Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders

by Denise A. Spellberg

  To prevent the evils that have heretofore been occasioned in the world by religious establishments, and to keep the proper distinction between religion and politics, no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification of any officer, in any department of government; neither shall the legislature, under this constitution, ever establish any religion by law, give one sect preference to another, or force any man in the commonwealth to part with his property for the support of religious worship, or the maintenance of ministers of the gospel.90

  So determined, in fact, was Leland to change his state’s constitution that he would eventually decide to run for office. But long before doing so, he would pay a visit to Thomas Jefferson, the man whose ideas had influenced him so profoundly.

  Leland Delivers to Jefferson a “Mammoth Cheese” and a Note from the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802

  John Leland and the Baptists of Cheshire, Massachusetts, demonstrated their devotion to the new president with an unusual gift. On New Year’s Day 1802, Leland delivered to the White House what came to be popularly known as the “Mammoth Cheese.” The 1,235-pound cheese had traveled there “by sled, boat, and wagon,”91 creating “a sensation” much reported in the press.92 The people of Cheshire even penned a lengthy poem, including a benediction encompassing themselves, their handiwork, and its esteemed recipient:

  God bless this Cheese—and kindly bless the makers,

  The givers—generous—good and sweet and fair,

  And the receiver—great beyond compare93

  The letter Leland presented to Jefferson, signed by the “Committee of Cheshire,” and dated December 30, 1801, also extolled the virtuous labor of “the freeborn farmers, with the voluntary and cheerful aid of their wives and daughters, without the assistance of a single slave.”94 (Cheesemaking was normally women’s work in eighteenth-century America.)95 Just as praiseworthy were the “beautiful features” of the national Constitution, among these “The prohibition of religious tests, to prevent all hierarchy.” If Leland did not write these words, he surely assented to them and to the letter’s description of Jefferson as God’s preferred candidate: “But we believe the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, who raises up men to achieve great events, has raised up a Jefferson at this critical day, to defend Republicanism, and to baffle the arts of Aristocracy.”96

  By then Leland had already delivered to Jefferson another, more precious gift: the votes of all but one man in Cheshire.97 (A story exists, confirmed by Leland’s granddaughter, that the lone ballot cast for the native son and Federalist John Adams was thrown out because it was assumed to be a mistake.) Leland’s sermons, published articles, and political activism had a profound effect within his flock and beyond. After the pivotal election in 1800, he galvanized his Baptist followers and, eventually, all of Berkshire County to embrace Jefferson and his party. This political support would endure for decades despite Federalist supremacy and anti-Jefferson sentiment in the rest of Massachusetts.98

  In a private letter, on the first of January, the president noted that the cheese “is arrived” and calculated its precise weight and span. Jefferson well understood why the Baptists, as a persecuted minority, had supported him. He concluded astutely that the offering was “an ebullition of republicanism in a state where it has been under heavy oppression.” Optimistically, he added that “there is a speedy prospect of seeing all the New England states come round to their ancient principles; always excepting the real Monarchists & Priests, who never lose sight of the natural alliance between the crown & mitre.”99

  On this same visit, Leland also delivered to Jefferson a letter from his coreligionists in Danbury, Connecticut.100 It defined Baptist views on the separation of government from religion, in full conformity with the vision of the denomination’s founders a century before and echoing positions Jefferson had long held, as Leland knew well from his days in Virginia. The Danbury Baptists declared, “Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty—That Religion is at all times and places a Matter between God and Individuals—That no man ought to suffer in Name, person or effects on account of his religious Opinions—That the legitimate Power of civil Government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor.”101

  Describing the official inequity under which Baptists suffered in Connecticut, they explained that “what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements, as are inconsistent with the rights of fre[e]men.” They knew full well that “the national government cannot destroy the Laws of each State,” but they hoped for relief by example nonetheless: “our hopes are strong that the sentiments of our beloved President, which have had such genial Effect already, like the radiant beams of the Sun, will shine & prevail through all these states and all the world till Hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the Earth.”102

  Jefferson’s landmark response included the now famous words defining his sense of the First Amendment as “a wall of separation between Church & State.”103 (The first draft had it as “a wall of eternal separation.”)104 Jefferson’s reply provided the opportunity to vindicate his own enduring opposition to government interference in religion, a political creed the Baptists also embraced. It was an occasion meriting a grand restatement of what he had always thought true:

  Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [A]dhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced that he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.105

