1. Freedom for religion, but also freedom from religion
This text is prepared based on Thomas Jefferson’s letter
(1743-1826; author, Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious
Freedom; 3rd U.S. President, 1801-1809) dedicated to Ethiopian Muslim brothers
All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to
frequent or maintain any religious institution, freedom for religion, but also freedom from
religion. I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I
am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve
and abhor.
I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one
sect over another. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or sect, or to assume
authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the Government. I do not believe it is in
the best interests of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or
its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with
the power of affecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Every religious society has
a right to determine for itself the objects proper for them, according to their own particular
tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has
deposited it.
Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall
remain by making it altogether insusceptible to restraint; that all attempts to influence it by
temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of
hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of any religion,
who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as
was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone; that the
impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being
themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion and tried to plant what they
favor for whatever reason behind! that over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and
modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on
others, hath established and maintained false religions, to compel a man to furnish contributions
of money and force to vote for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is
sinful and tyrannical; ... that our civil rights have no dependance on religious opinions, any more
than our opinions in physics or geometry; ... that the opinions of people are not the object of civil
government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers
into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition
of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty!

2. And finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and
sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human
interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be
dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. We Ethiopians shall stand together that
no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry
whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor
shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all people shall be
free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the
same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities! Equal and exact justice to
all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; ... freedom of religion, freedom of
the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus! To preserve the
freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the religion, every spirit should be ready to
devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the
condition of man will proceed in improvement!
It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the
case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own!