“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time,” Thomas Jefferson once wrote. “The hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” Among the American Founders, there was a profound sense that faith and freedom were deeply intertwined.
Nowadays, we are often told that religion is divisive and ought to kept away from politics for the sake of liberty. Religion somehow is opposed to liberty, and so liberty requires a diminution of religion in the public square.
The view long consistent with our historical practice, though, is that of America’s Founders, who advanced religious liberty so as to strengthen religious faith and its influence on American self-government. All had a natural right to worship God as they chose, according to the dictates of their consciences. At the same time, the Founders upheld religion and morality–to paraphrase Washington’s Farewell Address–as indispensable supports of good habits, the firmest props of the duties of citizens, and the great pillars of human happiness.
