The Author of the Declaration & the Architect of the Constitution
"By 1789, when the Constitution of the United
States was adopted," Milton R. Konvitz, a foremost authority on
First Amendment rights, in his Fundamental Rights of a Free People (Ithaca, 1957) states, "Virginia and Rhode Island were states in
which complete religious freedom was enjoyed. Remnants of
establishment or intolerance lingered in the other eleven
states." That religious freedom was the law in Virginia, the
largest and leading state of the union, was due in great measure to
Thomas Jefferson's political leadership and even more so to James
Madison's ideological arguments. His "Memorial and
Remonstrance" made possible the enactment of Jefferson's Bill
for Establishing Religious Freedom, which in 1786 became law in
Virginia and which provides:
that no man shall be compelled to frequent or
support any religious worship, place or ministry ... nor shall be
enforced, restrained, molested ... nor shall otherwise suffer on
account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall
be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in
matters of religion.
Konvitz notes, "This was probably the first
statutory enactment of complete religious freedom and equality in the
world. in effect, when Virginia won religious freedom for herself, it
won it also for the rest of the country. "
Jefferson and Madison corresponded on the subject
with two of America's leading Jews, Mordecai
Manuel Noah and Dr. Jacob De La Motta. Each had delivered an
address at the consecration of a synagogue — Noah in New York in 1818, De La Motta in Savannah in 1820. Each
had sent published copies to the presidents, who responded with
letters which remain important contributions in defining the meaning
of freedom and equality in the United States, particularly for the
Jews.
De La Motta’s letter to James Madison and the
retained responses of both presidents to both orators are now in the
Library's Presidential Papers collection. In Jefferson's case, the
copies are ones he actually inscribed by his own hand, using a
polygraph which he referred to as a "portable secretary."
It was a writing machine which had two pens in tandem, so that the
letters sent and the copies retained were identical.
It is not surprising that Mordecai
M. Noah was chosen to deliver the discourse at the consecration
of Shearith Israel's new synagogue on the 17th of April, 1818.
Certainly the best known Jew in
America, he had served as the U.S. Consul in Tunis, was now
editor of the National Advocate, and a year earlier had been the
chief orator at the forty-first anniversary celebration of American
independence in which the Tammany Society had been joined by a half
dozen kindred organizations. In addition, he was a faithful member of
the congregation, which his great-grandfather, seventy years earlier,
had served as hazzan. Noah's Discourse was published and
widely disseminated. in his Travels in England, France, Spain, and
the Barbary States, which appeared a year later, Noah published
the letters he received about the Discourse from "three
presidents of the United States, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison."
Adams was a true son of Massachusetts, the only
seaboard colony which did not have a Jewish community until well into
the nineteenth century. The Federalist assumed a proper but
patronizing posture. After acknowledging that "I know not when I
have read a more liberal or more elegant composition," Adams
allows:
I have had occasion to be acquainted with
several gentlemen of your nation, and to transact business with
some of them, whom I found to be men of as liberal minds, as much
honor, probity, generosity and good breeding, as any I have known
in any sect of religion or philosophy.
Adams was a member of the committee which framed
the Declaration of independence, and having participated in the
forging of the new nation, he was proud of its liberality.
I wish your nation may be admitted to all the
privileges of citizens in every country of the world. This country
has done much. I wish it may do more; and annul every narrow idea
in religion, government, and commerce.
The response Noah received from Madison was rather
formal. Relations between the two were strained, because during the
Madison administration Noah was recalled from his consulship, an
action which Noah publicly attributed to bigotry.
Montpelier, May 15
Sir: I have received your letter of the sixth,
with the eloquent discourse delivered at the consecration of the
Synagogue. Having ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and
worship as equally belonging to every sect, and the secure enjoyment
of it as the best human provision for bringing all, either into the
same way of thinking, or into that mutual charity which is the only
proper substitute, I observe with pleasure the view you give of the
spirit in which your sect partake of the common blessings afforded by
our Government and laws.
A statement of surpassing
significance by philosopher- president Thomas Jefferson on the
nature of democracy, the frailty of human character, the power of
the free human spirit, and his faith in humankind. This copy in
Jefferson's own hand of his letter on May 28, 1818, to America's
most prominent Jew, Mordecai M. Noah, continues to remind us
that:
More remains to be done,
for altho' we are free by
the law, we are not so in
practice.
Jefferson's letter was in response to Noah's published address
which he had sent to Jefferson. Noah delivered the address at the
consecration of New York congregation Shearith Israel's new
synagogue building.
Thomas Jefferson to Mordecai M. Noah, May 28, 1818. Manuscript
Division, Papers of Thomas Jefferson.
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Jefferson's response must rank as one of his
greatest statements of religious liberty and equality.
