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LIE # 6

Thomas Jefferson Detested the Clergy

Some claim that Jefferson had a dislike of Christian clergy and that this dislike was yet one more manifestation of his overall hostility to religion. They say:

[H]e detested the entire clergy, regarding them as a worthless class living like parasites upon the labors of others.¹

Thomas Jefferson, in fact, was fiercely anti-cleric.²

“The clergy” were one of his enemies who were trying to keep him from being elected President. Surely they would have wanted a devout, God-fearing Christian to be elected! So this is one more proof of Jefferson’s religious beliefs.³

Some of the Framers of the Constitution were anti-clerical—Thomas Jefferson, for example.⁴

By now, we have covered enough original source material from Jefferson to make these claims laughably, obviously incorrect. But let us proceed to put the final nails in the coffin of this lie and lay it permanently to rest. Of course, as noted in the last chapter, with the fact that Jefferson was not a framer of the Constitution despite what writers such as Austin Cline, the author of the latter quote and a leader in prominent secularist groups, continue wrongly to assert. But notwithstanding that glaring historical inaccuracy, was Jefferson indeed anticlerical?

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To unequivocally put this question to bed, it is important to place Jefferson within his own time rather than that of today, avoiding the mistakes that occur when Modernism is applied to historical inquiry.

Throughout the Colonial, Revolutionary, and early Federal periods, organized political parties were nonexistent. The people were divided as Whigs and Tories, Patriots and Loyalists, Monarchists and Republicans, but there was no political party affiliation. This changed during the administration of President George Washington. Widely differing viewpoints on the scope and power of the federal government emerged among his leadership. Individuals such as Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Vice President John Adams sought for increased federal power, while others, such as Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Attorney General Edmund Jennings Randolph, sought for limited federal power.

Those led by Adams and Hamilton coalesced into what became known as the Federalist Party; those led by Jefferson coalesced into the Anti-Federalist Party. Anti-Federalists were also known as Republicans and then as Democratic-Republicans; by the time of Andrew Jackson, they had become the Democrats. The Northern colonies and New England provided the strongest base of support for the Federalists while the strength of the Anti-Federalists was from Pennsylvania southward. The Federalists tended to be stronger in populous areas already accustomed to more government at numerous levels. The Anti-Federalists were generally stronger in rural areas where people were more lightly governed.

Jefferson observed that those in the Northern regions had many good traits; they were “cool, sober, laborious, persevering . . . jealous of their own liberties and just to those of others” while those in the south had many negative traits, including being “voluptuary, indolent, unsteady, . . . zealous for their own liberties but trampling on those of others.”⁵ But Jefferson saw the religious characteristics of the two regions as generally reversed: “[I]n the north they are . . . chicaning, superstitious, and hypocritical in their religion” while “in the south they are . . . candid, without attachment or pretentions to any religion but that of the heart.”⁶ Religion was definitely important in all regions of early America, but as Jefferson noted, there was indeed a clear difference in the way it was practiced in Federalist and Anti-Federalist regions.

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In the more populated North, churches abounded and participation was convenient; citizens were therefore frequent and regular in their attendance. John Adams, like so many others in New England, described himself as a “church-going animal.”⁷ The pastors of New England had frequent contact with their parishioners throughout the week and held much influence in the community.

With sparser population southward, churches were fewer and more distant from each other. Participation often required deliberate effort. For George Washington to attend church each Sunday, as was his habit, was a full day commitment. It was typically a two- to three-hour ride on horseback or carriage to his church ten miles from Mt. Vernon. A two-hour service was common, and the return ride home took another few hours, thus consuming the entire day. Ministers in the South were just as important as in the North, but they had fewer opportunities to influence their parishioners.

The presidential election of 1800 was America’s first real partisan political contest, pitting Jefferson the Anti-Federalist against Adams the Federalist. New Englanders were fiercely loyal to their Federalist hero, John Adams; those southward strongly supported their Anti-Federalist champion, Thomas Jefferson. The campaign was vicious—probably the most venomous in American history with the Federalists taking a much nastier approach in their attacks against Jefferson than the Anti-Federalists did against Adams.

