Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President

by Warren Throckmorton

“Christians and non-Christians can readily share the basic standards of evidence and argument.”[1]

True, but these standards are not neutral.

There is more to Christian scholarship for Marsden, but the beginning of all scholarship, both Christian and non-Christian, should be a dispassionate search for the proper understanding of facts and events.

Again, this is not a neutral standard. Being dispassionate is an odd thing to advocate. Why not just push for accuracy? Truthfulness? Fairness? Being “dispassionate” doesn’t guarantee any of these things. Why be dispassionate?

The aim then is not merely to find mistakes, but the aim is to get Jefferson right.

More accurately, post-structuralism is a term used to characterize the work of some late twentieth century European intellectuals, such as Michel Foucault, who argued that determining any type of foundational knowledge is vain. Barton reduces the complex concept of post-structuralism to the simple critique of traditional historical narratives.

Proponents of strong and clear separation of religious institutions and civil government tend to accentuate Jefferson’s ridicule of his clergy critics, his Enlightenment influences, his anti-Trinitarian views, his denial of the core doctrines of orthodox Christianity and his vigorous statements against a state supported church.

Jefferson affirmed his commitment to freedom of conscience and the corrosive effects of state involvement in religious matters.

While this resolution, taken out of the historical context, seems to depict Congressional support for “civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity,” it does not have that effect. The 1787 Congressional action points back to the 1785 Land Ordinance which simply provides the land for the “sole use of the Christian Indians, who were formerly settled there.” The Brethren had already promoted Christianity to the Indians. Now they were empowered to act as trustees for this land.

The 1796 bill, enacted when George Washington was President, was titled, "An Act regulating the grants of land appropriated for Military services, and for the Society of the United Brethren, for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen."[40]

Note also that the language of the Act clearly identifies the phrase "propagating the gospel among the heathen" as a part of the legal name of the responsible organization. These are crucial facts for understanding the claim that Jefferson signed laws three times to provide federal funds to evangelize Indians.

Not a major point, but why the comma in the legal title?

Everything here points back to the 1785 Land Ordinance. In the 1785 ordinance the purpose was to provide land for the sole use of the Christian Indians. There is nothing in any of the actions we have reviewed that provided federal money to propagate the Gospel. Rather, the action of the federal government was to respond to an atrocity perpetrated on the Christian Indians.

Jefferson did not authorize the propagation of the Gospel; he simply maintained existing policy.

The federal government gave a trust to a group of people who organized as "The Society of the United Brethren for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen" for the purpose of helping the brutalized Indians return and keep rights to their lands. If there had not been an atrocity and subsequent displacement of the Christian Indians, there would have been no need for federal legislation in this case.

It was the propagation of the Gospel among the Indians that led to their conversion and pacifism. They would not protect themselves or fight back against their aggressors because of the Gospel they believed. Barton wants to make this story about a government outreach to teach Indians the Gospel when it was the actions of a state militia that led to the deaths of some members of their community.

The United States gave money toward a church building and provided a stipend for a priest to continue work already begun, which included both religious and non-religious duties. The Kaskaskia were already Catholic converts. It is inaccurate to say the federal government sent missionaries to the Kaskaskia Indians; the federal government provided limited financial support for a limited time for the support of a priest already working with this group.

For instance, in 2011, Gary DeMar, the president of American Vision, defended some county commissioners in North Carolina who opened their meetings with prayers in Jesus’ name. As part of the defense, DeMar wrote that “In 1807, Jefferson signed a federal passport that allowed the ship Hershel to proceed on its Journey to London and dated the letter September 24, 1807 using an official government form that included “in the year of our Lord Christ.”[49]

There is nothing inaccurate or even misleading here. This side-swipe at DeMar is unnecessary. The punch doesn’t quite land.

Notice the phrase “in the year of our Lord Christ” near the bottom of the form. Note that the phrase was preprinted whereas the signature and actual dates were handwritten. As you will see, Jefferson did indeed sign this sea-letter. However, Jefferson did not choose the "explicitly Christian language" in this document.

Jefferson believed that those who cited Christianity as the basis for the English legal system were in error. He further believed the Saxons developed common law.

