Posted on 01/09/2014 2:26:00 PM PST by Mrs. Don-o
I have a couple of concluding thoughts about the ignorant, bigoted screed from Jamie Stiehm and published by US News a couple of days ago, both of them about Thomas Jefferson. In attempting to defend the big-government project of ObamaCare, Stiehm oddly (and ignorantly) invoked the storied libertarian to boost her claims that the government should dictate the expression of faith:
Catholics in high places of power have the most trouble, I’ve noticed, practicing the separation of church and state. The pugnacious Catholic Justice, Antonin Scalia, is the most aggressive offender on the Court, but not the only one. Of course, we can’t know for sure what Sotomayor was thinking, but it seems she has joined the ranks of the five Republican Catholic men on the John Roberts Court in showing a clear religious bias when it comes to women’s rights and liberties. We can no longer be silent about this. Thomas Jefferson, the principal champion of the separation between state and church, was thinking particularly of pernicious Rome in his writings. He deeply distrusted the narrowness of Vatican hegemony.
First off, as I noted in an update based on a comment from Radjah Shelduck, Jefferson wasn’t referring to the Catholic Church with “pernicious Rome,” but to the Roman Empire. That’s not to say that Jefferson was particularly friendly to the Catholic Church, but its influence in the colonies and US was minimal in Jefferson’s time, and for decades afterward.
Even with that aside, using Jefferson as an argument for federal intervention in just about anything reveals a much deeper ignorance of Jefferson, the political winds of the era, and which side of the political divide Jefferson ended up representing. The effort to replace the Articles of Confederation produced two competing camps, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, the latter of which strongly opposed a strong national government that could impose dictates on the states and on individuals. While Jefferson may not have been explicitly a member of that movement, he certainly sympathized with them, which is why we have a Bill of Rights in the Constitution. When the Anti-Federalists lost the argument, they ended up migrating into Jefferson’s political party, the Democratic Republican Party, which was the forerunner of today’s Democratic Party.
Arguing that Jefferson would cheer federal dictates on the choices of health insurance for nuns is therefore either high ignorance or deliberate obtuseness. In fact, we have a historical record for Jefferson’s thoughts on the freedom of religious expression specifically for Catholic nuns, in his own hand. Joanne McPortland reminded us of this yesterday at Patheos:
In 1804, the Ursuline Sisters, who had fled the anti-Catholicism of the French Revolution to found schools, orphanages, and hospitals in the Louisiana Territory, wrote to President Thomas Jefferson of their concerns that the United States government, now in control of New Orleans, would interfere with their freedom to operate their institutions and set their own regulations. They were aware of Jefferson’s support of the French Revolution and of his writings concerning the “wall of separation” he saw in the First Amendment’s guarantees.
Jefferson’s letter in response–often omitted from collections of his works–is respectful, clear, and reassuring. Read the text and substitute Little Sisters of the Poor for the Ursulines, and it’s immediately apparent that Stiehm is conjuring the wrong guy.
I have received, holy sisters, the letter you have written me wherein you express anxiety for the property vested in your institution by the former governments of Louisiana.
The principles of the constitution and government of the United States are a sure guarantee to you that it will be preserved to you, sacred and inviolate, and that your institution will be permitted to govern itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority.
Whatever the diversity of shade may appear in the religious opinions of our fellow citizens, the charitable objects of your institution cannot be indifferent to any; and its furtherance of the wholesome purposes of society, by training up its younger members in the way they should go, cannot fail to ensure it the patronage of the government it is under.
Be assured it will meet all the protection which my office can give it.
I salute you, holy sisters, with friendship and respect.
The letter, in Jefferson’s hand, is on display in the museum of the Ursulines in New Orleans, where I’ve seen it. It is recognized, rightly, as one of the founding documents in our American understanding of freedom of religion.
It’s difficult to see how Stiehm could have possibly been more ignorant on freedom, religion, tolerance, and the law than in her self-exposure at US News.
I have received, holy sisters, the letter you have written me wherein you express anxiety for the property vested in your institution by the former governments of Louisiana.
The principles of the constitution and government of the United States are a sure guarantee to you that it will be preserved to you, sacred and inviolate, and that your institution will be permitted to govern itself according to its own voluntary rules, without interference from the civil authority.
Whatever the diversity of shade may appear in the religious opinions of our fellow citizens, the charitable objects of your institution cannot be indifferent to any; and its furtherance of the wholesome purposes of society, by training up its younger members in the way they should go, cannot fail to ensure it the patronage of the government it is under.
Be assured it will meet all the protection which my office can give it.
I salute you, holy sisters, with friendship and respect.
Thomas Jefferson
Dang. Hope that quote gets into the bigoted screeder’s hands.
A serious blemish in an otherwise decent piece.
Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans were the closest thing the country has really had to a libertarian Party (but not Libertarian Party.) They surely aren't the forerunners of the modern Democrat Party. Indeed, I would even argue that Jackson's populist version of the Democratic Party -- which is closer -- still had little in common with modern Democrats.
The statement is wrong [and worse from an editor's point of view, it is gratuitously wrong, since it has no real bearing on the piece. If the author is trying to evoke sympathy from present Democrats by pointing out their kinship to Jefferson, he is wasting his time.]
Democrats are at war with Christians... that's what it boils down too... they don't care about facts or truth - just winning at all costs.
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html:
Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists
The Final Letter, as Sent To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
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. Adhering 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 he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
ping
Cool post!
That second paragraph would seem to me to suggest that Thos. Jefferson saw the Constitution as protecting institutional Churches (The Danbury Baptis Association, in this case) from congressional interference in its internal affairs, rather than preventing individual citizens from acting according to religious principles when exercising the rights and duties of citizenship.
The crucial point is that in neither the letter to Ursuline Sisters nor in the letter to the Danbury Baptists is even the slightest intimation of hostility or even distance expressed by Jefferson.Indeed, the Danbury letter is in response to a gift from the Baptists to Jefferson of an enormous cheese which they made as a way of dramatizing their support for him.
Accordingly the “wall of separation” comment does not suggest any fear of the influence of the church on the state. Neither the Danbury nor the Ursuline Sisters case implied any threat of "an establishment of religion."
It is not at all difficult for me to see how she could be so ignorant. Leftists have made a fine art of being ignorant when defending their "holy sacrament" of abortion on demand.
They are willing to distort the words of Jesus Christ to fit their distorted agenda. Distorting Jefferson is just child's play to them.
That I would disagree with. Jackson was the first to court the low information voter, and the Democrat Party has thrived on that to their own advantage for the last 170 years.
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