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For example, Jefferson was accused by Federalist critics not only of being anti-Christian but also of being a murderer, an atheist, a thief, and a cohort of foreign convicts. It was reported that he was secretly plotting the destruction and overthrow of the Constitution. He was accused of defrauding a widow and her children. The nation was alerted that he planned to abolish the navy and starve the farmers, and citizens were warned that if Jefferson were elected, he would confiscate and burn every Bible in America.⁸ This latter charge was so widely disseminated that in New England Bibles were actually buried upon Jefferson’s election so that he could not find and burn them.⁹

Since one of the quickest ways to vilify and ostracize a person in New England was to claim that he was antireligious or lacked morals, Federalist ministers regularly accused Jefferson of both. Some of the most vicious attacks against him actually came from such ministers who preached notable sermons about him—sermons often containing blatant lies, gross distortions, and vile misrepresentations.

But John Adams was not exempted from similarly ill-intentioned attacks; he also was maligned and misrepresented by his Anti-Federalist opponents. Years later he recounted the maltreatment he had suffered to his close friend and fellow signer of the Declaration, Benjamin Rush:

If I am to judge by the newspapers and pamphlets that have been printed in America for twenty years past, I should think that both parties believed me the meanest villain in the world.¹⁰

But however fierce the attacks on Adams, those on Jefferson were much more despicable. Regardless of what Jefferson said or did concerning religion, no matter how innocent or honest his actions or words might be, they were spun negatively and used against him by his enemies, especially by Federalist clergymen.

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The Reverend Cotton Mather Smith of Connecticut provides an excellent example. Smith had served as a military chaplain during the American Revolution and delivered over four thousand sermons and messages in his lengthy career.¹¹ On one occasion he was visited by a friend of Jefferson, who subsequently reported:

I called on and dined with the Revered Cotton Mather Smith of Sharon. . . . I found him an engaged federal politician; he soon found that my political feelings were not in unison with his and asked whether my good wishes would really extend Mr. Jefferson to the Presidential Chair [in the election of 1800]. I answered in the affirmative—on which, accompanied with much other malicious invective [vicious attack] and in presence of five men and two women, he said that you, Sir, “had obtained your property by fraud and robbery, and that in one instance you had defrauded and robbed a widow and fatherless children of an estate to which you were executor.” . . . I told him with some warmth that I did not believe it. He said that “it was true” and that “it could be proved.” . . . I thought it my duty, Sir, to communicate the assertion.¹²

Upon learning of that accusation, Jefferson replied to his friend:

Every tittle of it is fable [i.e., a lie]. . . . I never was executor but in two instances. . . . In one of the cases only were there a widow and children: she was my sister. She retained and managed the estate in her own hands, and no part of it was ever in mine. . . . If Mr. Smith, therefore, thinks the precepts of the Gospel [are] intended for those who preach them as well as for others, he will doubtless someday feel the duties of repentance and of acknowledgment in such forms as to correct the wrong he has done.¹³

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Despite Smith’s blatant lie that Jefferson obtained his belongings by defrauding widows and orphans, the charge nevertheless roared across New England.

Similarly false charges were made by the Reverend William Linn of New York who pastored several churches, served as a military chaplain during the Revolution, became the first chaplain of the House of Representatives, and then a university president. Linn was also a staunch Federalist and close friend of Alexander Hamilton and thus a mortal political enemy of Jefferson.

