>> join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> you are watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. like us on facebook at cspanhistory. >> next, author thomas buckley discusses the establishment of eligious freedom in the u.s. he discusses thomas jefferson. he also describes how the statute's influence is extended into the 20th century and the supreme court's modern opinion of the separation of church and state. this is 50 minutes. >> the significance of the virginia statute for establishing religious freedom reaches far beyond the borders

of the old comminon. it ultimately extended to the supreme court's decision of the separation between church and state. in his latest book today's speaker tells the story of that statchute beginning with the background and strug -- story of that statute beginning with the background and struggles at that ime. irginia's statchute -- statute had the most liberal interpretation than any other state at the time. thomas e. buckley is currently proffer in residence in los angeles. he taught in the history

department for 22 years after receiving his doctorate from the university of california, santa why barbara, in 1973. from 1996 to 2012 he was professor of modern christian history at the jesuit school of theology. he's also worked in rome, santa clara university, and peking university. his writing is based on the separation of church and state. he's the author of "the great catastrophe of my life. divorce in the old deminon." his latest book is "establishing religious freedom." thomas is an old friend of the v.h.s. in fact, he described minimum himself as a v.h.s. antique a moment ago. which i think is deprecating. he has spoken here in the past.

it is a real treat to have him back today to talk about his latest book. please join me in a warm v.h.s. welcome for tom buckley. [applause] >> thank you very much, paul. it is nice to be back here again. this is my home away from home. in 1878, the chief justice of the supreme court, morrison had a major case to decide . congress had recently outlawed polygamy, and the federal courts

were enforcing that law in utah tarpte. e church of mormon was fighting the right to exercise polygamy. for the first time the supreme court was going to rule on that amendment. the chief justice was concerned. he wanted to get it right. where would he look? where would he go? to history, of course. so he consulted his old friend and neighbor in washington, d.c., george bancroft. george bancroft was the most distinguished american historian of the era. he suggested, bancroft suggested, that wade should look to the works of thomas jefferson james madison, and especially the history of the ssing of the statute for the

-- statute of religious freedom. in this decision, reynolds vs. the united states, the supreme court has followed ever since, d it has relied on the va -- virginia statute. the relationship between church and state is among the most enduring concerns in western civilization. this embraces the two subjects my mother said i should never talk about in public -- religion nd politics. my mother was a wise woman, and she was absolutely right. the topic was just too fascinating for me to pass up. because questions of church and state, religion and politics, they embrace our deepest human concerns. how are we to live together as a

people? what place if any will god hold n our society? over the centuries various resolutions to those questions have been attempted. in america, the most important resolution came right here in america. it is important because the history and the documents of the virginia church state settlement became the basis for the way in which the supreme court would interpret the first amendment. recall how that amendment begins. "congress shall make no law." it did not reply to the states ntil the 1940's. even then, they had been there in reynolds, but they returned to the virginia story in the of0's to look at the history

the controversy again as they nationalized the first amendment. so it's a virginia story. it's a virginia story. but it has national and now with declarations of human rights, international ramifications. the centerpiece is thomas jefferson's famous statute. the history of that statute from its colonial background, passage through the general semireply, and its subsequent interpretation in the state, it's lived history. it's lived history in virginia for a century and a half. that's the subject of this book. now, backup to the beginning. shortly after the foundation of jamestown in 1607, virginia's

colonial government established the church of england in law. it became, in time, the strongest legal establishment of religion in any of the british colonies. what did establishment mean? astute hell, as one anglican minister said at the time, the church was incorporated and blended with the state. "incorporated and blended with the state." church and state. ut by the middle of the 18th this did not sit well with the growing ranks of religious dissenters. particularly presbyterians and the baptists. they challenged that established

church's ideas. they clenged enlightenment thought as embodied for example in the works of jefferson and madison. people like jefferson and madison objected to the language of "toleration." tolerating churches that were not part of the establishment. they did not like toleration. they insisted instead on complete religious freedom. their language prevailed in the 16th article of the religious declaration of rights and found its fullest expression a decade ater in jefferson's statute. this time, most virginiaans virginians most

