Jefferson's Legacy to the Supreme Court: Freedom of Religion

Religion in Colonial Virginia Except for Rhode Island, each of the thirteen American colonies created some form of established religion. The English venturists who undertook settlements in New England and Virginia simply assumed that religion would be inextricably tied to their colonial enterprises.1 The 1606 charter creating the Virginia colony required that all ministers preach Christianity that followed the “doctrine, rights, and religion now professed and established within the realme of England”—in other words, the Church of England.2 To bolster the struggling Jamestown settlement, in 1610–11, Sir Thomas Dale promulgated “Articles, Lawes, and Orders, Divine, Politic, and Martiall for the Colony in Virginia.” Clergymen were to read “Dale's Laws,” as they were labeled, to assemblies every Sabbath. The thirty‐seven rules included eight that specifically referred to God and prohibited impiety, blasphemy, sacrilege, and irreverence toward preachers or ministers. The sixth law was particularly notable for its strict religious requirements and harsh penalties for violations: “Every man and woman duly twice a day … shall … repair unto the Church to divine service upon pain of losing his or her days allowance for the first omission, for the second to be whipped, and for the third to be condemned to the Gallies for six months. Likewise no man or woman shall dare to violate or break the Sabbath by any gaming … but duly sanctify and observe the same, both himself and his family, by preparing themselves at home with private prayer, that they may be better fitted for the public according to the commandments of God and the orders of our Church. …”3 Colonists faced the death penalty after the third offense of missing morning and afternoon Sunday devotional services.