Linn penned Serious Considerations on the Election of a President in which he warned that if Jefferson won the 1800 election, “[t]he effects would be to destroy religion, introduce immorality, and loosen all the bonds of society.”¹⁴

The Reverend Linn concluded his pamphlet by telling the country that “Jefferson’s opponent,” John Adams, was “irreproachable.” He then bluntly warned Americans that “it would be more acceptable to God and beneficial to the interests of our country to throw away your votes” than to vote for Jefferson.¹⁵

The Reverend John Mason was another New York Federalist pastor who detested Jefferson. He, too, was a close friend of Alexander Hamilton and actually attended Hamilton at his death after he was shot down in the famous duel with Aaron Burr. Mason authored The Voice of Warning to Christians on the Ensuing Election to warn Americans that Jefferson was a “confirmed” and “a hardened infidel” and one “who writes against the truth of God’s Word; who makes not even a profession of Christianity; who is without Sabbaths, without the sanctuary, without so much as a decent external respect for the faith and worship of Christians.”¹⁶ Of course, as has already been shown, Jefferson had done exactly the opposite of what Mason claimed in each of these charges, including having written the law in Virginia that punished violators of the Sabbath. Nevertheless, Mason then solemnly warned voters:

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If therefore an infidel [Jefferson] presides over our country, it will be your fault, Christians, and YOUR act—and YOU shall answer it! And for aiding and abetting such a design, I charge upon your consciences the SIN of striking hands in a covenant of friendship with the enemies of your Master’s glory.¹⁷

The Reverend Nathanael Emmons of Massachusetts also raised a strident voice against Jefferson. Emmons had been an ardent patriot during the Revolution. He later established several missionary and theological societies and two hundred of his sermons were published and publicly distributed.

Emmons, a devoted Federalist, worked actively against Jefferson, but despite his best efforts, Jefferson was elected. In a famous sermon preached after Jefferson won, Emmons asserted that Jefferson was the American Jeroboam.

In the Bible, Jeroboam was the wicked leader who divided Israel following the death of Solomon. Taking ten tribes, Jeroboam became their king and led them away from God, ordaining pagan priests and pagan places of worship throughout the land, thus causing the ten tribes to eventually be conquered and destroyed.

In Emmons’ two-hour sermon he compared the wise and Godly leader Solomon (whom he likened to John Adams) with the wicked and nefarious leader Jeroboam (whom he asserted was Thomas Jefferson). He then chastised voters for choosing Jefferson, telling them:

Solomon [John Adams] did a great deal to promote the temporal and eternal interests of his subjects; but Jeroboam [Jefferson] did as much to ruin his subjects both in time and eternity. . . . It is more than possible that our nation may find themselves in the hand of a Jeroboam who will drive them from following the Lord; and whenever they do, they will rue the day and detest the folly, delusion, and intrigue which raised him to the head of the United States.¹⁸

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Years later, during the War of 1812, long after Jefferson had retired from his two terms as president, Emmons still couldn’t let go of his hatred. In fact, he directly blamed Jefferson for the war. In an 1813 sermon he continued the odious tone of his sermon from more than a decade earlier, still chiding voters with a denunciation of their stupidity for having chosen the “wicked” Jefferson:

[W]hen [the nation] neglected their best men and chose the worst [Jefferson], their glory departed and their calamities began. Against the solemn warning voice of some of the best patriots in the Union, they committed the supreme power into the hands of Mr. Jefferson, who had publicly condemned the federal Constitution. This they did with their eyes wide open. . . . We deserved to be punished.¹⁹

Publicly condemned the Constitution? Jefferson? The War of 1812—a war that occurred years after Jefferson left office—was America’s “punishment” for electing Jefferson? Such was the loathsome tone of sermons and publications of that era, and such was the caliber of lies issued against Jefferson by leading Federalist ministers. As Jefferson lamented:

[F]rom the [Federalist] clergy I expect no mercy. They crucified their Savior, Who preached that their kingdom was not of this world; and all who practice on that precept must expect the extreme of their wrath. The laws of the present day withhold their hands from blood, but lies and slander still remain to them.²⁰

Early Jefferson historian Claude G. Bowers affirmed:

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[I]n New England States, where the greater part of the ministers were militant Federalists, he was hated with an unholy hate. More false witness had been borne by the ministers of New England and New York against Jefferson than had ever been borne against any other American publicist.²¹

Noted political historian Saul Padover agreed.