accepted the idea. as george mason wrote in the declaration of rights, "religion is the tutey we owe to our creator." think of that, religion as duty. jefferson in the statute would speak about religion as "opinion." gain, most virginiaians -- virginians believed the government rested on the citizenry, so they had to be people of virtue. but virginians disagreed about how you foster that virtue. patrick henry would say, "religion and the church foster virtue." jefferson preferred education

and the schoolhouse. then again, what was the state's role in all of this? a real contentious point was, individuals have rights rights. on this there was broad agreement. but did believers, believers that formed a church, did they have any corporate rights? did they have any legal status? what if they wanted to be ncorporated? and if they did, what was that church's relationship to the political community? so there are major issues at play here early on. shortly after the american revolution, the established

church of england reorganized itself into the protestant and municipal church. the state incorporated it as and reconfirmed its title to all the colonial churches and property. at the same time in 1784, the general assembly considered a religious assessment, a bill that would tax everyone for the support of the religion of their hoice. they saw incorporate racial in he episcopal -- they saw incorporation of the episcopal church and religious freedom as a package deal. after a massive petition campaign, a massive petition campaign, it's an incredible

online collection that you can , fter this campaign jefferson approved the statute by an overwhelming vote. so it is in this context that the general assembly approved jefferson's statute in 1786. the next year it repealed the episcopal corporation act. a dozen years later, after a relentless petition campaign, led this time by the baptists, the legislature responded by voiding all previous laws dealing with religion, and there was a welter of them in virginia. all those laws were repealed except jefferson's statute for

stablishing religious freedom. whoops, i did the wrong thing. so that became the standard of incorporating virginia's bill of rights. socio 1914, the largest -religious agreement, the legislature reneged on its earlier guaranteees that the episcopal church would maintain all the churches and property of the colonial era. it reneged on those promises. it provided for the seizure and the sale of all the farmland property held by that church.

an enormous amount of land across virginia. no other state did that. this was a real revolutionary seizure of property that had been guaranteed. however, the legislature decided that the churches and the church vessels and the burial grounds ould be left in pits palian -- episcopalian hands. in a -- they claimed this law was to reconcile all the good people of this commonwealth. reconciliation didn't have the chance of a snowball in hell. for the next century and a half rodestantisml ment

became the religion of dosmnant force, virginians rangled over this decision. how free was the church? ould it hold property? content between absolute separation of church and state, ey forbid church sponsored institutions. with numerous consequences that the legislature had not really thought through. so, for example, here in ichmond, joseph gallego of gallego mills, died and left a bee quest to the local catholic community to build a church. he made the bee quest in his will -- he made the bequest in his will, but a virginia court

voided the will, because there was no entity left in law that could receive the bequest. for a church to hold property without elaborate subterfuges took decades to achieve. even then, the amount of land a church could own was very carefully fixed by the legislature and the bills. or then again, were the clergy full citizens? the voters of matthews counterin tightwater elected humphrey billups to the house of delegates in 1876. although no challenge was made to his election, some legislatures wanted to disqualify him on the grounds that he was a methodist preacher. irginia's constitution of 1776

specifically excluded clergy from serving in the assembly. but 10 years later, in the same building, the legislature approved jefferson's statute for religious freedom. his preamble, the preamble in jefferson's statute, proclaimed that a religious test for holding public office violated natural rights. he religious test violated natural rights. the religious clause concluded this way. religious opinion should not diminish, enlarge, or affect anyone's civil capacity. what about mr. billups? what about his rights and civil capacity? in refusing to seat him in the legislature, the committee argued that, quote, while our

civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, yet, quote, our ancestors intended to . ep separate church and state now an historian looking at that scene might have assumed separation might not have been the assembly's intent when it wrote the constitution in 1776, but rather that's the interpretation that jefferson in 1802 gave the first amendment. and later virginians gave jefferson's statute. so separation of church and state. that occurs for the first time in the danbury baptist letters. you can church the online collections of the library of virginia. in all the petitions no one talks about separation of church

and state. that was jefferson's felicitous phrase. now virginians began to say, well that's what the statute of religious freedom means. thanks to humphrey billups and matthews county voters, the legislators in 1827 found themselves entangled in church-state controversy. surely we can sympathize with them. issues of religious liberty and the respective claims of church and state have repeatedly divided our courts and our nation. cases are familiar ones. church property, for example. how much? should it be tax exempt? sabbath observance? it is in the law of god. do we put the law of god into ur human laws?