  Jefferson did Leland the honor of attending a sermon he preached to both houses of Congress on January 3, 1802. His words in his own hand do not survive, but we know he had chosen the biblical selection “And behold a greater than Solomon is here.”106 This obvious paean to Jefferson provoked the ire of the only eyewitness to write about the sermon, Representative Manasseh Cutler. A Massachusetts Federalist, Cutler was also a Congregational minister, who was offended by what he perceived as Leland’s lack of restraint in the pulpit,107 the way the Baptist “bawled with stunning voice, horrid tone, frightful grimaces, and extravagant gestures.”108 (Ironically, while still in Virginia, Leland had attempted to admonish his fellow Baptist preachers about the off-putting effects of just such displays, what he called “odd tones, disgusting whoops and awkward gestures”; he counseled them to make “their piety become more rational.”)109 But Cutler was even more scathing about the content than the style, the pandering to Jefferson, a presumed enemy of true Protestant religion:

  Shame or laughter appeared in every countenance. Such an outrage upon religion, the Sabbath, and common decency, was extremely painful to every sober, thinking person present. But it answered the much-wished for purpose of the Democrats, to see religion exhibited in the most ridiculous manner.110

  Jefferson recorded that Leland came to the White House one last time on the fourth of January, when the president paid the preacher two hundred dollars, because he could not ethically accept the cheese as a personal gift.111 Jefferson and others would go on to consume the mammoth cheese, “with the occasional pruning of rotten bits, for at least two years.”112 The idea of a “wall of separation between Church & State” would, of course, last even longer, though Jefferson and Leland would continue to differ on the reason for its necessity.

  Leland had spared no praise of Jefferson at the time of his electio
n: “This exertion of the American genius, has brought forth the Man of the People, the Defender of the rights of man and the rights of conscience, to fill the chair of state; who, in his inaugural speech, cries out, ‘America, be free, be happy, guard your own rights, and leave them not to the disposition of officers.’ ”113 More than a decade later, Leland was still singing Jefferson’s praises. On March 4, 1813, he addressed the Sons of Liberty in Cheshire, reminding them that “you assemble to commemorate the inauguration of the man who saved his country from the curse of despotism,” the man who embodied “a mound of our liberties, who snatched the constitution from the talons of its enemies, and turned the government into its natural channel.”114 Leland’s sentiments about his hero had not changed in the interim, but his expectations that Jefferson might deliver the Baptists of Massachusetts from their legal oppression had dimmed. Already by 1811, the evangelical activist had decided that to effect change he would have to seek office himself.

  LELAND’S SPEECH AS AN ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE TO THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE, 1811

  John Leland won his seat in the Massachusetts legislature in 1811 as Baptists had new cause to fear that they were to be taxed to support Congregational ministers. The reason for alarm was an 1810 ruling by the state’s chief justice declaring that “unincorporated societies,” like the Baptists, were not led by legitimate religious authorities.115 The ruling promised an end to the certificate dispensation: Baptist taxes would automatically be applied to the support of the established Congregational faith. Once in office, Leland took swift action to ensure this didn’t happen. Within just a few months, he won passage of the “Religious Freedom Act” of June 1811, which allowed all nonincorporated Protestant denominations an exemption from paying taxes to the Congregationalists.116 For the Baptists, one perennial frustration was ended.

  Leland’s speech to the legislature in 1811 boldly took aim at the state constitution specifically and government interference in matters of religion generally:

  From the face of the constitution, as well as from a knowledge of those times, there exists no doubt, that a decided majority believed that religious duties ought to be interwoven into the civil compact—that Protestant Christianity was the best religion in the world—and that all the inhabitants ought to be forced, by law, to support it with money, as a necessary institute for the good of the body politic, unless they did it voluntarily. While a respectable minority, equally firm in the belief of the divinity of Christianity, and still more Protestant in their views, conceived it to be a measure as presumptuous of the legislature, as in a Pope, to lord it over consciences, or interfere either in the mode or support of Christianity. This minority, Mr. Speaker, did then, and do still believe that religion is a matter between the individual and their God—a right inalienable—an article not within the cognizance of civil government, nor in any way under its control.… [A]ll such societies of Protestant Christians, properly demeaning themselves as peaceable citizens, shall not be forced by law to support the teachers or worship of any other society.117

  Leland not only echoed founding Baptist values in support of the separation of government from matters of faith, but also tapped arguments Madison had made in his 1785 Memorial against Virginia’s public support of the Anglican faith. His setting the legislature’s majority on a par with the pope was a calculated insult to those Congregational members who had traditionally regarded him as the Antichrist. But Leland’s complaint was not merely sectarian; he rejected outright government support for any clerics, down to those serving his fellow representatives:

  According to our best judgments, we cannot pay legal taxes for religious services, descending even to the grade of a chaplain for the legislature. It is disrobing Christianity of her virgin beauty—turning the churches of Christ into creatures of state—and metamorphosing gospel ambassadors to state pensioners.118