They accused Jefferson of everything. If the sermons of the clergy were to be believed, there was no crime in the calendar of which Jefferson was not guilty and no unspeakable evil which he had not committed.²²

With these types of reprehensible charges coming from Federalist clergy, it should not be surprising that the comments Jefferson made about these specific Federalist ministers might indeed seem anti-clergy. But the modern errant conclusion that then imputes those comments against all clergy instead of just Federalist ones can be reached only through Minimalism (ignoring complex situations in order to present an exaggeratedly simplistic conclusion). Minimalists, Academic Collectivists, and Deconstructionists regularly ignore Jefferson’s scores of letters praising other clergymen. They also universally dismiss the countless Anti-Federalist (Republican) ministers and clergy who supported Jefferson with a zeal and fervor equal to that of the hatred shown him by the Federalists.

Among the many ministers and clergy who vociferously supported Jefferson was the Reverend John Leland of Massachusetts. Before the American Revolution Leland moved to Virginia where he pastored Baptist churches and became a good friend of Jefferson, working closely with him to disestablish the Anglican Church in the state. In 1788 Leland was selected as a Virginia delegate to ratify the US Constitution. In 1792 he moved back to Massachusetts, and in 1800 became a significant leader in organizing the Evangelicals in New England to support Jefferson for president.²³

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Following Jefferson’s successful election Leland preached a sermon in which he effused:

Heaven above looked down and awakened the American genius. . . . 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. . . . Pardon me, my hearers, if I am over-warm. I lived in Virginia fourteen years. The beneficent influence of my hero was too generally felt to leave me a stoic. . . . Let us then adore that God Who has been so favorable to our land and nation.²⁴

Leland made a special trip from Massachusetts to the White House to bring his friend Jefferson a special gift: a giant cheese.

Leland proposed that his flock should celebrate [Jefferson’s] victory by making for the new Chief Magistrate the biggest cheese the world had ever seen. Every man and woman who owned a cow was to give for this cheese all the milk yielded on a certain day—only no federal cow must contribute a drop. A huge cider-press was fitted up to make it in, and on the appointed day, the whole country turned out with pails and tubs of curd, the girls and women in their best gowns and ribbons, and the men in their Sunday coats and clean shirt-collars. The cheese was put to press with prayer, and hymn-singing, and great solemnity. When it was well dried, it weighed 1,600 pounds. It was placed on a sleigh, and Elder John Leland drove with it all the way to Washington, It was a journey of three weeks. All the country had heard of the big cheese, and came out to look at it as the Elder drove along.²⁵

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The massive cheese had Jefferson’s favorite motto etched into it: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”²⁶ Jefferson and Leland went inside the White House where Leland spoke in the East Room, declaring:

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.²⁷

Leland’s visit to the White House occurred on Friday, January 1, 1802—the same day that Jefferson wrote Leland’s fellow Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, assuring them that because of “separation of church and state,” they had nothing to fear from government limiting their religious practices or expressions. Two days later, on Sunday, January 3, Jefferson arranged for Leland to preach the sermon in the church at the Capitol. But didn’t Jefferson understand the “separation” doctrine that he had just penned? Of course he did, and he understood that separation prohibited the government from preventing a religious expression, which is why having church in the Capitol was completely acceptable.

Members of Congress such as the Reverend Manasseh Cutler, a Federalist minister and a member of Congress from Massachusetts, also attended that church service. Cutler was disgusted by the Anti-Federalist Leland, complaining:

Last Sunday, Leland the cheesemonger, a poor, ignorant, illiterate, clownish preacher (who was the conductor of this monument of human weakness and folly [the Republican cheese] to the place of its destination), was introduced as the preacher to both Houses of Congress.²⁸

Cutler not only loathed Leland but was also revolted by his sermon. The text was:

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“And behold a greater than Solomon is here” [Matthew 12:42]. The design of the preacher was principally to apply the allusion not to the person intended in the text, but to him who was then present [to Jefferson]. . . . Such an outrage upon religion, the Sabbath, and common decency was extremely painful to every sober thinking person present.²⁹

Federalist ministers clearly did not like Anti-Federalist ministers doing to Jefferson the opposite of what they had inflicted upon him. But Jefferson was so moved by Leland’s visit that when Leland left Washington to return to Massachusetts, Jefferson “gave Rev. Mr. Leland, bearer of the cheese, $200.”³⁰