prayer in the legislature? some say we need more prayer for the legislature. but prayer in the legislature. you can always knock the legislature. that's the safest way to get a laugh. we all know that. a chap atlanta. should the legislature have a chap atlanta? if so, who should pay for the salary? public funding for parochial education. scombathsbath observance, so forth. well over 150 cases have been lit indicated in the supreme -- since the 47 1947 decision in which the supreme court extended the first amendment clauses to the states. speaking for the court, justice

hugo black pointed out that the virginia statute had in effect offered the most ironclad guaranteee of religious liberty in the new united states. the first amendment, black concluded, intended to provide the same protection against government intrusion on religious liberty as the virginia statute. writing for the minority, justice rut lidge embraced black's interpretative approach. quote, no provision of the strution is more closely tied to or given content by its generating history than the religion clause of the first amendment. indeed, the virginia statute moving he said, to the of our constitutional position. so from the court's perspective,

the first amendment stipulated strict separation of church and state. not just in terms of the federal government now, but in terms of all the states in the union. .his was a wall of separation at the beginning of the 19th century and even before the controversy over billups, virginia made similar claims. in this respect, the virginia church-state relationship differed notably from other states but anticipated the direction the nation as a whole would one day take. but simply asserting separation language and invoking the first amendment has not solved the church-state problem in america,

nor did appeals to statute settle church-state controversies in the old comminon. in his prize-winning study, a onderful book, "american sphinx, the life of jefferson" the author claimed that jefferson's most enduring legacy is religious freedom defined as a complete separation between church and state. but what did "complete separation" mean? llis didn't say. so establishing religious explores the lived experience of the statutes in and ld deminon in its long

exhausting arguments, and they were exhausting, over church-state separation. 19th century virginians were largely evangelical protestants that wanted their society to maintain a christian culture, in areas such as marriage and education. so should the state permit divorce? i will permit you to allow divorce and remarriage places the state in opposition to the express many direction of christ in the new testament. it required the explosive issue interest ial 6 -- rescission sex.

not until the 1850's did the state constitution make a provision for the courts to andle. even more close complosive, the area of education. education was a huge battleground. the legislature became nervous when schools like randolph macon and william & henry asked for charters. could the legislature do that? could you charter a church-related school? cross the boundary line between church and state.

they did get their charters, but with the express proviso, it could never have on its faculty a professor of divinity. what place did religion have, if any, in secondary and elementary education? . 's a great juxtaposition what place did religion have? virginia did not even have a public school system, as you probably know, until after the civil war. then the fight pitted two presbyterian ministers against ach other. ruffner and dabny. the legislature proposed william

henry ruffner as the first superintendent of education. ruffner resigned before taking that position. ut robert lewis dabny, a presbyterian minister, argued vehemently against public education on both rashte racial and religious grounds. if you had public schools for everybody, they would have to educate then the newly emance emancipated ewly slaves. for dabny, that was a waste of money. more importantly, though, dabny argued those schools could not have religious teaching because they were public and therefore fell under jefferson's statute, so you couldn't have religion taught in the schools. but education without religion his book.ymy in

so virginia should not have any public schools. ruffner fought that. his position on religion in the schools was very careful. therewas no need, he said or o need to pass any law institute any regulation that required the bible or any aspect of religion to be part of the education. you don't need it, he said. you don't need it. religion will come in on its own. if the people want it, if the people want god in the schoolhouse, god will come in. the students and the teachers will bring god in. there is no reason to lay down the laws for formal procedure.