Monticello, May 28
Sir:
I thank you for the Discourse on the consecration
of the Synagogue in your city, with which you have been pleased to
favor me. I have read it with pleasure and instruction, having learnt
from it some valuable facts in Jewish history which I did not know
before. Your sect by its sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof
of the universal spirit of religious intolerance inherent in every
sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practiced by all when in
power. Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice,
protecting our religious, as they do our civil rights, by putting all
on an equal footing. But more remains to be done, for although we are
free by the law, we are not so in practice. Public opinion erects
itself into an inquisition, and exercises its office with as much
fanaticism as fans the flames of an Auto-da-fé. The prejudice still
scowling on your section of our religion altho' the elder one, cannot
be unfelt by ourselves. It is to be hoped that individual
dispositions will at length mould themselves to the model of the law,
and consider the moral basis, on which all our religions rest, as the
rallying point which unites them in a common interest; while the
peculiar dogmas branching from it are the exclusive concern of the
respective sects embracing them, and no rightful subject of notice to
any other. Public opinion needs reformation on that point, which
would have the further happy effect of doing away the hypocritical
maxim of "intus et lubet, foris ut moris". Nothing, I
think, would be so likely to effect this, as to your sect
particularly, as the more careful attention to education, which you
recommend, and which, placing its members on the equal and commanding
benches of science, will exhibit them as equal objects of respect and
favor. I should not do full justice to the merits of your Discourse,
were I not, in addition to that of its matter, to express my
consideration of it as a fine specimen of style and composition. I
salute you with great respect and esteem.
Th. Jefferson
Jacob
De La Motta sent a copy of his published
address at the consecration of the new
synagogue in Savannah, Georgia, to Madison
as well as to Jefferson. With the address
he sent this letter, in which he declares
himself “confident that
you would cheerfully receive any information
appertaining to the history of the Jews in
this country.”
Jacob De La Motta to James Madison, August 7, 1820. Manuscript
Division, Papers of James Madison.
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Jacob De La Motta (1789-1845) was a native of
Savannah who received his medical degree from the University of
Pennsylvania at age twenty-one. Volunteering his services at the
outbreak of the War of 1812, he was commissioned as a surgeon in the
U.S. Army. Later he practiced medicine in New York, where he became a
friend and disciple of Gershom Mendes Seixas, at whose funeral he
delivered the eulogy. De La Motta then returned to Savannah, where he
resumed his practice and soon became a leader both in his profession
and in the Jewish community. It was natural that he be invited to
deliver the consecration address at the dedication of the city's new
synagogue on July 21, 1820. In appreciation, the congregation's
Building Committee published the address, of which the Library has a
copy. In a letter accompanying the pamphlet he sent to Madison, he
writes:
Believing that you have ever been, and still
continue to be, liberal in your views of a once oppressed people, and
confident that you would cheerfully receive any information
appertaining to the history of the Jews in this country, have induced
me to solicit your acceptance of a Discourse pronounced on the
occasion of the Consecration of the new Synagogue recently erected in
our city.
In 1820, at the occasion of a
synagogue consecration, a published address was sent by the orator
Jacob De La Motta to Thomas Jefferson. In response, the sage of
Monticello comments upon the true meaning of religious liberty in a
pluralistic democracy:
the maxim of civil government
being reversed in that of
religion, where its true form
is, “divided we stand, united
we fall.”
Thomas Jefferson to Jacob De La Motta, September 1, 1820.
Manuscript Division, Papers of Thomas Jefferson.
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We may assume that he sent a similar letter to
Jefferson, whose reply to De La Motta is noteworthy for his felicitous
inversion of "united we stand, divided we fall." Written in
third person and dated September 1, 1820, it said:
Th. Jefferson returns his thanks to Dr. De La
Motta for the eloquent discourse on the Consecration of the Synagogue
of Savannah, which he has been so kind as to send him. It excites in
him the gratifying reflection that his country has been the first to
prove to the world two truths, the most salutary to human society,
that man can govern himself, and that religious freedom is the most
effectual anodyne against religious dissension: the maxim of civil
government being reversed in that of religion, where its true form is
"divided we stand, united, we fall." He is happy in the
restoration of the Jews, particularly, to their social rights, and
hopes they will be seen taking their seats on the benches of science
as preparatory to their doing the same at the board of government. He
salutes Dr. De La Motta with sentiments of great respect.
Madison
replies to De La Motta’s letter
of August 7, 1820, observing that the
history of the Jews,
must for ever be interesting. The modern part of it is...so little
generally known, that every ray of light on the subject has its
value.
James Madison to Jacob De La Motta, August 1820. Manuscript
Division, Papers of James Madison.
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Madison's letter is more gracious and of greater
relevance and utility to American Jews of the time who were striving to
remove the disabilities which still remained in some state
constitutions, particularly in Maryland, where Jews were in the midst
of their struggle for adoption of the “Jew Bill.”
To Doc[to]r de la Mona
Montpelier Aug: 1820
Sir
I have received your letter of the 7th inst. with
the Discourse delivered at the consecration of the Hebrew Synagogue
at Savannah, for which you will please to accept my thanks.
The history of the Jews must for ever be
interesting. The modern part of it is at the same time so little
generally known, that every ray of light on the subject has its
value.
Among the features peculiar to the political
system of the United States is the perfect equality of rights which
it secures to every religious sect. And it is particularly pleasing
to observe in the good citizenship of such as have been most
distrusted and oppressed elsewhere, a happy illustration of the
safety and success of this experiment of a just and benignant policy.
Equal laws protecting equal rights, are found as they ought to be
presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty, and love of country; as well
as best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will among
citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to
social harmony and most favorable to the advancement of truth. The
account you give of the Jews of your Congregation brings them fully
within the scope of these observations.
I tender you, Sir, my respects and good wishes.
James Madison
Sources: Abraham J. Karp, From
the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress,
(DC: Library of Congress,
1991).
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