Jefferson also arranged for other ministers to preach at the Capitol, including the Reverend James O’Kelly, another of his strong supporters. Originally a Methodist, O’Kelly later founded a movement known as the “Republican Methodists” because of the common beliefs they shared with Jefferson’s political movement. He twice visited Jefferson at the White House, and Jefferson twice arranged for him to preach in the church at the Capitol.³¹ Following one of those occasions, a newspaper editor reported that after O’Kelly’s sermon, “Mr. Jefferson arose with tears in his eyes and said that while he was no preacher, in his opinion James O’Kelly was one of the greatest preachers living.”³²

Another Anti-Federalist evangelical minister with whom Jefferson was very close was his own pastor, the Reverend Charles Clay, an Anglican minister at St. Anne’s parish in Fredericksville, where Jefferson attended. Clay had been greatly influenced by the religious revival known as the Great Awakening and was a thoroughly energetic and evangelical preacher. He was also a strong patriot, ministering during the Revolution both to the American forces from the area and to the captured British forces imprisoned there. Clay was a neighbor of Jefferson, became a justice of the peace, and even acted as Jefferson’s attorney.

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Recall that in 1774 because of the Boston Port Bill Jefferson had introduced and the legislature had passed a call for a statewide day of prayer, which included a call for attendance at a special legislative religious service. In addition to that service, Jefferson reported:

We returned home, and in our several counties invited the clergy to meet assemblies of the people on the 1st of June to perform the ceremonies of the day and to address to them discourses [sermons] suited to the occasion.³³

The Reverend Clay was a prominent part of the local service that Jefferson attended, offering both its sermon and the prayers.³⁴

By 1777 the board of Reverend Clay’s church had stopped paying his salary—perhaps because of his overt patriotism or possibly because of his evangelical tendencies. After being unable to secure the back pay, Jefferson worked with a group of citizens to start a new church that the Reverend Clay would pastor—the Calvinistic Reformed Church, which Jefferson called the Protestant Episcopal Church. Jefferson explained that they started that church in order to “derive to ourselves . . . the benefits of Gospel knowledge and religious improvement” and to “support those who have qualified themselves by regular education for explaining the Holy Scriptures.”³⁵

Jefferson and the others personally pledged the financial support necessary for the Reverend Clay and the new church. In fact, Jefferson himself drafted the public announcement setting forth the reason they were supporting Clay and how they planned to do it:

Whereas by a late act of General Assembly, freedom of religious opinion and worship is restored to all, and it is left to the members of each religious society to employ such teachers as they think fit for their own spiritual comfort and instruction and to maintain the same by their free and voluntary contributions. . . . [A]pproving highly the political conduct of Revd. Charles Clay, who early rejecting the tyrant and tyranny of Britain, proved his religion genuine by its harmony with the liberties of mankind, and conforming his public prayers to the spirit and injured rights of his country, ever addressing the God of battles for victory to our arms (while others impiously prayed that our enemies might vanquish and overcome us), do hereby oblige ourselves, our heirs, executors, and administrators to pay to the said Charles Clay of Albemarle, his executors, or administrators the several sums affixed to our respective names.³⁶

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Of the many who signed that pledge in 1777, Jefferson was by far among the most generous financial contributors.

Two years after starting this church Jefferson also wrote a public letter of commendation for the Reverend Clay in case he should ever seek employment at another church:

The Reverend Charles Clay has been many years rector of this parish and has been particularly known to me. During the whole course of that time, his deportment has been exemplary, as became a divine, and his attention to parochial duties unexceptionable. . . . As he has some thought of leaving us, I feel myself obliged, in compliance with the common duty of bearing witness to the truth when called on, to give this testimonial of his merit that it may not be altogether unknown to those with whom he may propose to take up his residence.³⁷

Jefferson also wrote such letters for other ministers, including the Reverend James Fontaine, recommending him for a place in state government.³⁸ He also penned a letter of enthusiastic praise for the Rev. Mr. Glendye, who was moving to Baltimore.³⁹

