>> c-span campaign to a 14 debate coverage continues today at noon eastern with north carolina incumbent democratic senator kay hagan and her republican opponent tom tillis followed by the california governor's race between democratic incumbent jerry brown kashkair.cas then tom loy and fully. more than 100 debates for the control of congress. >> next, author thomas buckley discusses the establishment of religious freedom in the u.s. mr. buckley focuses on virginia's groundbreaking statute on religious freedom authored by thomas jefferson and its role in bringing religious freedom to the newly formed united states. mr. buckley also describes how the statue's influence continues to modern-day. the virginia historical society hosted this event. it is 50 minutes.

>> the significance of the virginia statute for establishing religious freedom teaches far beyond the borders of the old dominion. its influence ultimately extended to the supreme court's interpretation of the separation of church and state. in his latest book, today's speaker tells the story of that statute, beginning with its background and the struggle of colonial dissenters with an oppressive church of england. displacing an established church by instituting religious freedom, the virginia statute divided the most substantial guarantees of religious freedom in any state of the new nation. the effort to implement jefferson's statute has even broader significance in anticipation of the conflict that would occupy the whole court after the supreme court nationalized the religion clause

in the first amendment in the 1940's. thomas e. buckley sj is currently in the university of los angeles. he taught in the history department there for 22 years after receiving his doctorate from university of california at santa barbara in 1973. from 1996 until 2012, he was the professor of modern christian history at the jesuit school in berkeley. he has also studied at boston college and a university in beijing. his research is focused on the relationship of church and state in the united states. he is the author of "church and state in revolutionary virginia" and "the great catastrophe of my life: divorce and the old dominion." his latest book is "establishing religious freedom." he is an old friend of the vhs. he described himself as a vhs

antique a few moments ago, which i think is somewhat self-deprecating. he has spoken here in the past. it is a real treat to have him back to talk about his latest book. please join me in a warm vhs welcome for tom buckley. [applause] >> thank you very much, paul. it is really nice to be back here again. it is my home away from home when i am in richmond. in 1878, the chief justice of the united supreme court -- if i can make this thing work -- there he is. he looks like an antique there himself. [laughter] in 1878, this chief justice had a major case to decide.

congress had recently outlawed polygamy. the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints was asserting a right to practice later me on polygomy on the grounds of the free exercise clause of the first amendment. 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. to whom 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, the most distinguished american historian of the era.

bancroft suggested that he should look to the works of thomas jefferson -- i was going to say alexander hamilton. [laughter] i am in the wrong state. thomas jefferson and james madison. and especially the history of the passage of the statute for establishing religious freedom. he followed that advice. and his decision in reynolds versus the united states fixed to the course the supreme court has followed ever since in its reliance on the virginia statute. the relationship between church and state is among the most enduring concerns of western civilization. but this is embraces the two subjects that my mother said i should never talk about in public -- religion and politics. [laughter] my mother was a wise woman, and she was absolutely right. but the topic was just too fascinating for me to pass up. because questions of church and

state, of religion and politics, they embrace our deepest human concerns. how are we to live together as a people? and what place, if any, will god hold in our society? over the centuries various resolutions to those questions have been attended. in america the most important resolution came right here, and in virginia. it is the most important because the history and the documents of the virginia church state settlement became the basis for a way in which the supreme court would interpret the first amendment. recall how that amendment begins. congress shall make no law.

it did not apply to the states until the 1940's. and even then, they had been there in reynolds, but they came back to the virginia story in the 1940's to look at the history of the controversy again as a nationalized the first amendment. so, it is a virginia story. it is 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, its passage through the general

assembly, and the subsequent interpretation of the state is lived history. it is lived history in virginia. for a century and a half. that is the subject of this book. now back up 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 in any of the british colonies. what did establishment mean? in a nutshell, as one astute anglican clergyman explained at the time, the colonial church was incorporated and blended with the state. incorporated and blended with the state. church and state. but by the middle of the 18th century, this did not sit well with the growing ranks of religious dissenters. particularly be presbyterians and baptists.

