Posted on Friday 2 July 2010
By definition, “natural rights” included “that which the Books of the Law and the Gospel do contain.” Very simply, “natural rights” incorporated what God Himself had guaranteed to man in the Scriptures. Thus when Jefferson assured the Baptists that by following their “natural rights” they would violate no social duty, it was understood that he was affirming to them his belief that the free exercise of religion was their inalienable God given right.
They were therefore assured that the issue of religious expressions was above federal jurisdiction. So clearly did Jefferson understand the Source of America’s inalienable rights that he even doubted whether America could survive if we ever lost that knowledge? He queried: And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have lost the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?
That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Jefferson believed that God, not government, was the Author and Source of our rights and that the government, therefore, was to be prevented from interference with those rights. Very simply, the “fence” of the Webster letter and the “wall” of the Danbury letter were not to limit religious activities in public; rather they were to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions.
Earlier courts long understood Jefferson’s intent. In fact, when Jefferson’s letter was invoked by the Court only once prior to the 1947 Everson case the Reynolds v. United States case in 1878, unlike today’s Courts which publish only his eight word separation phrase, that Court published a lengthy section from Jefferson’s letter, and then concluded: Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it Jefferson’s letter may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the Amendment thus secured.
Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere religious opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order. That Court then succinctly summarized Jefferson’s intent for “separation of church and state”: The rightful purposes of civil government are for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order. In this is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.