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Jefferson closely attended many sermons of his republican clergy friends, and those sermons helped directly shape his political philosophy. For example, Jefferson was a close follower of the Reverend Clay’s sermons. It is therefore not surprising to find that Jefferson’s political language paralleled the language of Clay’s sermons. As Jefferson scholar Dr. Mark Beliles noted:

Given the close friendship and identification that Jefferson publicly made with Clay and his sermons, the language therefore that is found in these sermons is important because of its similarities with much of Jefferson’s terminology in his public writings. The phrase “Providence” or “Divine Providence,” used 34 times in [Clay’s] sermon on The Governor Among the Nations, is similar to the closing phrase in the Declaration of Independence which declared reliance “on the protection of Divine Providence.” . . . Clay also referred to “God as the Author of Nature,” “God the Supreme ruler,” “God the Fountain of All power,” “the Supreme Governor of the World,” “the Supreme Universal King and Lord,” “the Governor among the Nations,” and the “Great Governor of the World, the King of Nations.” These terms were common to the sermons of the day, and to the common prayer books, and therefore if Jefferson used such language in his writings, it would not be accurate to assume that he derived it from enlightenment or deistic sources.⁴⁰

Writers today regularly ignore the fact that the religious terms Jefferson used in his political writings were also commonly used by evangelical ministers, including not only the Reverend Charles Clay but many others.⁴¹ They wrongly claim that Jefferson’s use of such terms proves he was a deist,⁴² but if such language proves Jefferson to be a deist, then it similarly proves many evangelical ministers of the day were also deists—clearly an unsustainable assertion. Such logic is a product of Modernism, which wrongly insists that since the words Jefferson used two centuries ago are not the words Evangelicals use today then Jefferson must not have been religious.

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Another minister who strongly supported Jefferson was the Reverend Lorenzo Dow, one of the best known figures of the national revival known as the Second Great Awakening. Dow was originally associated with the Methodists; in 1794 he began traveling on horseback and preaching, often up to twenty times a week. Like the Reverend George Whitefield, he traversed the vast expanse of the nation preaching everywhere he went, including countries abroad.

On one occasion while speaking at a Baptist church near Jefferson’s home, Dow praised Jefferson for disestablishing the Anglican church in Virginia. He also asserted that Jefferson’s overall willingness to everywhere disestablish “law-religion” (or the state establishment of a particular denomination) was the real reason that Federalists so fiercely opposed Jefferson and called him an “infidel.” (During the time that Jefferson was working for religious freedom, nearly every New England Federalist State had an official state established denomination.) Dow explained:

Jefferson, seeing the evil of law religion, &c., had those barbarous laws . . . repealed. . . . These things procured the epithet “Infidel!” for a mark of distinguishment. . . . But religious venom of all things is the worst! From those circumstances arose the prejudice of the clergy of different societies who would be fond of a law religion as the ground of their animosity and ambition against him, because their hopes of gain are stagnated by it.⁴³

Jefferson also believed this was the reason for most of the attacks against him. During the presidential election he had told his close friend Benjamin Rush:

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[T]hey [the Federalist clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes—and they believe rightly, for I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me; and enough, too, in their opinion. And this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me. . . . But enough of this. It is more than I have before committed to paper on the subject of all the lies which have been preached and printed against me.⁴⁴

Years later Jefferson remained convinced that his position against state religious establishments had been the source of the religious attacks against him, explaining:

The priests indeed have heretofore thought proper to ascribe to me religious, or rather anti-religious sentiments of their own fabric, but such as soothed their resentments against the act of Virginia for establishing religious freedom. They wished him to be thought atheist, deist, or devil, who could advocate freedom from their [state-established] religious dictations.⁴⁵

But numerous Bible-centered Evangelicals strongly supported Jefferson, including the Reverend Samuel Knox, a Presbyterian minister from Maryland and a vocal anti-Unitarian, who not only wrote A Vindication of the Religion of Mr. Jefferson in 1800 but who also worked for the Anti-Federalist (Republican) cause.⁴⁶ Others included the Reverend Samuel Miller, a Presbyterian minister from New York and New Jersey;⁴⁷ the Reverend Elias Smith, a Baptist minister in New Hampshire;⁴⁸ and many more. And the ministers who had worked hand in hand with Jefferson to introduce and pass religious liberty legislation in the Virginia legislature were also ardent Jefferson supporters, including the Reverends John Todd, William Irvin, Billy Wood, Jeremiah Moore, and others.