they challenged that established church's hegemony, and they found an ally in 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 didn't like toleration. it insisted instead on complete religious freedom. their language prevailed in 16 articles of the virginia declaration of rights in 1776 and found its fullest expression a decade later in jefferson's statute. by this time, most virginians accepted the principle that people were entitled to

religious liberty, but they thought about its implications. for example, a term like religion was susceptible to different meanings. as jefferson -- pardon me, as george mason wrote in the virginia declaration of rights, religion was the duty we owe to our creator. think about that. religion as duty. jefferson in the statute would speak about religion as opinion. or again most virginians believed that to have a republican system of government, you had to have virtuous citizenry. the government rested on the citizenry. so, they had to be people of virtue. but virginians disagreed on how you foster that virtue. patrick henry would say religion

and the church fostered virtue. jefferson preferred education and the schoolhouse. or then again, what was the state's role in all of this? a real contentious point was individuals have rights -- on this there was broad agreement. but did believers, believers who formed a church, did they have any corporate rights? did they have any legal status? what if they wanted to be incorporated? and if they did, what was that church's relationship to the political community?

so, there are many issues at play here. shortly after the american revolution, the established church of england reorganized itself into the protestant episcopal church in virginia. the state incorporated it as such in 1784 and reconfirmed its title to all of 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 choice. the former dissenters now cried foul. they saw in incorporation of the episcopal church and the assessment proposal as a packaged deal. in their mind, it was designed to revive the old established church, which had persecuted

them and oppressed them. and after a massive petition campaign -- a massive petition campaign -- this incredible online collection you can access -- this incredible campaign, led by the baptists and the presbyterians and assisted by madison's famous memorial against religious assessment, after this campaign the legislature approved jefferson's 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 incorporation act, and 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 establishing religious freedom. whoops, i did the wrong thing. it is an imperfect world. there we go. that became the standard for interpreting virginia's bill of rights and constitution. finally in 1802, in the most remarkable socioeconomic revolution in revolutionary america, that is for any state in the new union -- the legislature reneged on its earlier guarantees that the episcopal church would maintain all the churches and property of the colonial era. it reneged on those promises and

provided for the seizure and the sale of all the property, 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, however, the legislature decided that the churches and the church plates the vessels, and the burial grounds could be left in episcopalian hands. in a stunning burst of naïveté, the general assembly acclaimed that this law was designed "to reconcile all the good people of this commonwealth." [laughter] reconciliation did not have the chance of a snowball in hell.

for the next century and a half, as evangelical protestantism becomes the dominant religious force, virginians wrangled over numerous church-state issues. how free was the church? a body of believers, in civil society. how free was the church? could it hold property? intent on absolute separation of church and state, the legislature interpreted the statute to forbid the legal incorporation of churches and church sponsored institutions. with numerous consequences that the legislature had not really thought through. so, for example -- here in richmond, joseph gallego of gallego mills died and left a bequest to the local catholic community to build a church.

when he made the bequest in his will, the virginia court voided the bequest on the ground that while the request had been made, known law toentity receive the bequest. for a church to hold property without elaborate subterfuges to decades to achieve. and even then the amount of land the church could own was very carefully fixed by the legislature in the bill. or then again the voters of mathews county in tidewater elected humphrey billis to the house of delegates in 1826. although no petition for mathews or elsewhere challenged his

election, some legislators wanted to disqualify him on the grounds that he was a methodist preacher. virginia'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. its preamble, the preamble of jefferson's statute, proclaims that a religious test for holding public office violated natural rights and religious tests. violated natural rights. the enacting 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 "while our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinion, yet our ancestors intended to keep separate church and state." now an historian happening on that scene might have fairly inferred that the separation of church and state had not been the assembly's intent when it wrote the constitution in 1776. but rather that is 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 search the online collections of the library of virginia and all petitions. nobody talks about separation of church and state. that was jefferson's felicitous phrase, and now virginians began to say, that is what the statute of religious freedom means. thanks to humphrey billups and the mathews county voters, the legislators in 1827 found themselves entangled in church-state controversy. now surely we can sympathize with that. issues of religious liberty and the respective claims of church and state have repeatedly divided our courts and our nation. the 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 our human laws? prayer in the legislature. some say we need more prayer for the legislature. [laughter] but prayer in the legislature. you can always knock the legislature. that is the safest way to get a laugh. we all know that. a chaplain -- should the legislature have a chaplain? if so, who should pay for the salaries? public funding for parochial education? sabbath observance. so forth. well over 150 cases have been litigated in the supreme court since the 1947 everson decision,