you call that the virginia system. some years later, this was not good enough for the richmond school authorities. that old song, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. richmond school resolutions required bible reading. it was being used informally in the virginia schools. but some wanted it specified. the forces lined up on either either side. those in favor of specifying the bible in education included most of the citizens' protestant clergy. but the two cheach opponents were very interesting. the first major opponent was the bbi at beth ahabbah, rabbi calisch. he said there is no place to

have religion required in the schools. the schools should be completely secular. his was a very lonely voice until pastor of first baptist came back and got up on the bull pit and said the same thing, upholding the baptist tradition of church-state separation. the reverend mcdaniel agreed with rabbi calisch. there was no need to tinker with ruffner's virginia system, they argued. the school board eventually sided with them. virginians debated this matter in church meetings, assembly sessions, and four conventions.

each virginia convention drafted a new constitution, the church-state issues come dragging up again. "establishing religious freedom" traces that history. it explanes how virginia rejected the model in favor of the jefferson statute. how they and later generations use and ans proceed to abuse that statute in the ever-changing and shifting cultural context that determined those settlements. you know, history is wonderfully instructive. consider virginia's history as a dry run for what happened in america since the supreme court nationalized the first amendment

took over the interpretation applying it to the states. as the last session of the court demonstrated, the struggle to find a balance between the claims of church and state and religion and politics, that struggle is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. one wonders if it dushes mr. jefferson. how often does he roll over in his grave as he tries to adjudicate between a reverend robertson and a reverend fal well, for example? isn't it funny right between virginia beach and lynchburg they buried thomas jefferson. i think those bones must move uilet a bit.

but his work endures. his work endures. it has been a triumph in many ways in virginia history. he's been a model for the country as a whole in understanding the supreme court. and it has been fascinating to see this move into international law. thank you very much. [applause] now, there may be some questions. >> yes, sir. thank you very much. the statute was 1786, and shortly thereafter it was in the constitution. what were some of the s -- associate logical -- socialogical factors that drove the nation to war over religious

freedom? >> well, religious freedom, it -- well, religious freedom it wasn't just a church-state rim like massachusetts, connecticut, new hampshire, they got rid of those. so the virginia model becomes ational in the states. i don't know if i answered your question. i probably didn't. there were several parts to it. sir? anything more?

>> the everson decision, what was the legal basis for the caurts to extend the first amendment to the states? >> what was the legal basis? >> since the first amendment itself just says "congress will make no law" -- >> that's right. >> so how did they extend that to the states? >> i think they did that in the free exercise clause. i don't know the justification for the everson case, sending it to the states. i think it was a mistake. i think the supreme court got itself involved in a whole mess by trying to decide every single state's issues. i think it was an issue best left to the states. that's just my opinion. it's a little late. i don't know. maybe there was a basis.

there are lawyers present who could clarify, how in the world did they get into this mess? i think they just asserted it. >> do you feel the recent supreme court announcement allowing sec tearian prayer at eetings -- sectarian prayer at meetings is congruent with jefferson's law? >> i think it would be offensive if they didn't allow prayer. i think continually trying to push religion out of the marketplace is a mistake. the question is, how does it get in? how do you allow it in? n you allow it in on a non-sectarian basis? i think you route the fury if you try to kick god out of the

public square in america, because god is going to be there. god is going to be there. [applause] and that's because i think the people want religion to have a place in our political society. now, you know what's fascinating about that? that's a great question, that's a great issue. what's fascinating about that is when you see how this works in france. laice has the system called c tai. it is very rigid. they did their best to maintain it, and it is beginning to come apart at the seams, in a very, very secular society like france t is beginning to crack. >> you raised a side comment

about perhaps jefferson's religious freedom being -- put . to international law in thinking about the accomplishment of democracies and written form of government, we fight over religion in government, but do the two go pretty well together? >> religion and government, do they go well together? in democracies? yeah, i think pretty well. if you look at a model we have in the united states and in canada and western europe or europe in general, africa now, i think they kind of go together. the trouble is the politicians will often try to use religion to get into office and so forth.