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Another indication of Jefferson’s strong overall support for churches and ministers is seen in his own financial records. He gave generously not only to churches he attended but also to many other churches, including the “German church,” Gloria Dei Church, a local black church, the “Rev. Chambers church,” a Methodist church, an Episcopal church at the Navy Yard in Washington, and others.⁴⁹ And he contributed to the construction of several new churches, including three Baptist, two Presbyterian, and two Episcopalian churches, a church in Louisiana, and so on.⁵⁰ He also financially supported missionaries⁵¹ and contributed liberally to the support of many ministers, including the Reverends W. Coutts, Matthew Maury, John Leland, David Austin, Stephen Balch, Thomas Cavender, Jacob Eyerman, Andrew McCormick, John Bausman, and others.⁵²

Clearly, Jefferson was very close to and supportive of many ministers. But if one reads only the instances in which he fired back with contempt against those ministers who either viciously attacked him or who supported state-established religion, then one could definitely (if wrongly) conclude that Jefferson was anti-clergy, at least toward “law religion” clergy. As Beliles affirmed:

Some have mistakenly assumed . . . Jefferson’s all-encompassing anti-clericalism. But . . . it is more accurately identified as a response against mainly Federalist clergy in the northern and middle states (Congregationalists, Presbyterian, and Unitarian) who were attacking him during the presidential campaign. These attacks have now become far too emphasized and generalized in modern representations of Jefferson without mentioning the facts that would provide a more accurate view of his relationship with ministers throughout his life. Although still being opposed to a state church with state-empowered clergy, Jefferson was certainly not against clergymen or Christianity in general.⁵³

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Critics have often wrongly interpreted an “all-encompassing anti-clericism” from reading many of Jefferson’s letters denouncing the clergy of Period II (the “Age of Apostasy” or “Age of Corruption”) and those in Period III who wanted to preserve state religious establishments.

This is one of the reasons that Jefferson connected so well with Anti-Federalist ministers such as the Reverend John Leland: they all had common goals in jointly opposing “priest-craft” and “law religion.” The Reverend Leland took pains, however, to make clear that the term priestcraft (a term frequently used by Jefferson) did not encompass all clergy but only certain types:

By Priest-Craft, no contempt is designed to be cast upon any of the Lord’s priest’s, from Melchizedeck to Zacharias, nor upon any of the ministers of Christ, either those who have been remarkably endowed with power from on high to work miracles, &c. or those of ordinary endowments who have been governed by supreme love to the Savior and benevolence to mankind. These, to the world, have been like the stars of night. But by priest-craft is intended the rushing into the sacred work for the sake of ease, wealth, honor, and ecclesiastical dignity. Whether they plead lineal succession or Divine impulse, their course is directed for self-advantage. By good words and fair speeches, they deceive the simple and [use] solemn threatening of fines, gibbets [the gallows], or the flames of hell to those who do not adhere to their institutes.⁵⁴

(Concerning the latter category, there were clergy during the American Revolution who actually threatened their parishioners with Hell if they helped the patriots.⁵⁵)

Those who generally fit the category of “priest-craft” as described by the Reverend Leland were largely based in New England. As Jefferson affirmed to his friend and fellow-signer of the Declaration Elbridge Gerry, one of Jefferson’s few supporters in Massachusetts:

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In your corner alone [i.e., in New England], priestcraft and law-craft are still able to throw dust into the eyes of the people.⁵⁶