in which the supreme court extended the first amendment's establishment clause to the states. speaking for the court, justice hugo black pointed out that the virginia statute had in effect offered the most in clad -- ironclad guarantee 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 had afforded. writing for the minority, justice rutledge embraced black's interpretive approach -- "no provision of the constitution is more closely tied to or given content by its generating history than the religion clause of the first

amendment. indeed, the virginia statute belongs to the warp and woof of our constitutional tradition." from the court's perspective in 1947, 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. this was a wall of separation, as the justices quoted jefferson's letter to the danbury baptists. at the beginning of the 19th century, and even before the controversy over billups, virginians made similar claims. in this respect, virginia's 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 does it appeal to the statute, settled church-state controversies in the old dominion. in his prize-winning study, a wonderful book, joseph ellis expressed the received, popular, and scholarly wisdom when he claimed that jefferson's most enduring legacy -- most enduring legacy -- was "religious freedom defined as complete separation of church and state." but what did complete separation mean? ellis didn't say. so, establishing religious freedom, establishing religious

freedom explores the lived experience of the statute in the old dominion and its prolonged and exhausting arguments -- and they were exhausting -- for church-state separation. 19th century virginians were largely evangelical protestants who wanted their society to maintain a christian culture in areas such as marriage and education. so should the state permit divorce? the bible forbids it. to allow divorce and remarriage places the state in opposition to the express command of

christ's in the new testament. and certainly at violated the anglican tradition embedded in virginia's colonial history. it required this explosive issue of interracial sex before the legislature finally approved a single divorce, its first divorce, and the beginning of the 19th century. and not until the 1850's did the state constitution make provisions for the courts to handle divorce. church-state? or even more explosive, the area of education. education was a huge battleground.

the legislature became very nervous when the methodists' trustees of schools asked for charters. could the legislature do that? could you charter a church related school? ordered that crossed the boundary line between separation of church and state? now those universities would get their charters, but only with the express proviso that as it was chartered by the state, it could never have on its faculty a professor of divinity or theology. what place did religion have if any then in secondary and elementary education? there is a great juxtaposition of pictures from mr. jefferson's university to the humble one-room schoolhouse. a place that religion has. virginia did not even have a

public school system, as you probably know, until after the civil war. and then, then the fight pitted two presbyterian ministers against each other. ruffner and dabney. the legislature proposed william henry ruffner is the first superintendent of public instruction. ruffner resigned from the ministry before taking that position. but robert lewis dabney, a presbyterian minister, argued vehemently against public education on both racial and religious grounds. if you had public schools for everybody, they would have to educate then the newly emancipated slaves. for dabney, that was a waste of money. more important though, dabney argued that the state could not have any religious teaching in those schools because they were public, and therefore fell under jefferson's statute. so you could not have religion

taught in the school, but education without religion was blasphemy in his book. so virginia should not have any public schools. ruffner fought back. his position on the schools was very careful. there was no need, he argued, to pass any law or institute any regulation that would surpass -- that would place religious education or the bible into the curriculum. you do not pass any laws, you do not institute any regulations that require 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 need to lay down laws or formal procedure. he called that the virginia system. some years later, this was not good enough for the richmond school authorities. there is that old song "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." the virginia school authority debated a resolution to require bible reading. it was being used informally in the virginia schools. but some wanted it specified. the forces lined up on either side. those in favor of specifying the bible in education included most of the citizens' protestant clergy. the two chief opponents were very interesting. the first major opponent was the

