? We think too favorably of the justice and good sense of these denominations to believe that they either covet preeminences over their fellowcitizens, or that they will be seduced by them from the common opposition to the measure.

Because the bill implies either that the civil magistrate is a competent judge of religious truth, or that he may employ religion as an engine of civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension, falsified by the contradictory opinions of rulers in all ages and throughout the world; the second, an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.

* Virginia Bill of Rights, art. 1.

+ Idem, art. 16.