shed and unrestrained by the magistrate unless, under color of religion, any man disturb the peace, the happiness , or safety of society.”
Mason’s language, which undoubtedly reflected the influence of John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, did not satisfy Madison; in his view, “tolerance” implied the dispensation of a privilege that was susceptible to being withheld. Interlining his copy of the proposal, Madison struck out Mason’s “toleration” language and rewrote it to read that “all men are equally entitled to the full and free exercise of religion according to the dictates of Conscience; and therefore that no man or class of man ought, on account of religion, to be invested with peculiar emoluments or privileges.”
Presumably because he was one of the youngest and least known of the delegates, and perhaps because he possessed “a shy, retiring manner and a weak voice” (Mayer 303), Madison persuaded Henry to introduce his proposed amendment. Even so, it was defeated, because many delegates interpreted his second clause as tantamount to disestablishing the Anglican Church. Madison thereupon proposed another amendment declaring that “All men are equally entitled to enjoy the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate, unless the preservation of equal liberty and the existence of the state are manifestly endangered.”
As eventually adopted by the convention, Article 16 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights includes Madison’s language recognizing freedom of religion as a right and omits the clause referring to government authority:
“That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love and charity towards each other.”
Historians note that although Madison’s wording change apparently did not seem momentous to the convention (Banning 86-87; Ketcham 73), it had enormous implications. Professor Lance Banning says that while the failure of Madison’s first proposal left the establishment issue unresolved, “the logic of his second still demanded equal treatment for competing faiths. . . In its final phrasing Article 16 erected an ideal that no society had every written into law and spurred the commonwealth at once toward its achievement.” (Banning 86) Ketcham agrees. By converting religious nonconformity from something merely to be “tolerated” into a right exercisable according to one’s own conscience, “Madison had made possible complete liberty of belief or unbelief, and the utter separation of church and state.” (Ketcham 73)
After the Virginia convention adjourned on July 5, dissenters quickly seized on Article 16 to call for formal disestablishment of the Anglican Church. By the time the Virginia Assembly convened in October, Baptists and Presbyterians had submitted petitions (one of which contained almost 10,000 names) asking the Assembly to free them from “a long night of Ecclesiastical bondage.” They requested that “all Church establishments be pulled down, and every tax upon conscience and private judgment be abolished” in order that Virginia might become “an asylum for free inquiry, knowledge, and the virtuous of every denomination.”
Madison apparently met Thomas Jefferson for the first time when both arrived in Williamsburg as members of the House of Delegates in the autumn of 1776. Jefferson, who had been busy with the Continental Congress in the spring, promptly took up the fight for formal disestablishment and Madison, who served on the Committee on Religion, became his ally.
In a November speech to the House of Delegates, Jefferson outlined his views concerning the proper relationship between government and religion. According to his notes, he began with an historical overview of the evils of religious establishments. He noted that in Virginia ch