calisch. he said there is no place to have religion required in the schools. the school should be completely secular. his was a very lonely voice. until the pastor of first baptist came back from vacation and got up on the pulpit 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. and the school board eventually sided with them. virginians debated matters of church and state and legislative petitions, courthouse arguments,

in the newspapers, and assembly sessions, church meetings, and for conventions. each virginia convention, they drafted a new constitution. the church-state issues come dragging up again. establishing religious freedom -- this book traces that history. it explores how and why the revolutionary generation of virginians rejected the british model of an established church in favor of jefferson's statute. how they and the later generations of virginians are perceived to use and abuse that statute. the revolving understandings of church-state separation and the ever changing and shifting cultural context that determines the settlements. you know, history is wonderfully instructive.

consider virginia's history -- consider virginia's history as a dry run for what happens in america since the supreme court nationalized the first amendment and took over the interpretation, applying it to the states. as the last session of the court demonstrated, the session we just concluded, the struggle to find a balance between the competing claims of church and state, of religion and politics -- that struggle is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. one wonders if it disturbs mr. jefferson. how often does he roll over in his grave as he tries to adjudicate between a reverend robertson and a reverend falwell, for example? isn't it funny between virginia

and lynchburg, they buried thomas jefferson. [laughter] i think those bones must move quite a bit. but his work endures. his work endures. it has been a triumph in many ways in virginia history. it has been a model for the country as a whole and now it is fascinating to see this thing move in 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 sociological and economic

factors that drove the nation toward this religious freedom? >> well, the religious freedom, it was not just the nation, i mean it wasn't just virginia. it was those colonies that had already had religious freedom, places like pennsylvania and rhode island. and there were other places where the churches were established in different ways, like massachusetts. so, the first amendment, in many ways, when the constitution was drafted, they knew they were going to have to deal with the subject of religion, but the country was so pluralistic, you could not have required a single religion. nationally, it would not have worked. if you want to have the country work economically, politically, socially, you couldn't have a one church.

so, the first amendment comes out of that. the constitution of virginia that not embody that statute until 1830. but the rest of the country looked to the virginia model and thought, it seems to work pretty well down there. so, state after state that had places -- that were places where they had a church-state relationship, like massachusetts for example, and connecticut, and new hampshire, they got rid of those. so, the virginia model becomes national in the states. i don't know if i answered your question. i probably didn't. [laughter] but there were several parts to it. sir? please. anything more? >> other questions? we have a microphone here and a

microphone here. >> thank you. the everson decision -- what was the legal basis for the court to extend the first amendment to the states? >> what was the legal basis, -- >> since the first amendment itself says congress shall make no law. how did they extend that to the states? >> i think they'd already done that. i do not know the justification in the everson case, extending it to the states. i think it was a mistake. [laughter] 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 is just my opinion, and it is a little late. [laughter] it is a little late.

i don't know. maybe there was a basis. there are some lawyers present who could clarify -- how in the world did they get into this mess? i think they just asserted it. >> i see a question right back there in the middle. >> do you feel the recent supreme court decision allowing sectarian prayer at political or legislative meetings is with jefferson's statute? >> the way they made that case -- i have read that greece case. that seems to be ok with me. i think it would be very offensive if they did not allow prayer. i think continually trying to push religion out of the public marketplace is a mistake. the question is, how does it get in? how do you allow it in? do you would allow it in on a non-sectarian basis?

you rouse the fury if you try to kick god out of the public square in america. because god is going to be there. [applause] and i think that is because the people want religion to have a place in our political society. you know what is fascinating about that? that is a great question. that is a great issue. what is fascinating about that is when you see how this works in france. france has a system -- really rigid separation. they did their best to maintain and by cracky, it is beginning to come apart at the seams. ever so gently in a very, very secular society like france. it is beginning to crack. >> it is very interesting and you have raised a side comment

about perhaps jefferson's religious freedom being put into international law. in thinking about the establishment of democracies and republican form of government, we fight over religion and government, but 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 the model we have in the united states and canada and western europe or europe in general -- i mean, 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 of 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. and why is that so? it is so because the american people share those. you know. how do you appeal?