When Jefferson is speaking of these types of negative religious leaders, he regularly uses terms such as priests, priest-ridden, or refers to those practicing priest-craft rather than terms such as ministers, pastors, or clergy.⁵⁷ For example, in a letter to his friend Horatio Spafford, the father of the man who authored the classic Christian hymn “It Is Well with My Soul,” Jefferson declared:

I join in your reprobation [disapproval] of our merchants, priests, and lawyers for their adherence to England and monarchy in preference to their own country and its constitution. . . . In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. . . . [T]hey have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon unintelligible to all mankind.⁵⁸

Jefferson’s context is clear: he was referencing only those clergy who had an “adherence to . . . monarchy in preference to their own country and its constitution.” Yet secularists lift a single line from this letter to claim that Jefferson was an opponent of all ministers. For example, Ferrill Till, atheist editor of the Skeptical Review, writes:

Thomas Jefferson, in fact, was fiercely anti-cleric. In a letter to Horatio Spafford in 1814, Jefferson said, “In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”⁵⁹

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Clearly, that was not the context of Jefferson’s letter. Note also that in describing the narrow category of clergy to whom he was opposed, Jefferson often conjoins the term priests with kings, or priestcraft with kingcraft as he did in the letter above with priests and monarchy. He means to exclude those ministers who did not affiliate themselves with the state so as to force their specific religious tenets upon the public. Jefferson was not opposed to all clergy but only those who joined with kings and government to practice “law religion” to the detriment of human rights and liberties. He saw that harmful alliance still exerting a negative influence in far too many countries in his day. For example, he wrote of Spanish America:

I fear the degrading ignorance into which their priests and kings have sunk them has disqualified them from the maintenance or even knowledge of their rights and that much blood may be shed for little improvement in their condition.⁶⁰

In reviewing political conditions in South America, he similarly lamented:

Their people are immersed in the darkest ignorance and brutalized by bigotry and superstition. Their priests make of them what they please, and though they may have some capable leaders, yet nothing but intelligence in the people themselves can keep these faithful to their charge. Their efforts, I fear, therefore will end in establishing military despotisms in the several provinces.⁶¹

For today’s critics to take Jefferson’s comments about “law religion” clergy and impute them to all clergy is like saying that the Founding Fathers who specifically condemned and denounced Benedict Arnold were actually condemning all military leaders. Yet this is what Deconstructionists and Minimalists regularly do with Jefferson’s comments about the specific practices of a particular type of clergy.

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A final proof that Jefferson was not opposed to all clergy can found in his work on the Virginia constitution. The original 1776 state constitution contained a prohibition against clergy serving in the legislature.⁶² Jefferson had fully supported this provision at the time, explaining:

The clergy are excluded because if admitted into the legislature at all, the probability is that they would form its majority, for they are dispersed through every county in the state; they have influence with the people and great opportunities of persuading them to elect them into the legislature. This body, though shattered, is still formidable, still forms a corps, and is still actuated by the esprit de corps. The nature of that spirit has been severely felt by mankind, and has filled the history of ten or twelve centuries with too many atrocities not to merit a proscription from meddling with government.⁶³

Recall that this was the early constitution in a state that by law had protected an official state denomination established for the previous century and a half. Jefferson believed that what had occurred in the previous 150 years when Virginia had persecuted ministers from other denominations might still continue in the new independent state, and he wanted that possibility precluded.

Years later, however, Jefferson no longer supported that clause, explaining to the Reverend Jeremiah Moore:

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I observe . . . an abridgment of the right of being elected, which after 17 years more of experience and reflection, I do not approve: it is the incapacitation of a clergyman from being elected. . . . Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them [the clergy] to the footing of other useful callings [but i]t now appears that our means were effectual. The clergy here seem to have relinquished all pretension to privilege and to stand on a footing with lawyers, physicians &c. They ought therefore to possess the same rights.⁶⁴

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In summary, many of Jefferson’s writings praise clergymen and their important work, they were among his close friends, and he regularly opened his pocketbook and exerted his influence to help them. The modern claim that Jefferson was anticlerical is another one of the many Jefferson lies that has penetrated deeply into American thinking today; it is yet another Jefferson lie that must be shaken off.