but, you know, you have to balance all that off. i think some of the best things america has ever done in our history have been done with a strong underlying strain of religion. whether it is abraham lincoln trying to explain the civil war to the american people in the second inaugural address. magnificent. abraham lincoln, the greatest theologian ever to sit in the white house. or whether it is lyndon johnson talking about civil rights in religious terms. i mean, i think some of the greatest achievements in this country have been founded on religious principles. why is that so? it's so because the american eople share those. how do you appeal, how do you get a person to go off to war

and die for one's country unless somehow he or she knows that god as a role to play in all this? i don't know if that answers your question. >> my name is ben. i come to you from matthews. first i want to thank the historical society for doing hese events. i can tell you little cost is weighed by the entertainment that goes on here and education. christ church in weems and glauster, and i did not recognize the other church you showed.

i would appreciate knowing that. one other comment. i find it interesting that mr. jefferson and mr. lincoln were two presidented that blofpked to no organized religion, but yet their impact on vg far out weighed by that fact. thank you. >> you know, i think yorktown was the other church. you must know mr. billups family. >> i know the billups family, and also mr. john warren cook who was one of the greatest speakers we ever had in the legislature of virginia, too, thank you. >> if i can get a picture of humphrey billups, i'd love it. can't find him anywhere. >> how will we handle the muslims and their sharia law hat they want to bring in?

>> that's a great question. first of all, i think -- the muslims that come to the united states accept the united states. they want to come to this country on our terms. they don't want to bring in sharia law. certainly the women don't. i don't think we have to worry about that. what i would suggest we do is take a hard look at how europe deals with this. take a hard look at our forebearers over there or descendents. think we're ok. >> i thought the british had a community birmingham that permitted this? >> not sha rea law. no, sharia law does not super

establish law, -- supersede british law. >> i thought the british had a community around bhirming ham that permitted this? >> not sharia law. haria law does not supersede nglish law, british law. dick: did thomas jefferson or any of the subsequent courts

delineate between spirit twalt and religion? >> not that i know of. not that i know of. that old term "spirituality" is a relatively new term. in the catholic church we would aethetical it theology. spirituality is a relatively new thing. "i'm not religious, i'm spiritual" that's a new way of thinking. >> yes, i recently heard on public radio an author discussing a book on a similar subject, and he made reference in the 19th century to a significant group of americans, i think, who supported separation of church and state based on anti-catholic interpretation of that in the sense that they didn't want a religion that had a pope if you

will, a political head, that headed up the entire religion. can you address that? >> sure. that was one of the great fears of letting catholics into this country. the question about sharia law and the muslim population growing, you can imagine the terror it struck in the hearts of america to think that catholics were coming in great numbers. and the next thing that was coming over was the pope. well, they thought that. in fact, there is a wonderful book written on virtue in the 1850's about how the pope was going to move into the mississippi river valley and rome was going to be replaced by cincinnati. somehow i don't think that would cut it. but he might have wanted southern california. that's a very good parallel, i think.

and there was. and there were grounds for fearing this because of the way in which the church made certain statements about the way that government should be organized. and that catholocism should be the dominant religion. that didn't really get erased until vatican ii, the separation state and religious freedom. yell, go ahead. >> i look around this room and i see much of my same generation, but i'm worried that a younger generation seems to be moving away from a religious connection, and we lose this protection of separation between church and state. do you see that moving or am i just being goofy? i think it all depends on one's

perspective. my perspective, i don't see that. i don't see students and this next generation moving to anything other than what we have now. here are some enthusiastic evangelicals. i think they will have to duke that out later on, but i won't be around to see it. we have codefied our laws of mute twal respect. we teach that in public schools examine private schools, whether we teach that in churches and temples, i think it is going to be fine. i think people come -- people who come to this country that are not part of our tradition tradition yet will become part of our tradition when they come because they will look around and say, this works, and people

are not killing one another over religion. o that's a good thing. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv. 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on fwitter and cspanhistory for information on our schedule, upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. >> each week "reel america" brings you archival films that help tell the history of the 20th century. >> escorted by american planes, two japanese pai w