have you get a person to go off to war and die for one's country? unless somehow he or she knows that god has a role to play in all of this? i don't know if that answers your question. >> [indiscernible] >> question back there -- >> please. >> i come to you from mathews. first, i want to thank the historical society for doing these events.

i have been a member for many years, and i can tell you, the little cost is far outweighed by the education and entertainment of the events put on here, and i appreciate that. the question i had, the three churches you showed, i believe were christchurch and weems and abington gloucester. i did not recognize the other one, so i'd appreciate knowing that. i think it very interesting that mr. jefferson and mr. lincoln are two presidents that belong to no organized religion, and yet their impact on religion is far outweighed by that fact. thank you. >> you know, i think yorktown was the other church. and you must know mr. billups' family. [laughter] pardon me? >> i know the billups family. and also mr. john warren cook, who is one of the greatest speakers we ever had in the legislature of virginia, too. >> if i could get a picture of humphrey billups, i would love it. can't find him anywhere. sir, please. >> thank you. how would we handle the muslims and the sharia law they want to

bring in? they want to bring in? >> that is a great question. [laughter] i think first of all, i think many muslims, muslims who come to the united states want to come to this country on our terms. they don't want to bring in sharia law. certainly the women don't want it. i don't think we have to worry about that. you know, what i would suggest we do is take a hard look at how europe deals with this. take a hard look at our forebears over there. see how europe deals with it. i think we're ok. >> excuse me. i thought the british had a community around birmingham that permitted this -- >> not sharia law.

sharia law does not supersede english law, british law. >> did thomas jefferson or any of the subsequent courts delineate between spirituality and religion? >> not that i know of. not that i know of. that old term spirituality is a relatively new term you know. we would have called it -- theology. spirituality is kind of a new thing. i'm not religious, i'm spiritual. that way of talking. that is a new kind of thing. >> 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 an anti-catholic interpretation of that, in the sense that they did not want a religion that had a pope, if you will, or a political head who headed up the entire religion. can you address that? >> sure. you know, that was one of the great fears of letting catholics into this country. the question about sharia law and the muslim population growing -- can you imagine the terror it struck and the hearts of americans to think that the catholics would come in in great numbers? and the next thing coming over was the pope. [laughter] well, they thought that. in fact there is a wonderful book written a clergyman in the 1850's about how the pope was

going to move into the mississippi river and rome was going to be replaced by cincinnati. [laughter] somehow i don't think that would cut it. but he might have wanted southern california. that is 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 government should be organized. and catholicism should be the dominant religion. and that really did not get erased until vatican ii and his declaration of religious freedom. so, thank you for that. >> i look around this room and i see my generation and such, but i am worried a younger generation that seems to be moving away from a religious

connection might move forward and we lose this protection of church and state separation. do you see that moving or am i just being goofy? >> i think it all depends on your perspective. from my perspective, i do not see the students and this next generation of young people moving towards anything other than what we have now. a lot of them are very enthusiastic evangelicals. but an awful lot are not. i think they are going to have to duke that out later on, and i am not going to be around to see it. but i'm not worried about it. we have sort of fought our own our ownve solidified tradition of church-state liberty and mutual respect in such a way, i think if we teach

that in the schools, private or public schools, if we teach that in our churches, our synagogues, our temples, i think it is going to be fine. and i think people who come to this country who are not part of our tradition yet will become part of our tradition when they come. why? they will look around and they will say, people are not killing one another over religion. so, that is a good thing. >> no other questions? [applause] >> you're watching american history tv, 40 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter @cspanhistory for information on our schedule, programs, and to

keep up with the latest on history news. >> all weekend long, american history tv is joining our charter cable partners to showcase the history of wyoming's capital, cheyenne. to learn more about the cities on our 2014 toward, visit c-span.org/localcontent. we continue with our look at the history of cheyenne. go.here we this isn't an. >> ok, good. ♪ >> we are washing the wagons for the parade coming up, cheyenne frontier days. we have