  It was a view some Baptists, including Isaac Backus, would not have agreed with. He and many others believed in a “sweet harmony” between religion and government, equating Protestant Christianity with beneficent rule.119 Departing from that standard and even Jefferson’s, Leland demanded a more absolute principle of separation, a wall impermeable to money as to everything else.120 In this he was nearer to Locke and Madison, believing it was more beneficial for Christianity to take no support of any kind. Leland was as ever concerned foremost with the threat to religion from government, but the reverse danger was not lost on him: “Let Christianity stand upon its own basis, it is the greatest blessing that ever was among men; but incorporate it into the civil code and it becomes the mother of cruelties.”121

  Where beleaguered religious minorities typically pressed only for their own political equality and protection, Leland always pled for universal rights, envisioning a religiously plural society with full membership for all, including Muslims and Jews—a goal he had come to understand could be achieved only legislatively:

  Government should be so fixed, that Pagans, Turks, Jews and Christians, should be equally protected in their rights. The government of Massachusetts is, however, differently formed; under the existing constitution, it is not possible for the general court to place religion upon its proper footing; it can be done, however, much better than it is done.… I shall therefore take the liberty, at a proper time, to offer an amendment to the bill.122

  Leland would propose that amendment, one separating religion from government and establishing political equality for all believers as a right and not a favor. But he would leave office without having won its passage. Reflecting on his two-year term, he remained convinced that matters of religion should be exempt from state interference, even his: “my conscience was not long enough for a legislator. I gained no evidence that the legislature of Massachusetts had inspiration sufficient to legislate about souls, conscience, or eternity.”123

  But Leland was far from defeated. In 1820, he proposed more changes to the state constitution, again imagining an ideal society of religiously diverse equals:

  Government is the formation of an association of individuals, by mutual agreement, for mutual defence and advantage; to be governed by specific rules. And when rightly formed, it embraces Pagans, Jews, Mahometans and Christians, within its fostering arms—proscribes no creed of faith for either of them—proscribes none of them for being heretics, promotes the man of talents and integrity, without inquiring after his religion—impartially protects all of them—punishes the man who works ill to his neighbor, let his faith and motives be what they may. Who, but tyrants knaves and devils, can object to such government?124

  Again, too, we see his attachment to Locke’s notion of government as compact, and to a civic arrangement that “promotes the man of talents and integrity, without inquiring after his religion.” It had been a persuasive sentiment when expressed earlier by James Iredell and Samuel Johnston at North Carolina’s ratification convention. Jefferson too had won many in Virgina to the idea that religion should cause no civil disabilities for any free white male citizen. Much to Leland’s consternation, his home state was a harder case:

  In Massachusetts, however, the principle is not recognized. A religious test is required. The legislature is empowered to make laws to oblige the people to support Protestant teachers of piety, morality and religion. Papal Christian teachers cannot be provided for like Protestants. Pagans, Jews, Turks and Deists cannot be promoted to office, except they declare and subscribe a lie.125

  In a later declaration against the “the kings-evil,” a ruler’s malevolence, or that of “priestcraft” (by which he means clerical interference in government), Leland makes a hypothetical case for his ideal plural society, which he believed already existed “in many parts of the world.” He asks his fellow Christians to imagine themselves subject to a government whose official creed they despised:

  It is not only a supposable case, but a case that exists in fact, that in many parts of the world, Pagans, Jews, Turks and Christians, all have the bounds of their habitations fixed with
in the limits of one government. These several sects unite and form one body politic; for mutual advantage alike for mutual defence. In such a case, what reason can be offered, why the last three should all be compelled to support the temple and worship Jupiter? or why the other sects should be forced to be circumcised and abstain from swine’s flesh, etc.? or that all the rest should subscribe to the alcoran and worship the great prophet? Every Christian would say, “the demand is unreasonable and cruel.”126

  His ultimate plea, however, comes by way of admonishing Christians to conform their legal treatment of other faiths to the Golden Rule, which he believed condemned political injustice based on religious difference. In so doing he advances a defense of Deists, whom most ardent Christians of whatever denomination condemned as infidels:

  In the United States, the above case has but small bearings, where the number of Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans is so small; but, there are thousands of Deists, who cannot be convinced of any revelation from God to man, except that of nature; and a thousand thousand who cannot conscientiously join with any religious society, from an honest conviction in their own judgments, that they themselves are not fit for Christian fellowship; or that the religious societies among whom they live, are not sound in faith.127

  It was a remarkable gesture: a man who had devoted his life to preaching the divinity of Jesus and the existence of the Trinity now defending the consciences of those who denied both, not on account of having been born in a foreign culture but as a refusal of the faith of their fathers. Deists were far more numerous than any other non-Christian group, including imaginary Muslims, and as such were by far the greatest threat to Christian society in the eyes of most American Protestants. The defense of their rights attests to the purity of Leland’s convictions, a purity limited only by lack of understanding.