ny of the basic tenets of Christian thought, such as the infinite worth of the human soul and the idea that each person was responsible for cultivating a proper relationship with God. It is hardly surprising that the framework of Madison’s personal philosophy would rest on Christian bedrock, given that virtually all of his teachers were clergymen. Yet Ketcham says that shortly after graduating from Princeton “Madison seems simply to have dropped his interest in doctrinal questions, troubling, so far as we know, neither to reject nor to reaffirm his religious tenets thereafter.”• (Ketcham 56) “Though not inclined to religious speculations,” Ketcham says, “Madison adhered to a calm faith in a moral, orderly universe presided over by a God beyond the limited capacity of man to conceive or understand.” (Ketchum 667) “It seems clear,” Ketcham writes, “that he never embraced fervently nor rejected utterly the Christian base of his education. He accepted its tenets generally and formed his outlook on life within its world view.” (Ketcham 47) Whatever he believed, Madison neither disparaged the beliefs of others nor sought to impose his own on anyone else.
Although Madison was reticent about his own religious views, he was vocal, and even vociferous, in the cause of religious freedom from early adulthood to the end of his life. In a letter to his Princeton classmate William Bradford dated January, 1774, when Madison was 23, Madison lamented the prosecution of Baptist ministers in nearby Culpeper County: “That diabolical Hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some,” he wrote, “and to their eternal infamy the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such business. This vexes me the most of anything whatever. There are at this time in the adjacent county not less than 5 or 6 well-meaning men in [jail] for publishing their religious sentiments, which in the main are very orthodox. I have neither patience to hear talk or think of anything relative to this matter, for I have squabbled and scolded, abused and ridiculed so long about it, to so little purpose, that I am without common patience. So I leave you to pity me and pray for Liberty of Conscience to revive among us . . .”
Madison’s ardor can be traced directly to his experience at Princeton. Of Madison’s many Christian teachers, the most influential clearly was John Witherspoon, the Scottish-born Presbyterian minister who was president of the college. Although orthodox in his own beliefs, Witherspoon encouraged intellectual inquiry and defended every person’s “right to private judgment in matters of opinion.” (Ketcham 43) Madison so admired Witherspoon that he stayed on in Princeton for six months after his graduation in order to study under him.
Patrick Henry not only came from much more modest circumstances than Jefferson, Madison or Mason; his religious training was both more and less traditional than any of theirs. His father, John Henry, was a pillar of the Anglican Church and “a staunch defender of every aspect of the church establishment, including the character of the parish rector, his brother Patrick,” for whom his son was named. (Mayer 34) His mother, on the other hand, was caught up in “the Great Awakening” — the evangelical fervor that raced through the colonies around the time of Patrick Henry’s birth in 1736. She became an abstemious Presbyterian who “set herself against the drinking, gambling, and dancing that comprised her husband’s chief diversions and the stuff of gentry political life.” (Mayer 39) She dragged young Patrick to revivalist “New Light” services conducted by the Revered Samuel Davies, a renowned preacher whose flowing, emotional sermons contrasted sharply with the dull, sanctimonious homilies read by the Anglican clergy “in velvet tones perfectly suited to the gentry’s own complacency.” (Mayer 34) Patrick’s mother not only made him listen to Davies’ sermons: on the way home in the family carriage she would make him repeat their substance back to her.
The effects of young Patrick’s dual religious upbringing can be seen throughout his 