This belief led him to suggest those who brought common law to Britain (i.e., Hengist and Horsa) as emblematic of the American triumph. We suspect that this non-Christian aspect of the story will never show up on the Glenn Beck Show.

The committee did change the content of the statutes but attempted to maintain “the diction of the ancient statutes.” Referring to “Levitical” laws and “Sabbath Breakers” was archaic, but Jefferson and his committee left these terms in their revised bills.

Some of those bills seem to privilege Christianity and others remove specific state support of religion. Because Barton only mentions the bills which sound like they blend religion and government, his readers don’t see the full effect of the proposed changes.

On balance, the collection of 126 bills made Virginia a less overtly religious state, while some support for Christianity remained.

that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry;

That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

Referring to Leviticus was shorthand for saying that marriages could not involve cousins, other relatives, and a host of other possible relationships which were delineated in prior statutes. Rather than a long list of forbidden marriages, the revision committee used a short

Not religiously neutral.

At the time, Virginia law required the use of the Book of Common Prayer in a marriage ceremony performed by a church official. Jefferson’s revision committee removed the involvement of the clergy in place of a license and declaration of intent in the presence of witnesses. If passed, this bill would have allowed for a non-religious wedding ceremony, thus preventing the clergy and the church from compelling participants to recite certain religious views as a condition of marriage.

Jefferson vigorously opposed basing Virginia law on that or any other Hebrew custom. The result was the fairer approach of leaving estates to be passed on to the choice of the individual. This bill was passed in 1785.

By what standard?

Instead therefore of putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious enquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European, and American history.

David Barton associates church in the Capitol with Jefferson. However, not only did Jefferson have no role in approving it, he may not have attended services there regularly until 1802.

Does Barton claim otherwise? Associates? Sloppy.

So Jefferson and the Marine Band were in some of the same church services, and the Marine Band did play. Jefferson seems to have attended the services, but there is no evidence that he authorized them or ordered the band to play.

If anything, it sounds like they were ecumenical or multidenominational speeches with all sects and groups allowed to enter.

Sects of? Christianity? Enter?

Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting the word “Jesus Christ” so that it should read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.[107] (emphasis added)

What seems clear is that Jefferson would today oppose efforts of religious activists to gain civil privilege for their sect.

In The Jefferson Lies, Barton changes the claim and says Jefferson was “an active member of the Virginia Bible Society.”[112] So what is true?

While Jefferson made a one-time contribution to the Bible Society of Virginia, he did not found it. Correspondence from the treasurer of the society makes this clear. In addition, Jefferson is not listed anywhere as one of the founding managers of the group.

Jefferson wrote: Your letter on the subject of the Bible Society arrived here while I was on a journey to Bedford, which occasioned a long absence from home. Since my return, it has lain, with a mass of others accumulated during my absence, till I could answer them. I presume the views of the society are confined to our own country, for with the religion of other countries my own forbids intermeddling. I had not supposed there was a family in this State not possessing a Bible, and wishing without having the means to procure one.

I therefore enclose you cheerfully, an order on Messrs. Gibson & Jefferson for fifty dollars, for the purposes of the society, sincerely agreeing with you that there never was a more pure and sublime system of morality delivered to man than is to be found in the four evangelists. Accept the assurance of my esteem and respect.[117]

Jefferson’s donation was apparently a one-time contribution. There is no evidence in Jefferson’s writings that he accepted Greenhow’s invitation to join the organization. However, he may have joined it, according to one of the founders of the society, John H. Rice. In an April 10, 1816 letter to William Maxwell, Rice wrote:

Did Rice engage in puffery by including Jefferson as a member of the Virginia society in his letter to Maxwell, or was he simply mistaken? If he was in error when he wrote Maxwell, perhaps he then corrected himself when he went to Washington and on to New York for the opening convention of the American Bible Society. We may never know for sure. However, given Jefferson’s response to Greenhow, along with the conflicting statements attributed to Rev. Rice, it is quite a stretch for Barton to refer to Jefferson as “an active member.”

Adams wrote to Jefferson on November 4 of the same year and complained: We have now, it seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James Bible, through all Nations. Would it not be better, to apply these pious Subscriptions, to purify Christendom from the corruptions of Christianity; than to propagate those Corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa and America![120]