Two hundred fifty years ago, the American Revolution began with the “shot heard ‘round the world.” The Revolution set the stage for a new nation based not on ethnicity or geography or religion, but on striving for democratic principles. Religious freedom was among the most important of those principles.
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and 18th-century evangelicals were all deeply committed to religious freedom, including a strict separation of church and state. Having lived in a world in which government and religion were intertwined, they saw separation as essential to prevent corruption of both religion and government, and to mitigate conflicts among diverse new citizens.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Sadly, that founding principle is under attack today in the courts and by President Donald Trump and his supporters. Several Supreme Court justices have openly questioned the principle, its application to the states and its historic antecedents. And Republican lawmakers have promoted initiatives to fund religious schools with tax dollars and use claims of “religious freedom” to undermine laws against discrimination.
Jefferson, Madison, and their evangelical supporters would be stunned.
The Revolution’s 250th anniversary is a good time to reflect on not only the importance of religious freedom, but also how it was won and what it meant to the patriots who fought to secure it.
Before the Revolution, there was no separation of church and state in the American colonies. Many colonies supported established churches with tax dollars. Others imposed religious restrictions on voting or holding office.
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In Virginia, the most populous colony, the Church of England was the established church. Everyone paid taxes to support it, even non-members: Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Lutherans, and other religious dissenters. For most, the church tax was the largest tax they paid. The Anglican Church also controlled marriage, poor relief, care of orphans, and enforced laws regarding profanity and church attendance. If dissenters with young children died, Anglican officials would often place the orphaned children in a good Anglican home. Religious dissenters who failed to attend Anglican services regularly were frequently fined, while a blind-eye was turned to Anglican members’ absences.
But in spite of this discrimination, religious dissent grew rapidly in the mid-18th century, led by evangelical Presbyterians and Baptists. In response, Anglicans turned from legal discrimination to outright persecution.
Establishment supporters chased dissenting ministers with dogs, threw rocks and occasionally fired a shot. Men on horseback whipped gathered worshippers. A hornets’ nest was thrown into one prayer meeting. A communion table was desecrated with “the most slovenly things,” Baptist minister Morgan Edwards reported.
By the time of the American Revolution, over half of the Baptist ministers in Virginia suffered jail time on trumped-up charges of disturbing the peace or preaching without a license. Many countered that their license came from “King Jesus.” Even in prison, ministers were attacked: James Ireland was urinated on as he preached from a ground-level window in a Culpeper County jail; John Weatherford, with arms outstretched in prayer from his cell in Chesterfield County, had his arms cut with knives.
Despite these attacks, when the Revolution began, dissenters accounted for as much as one third of Virginia’s population, and patriot leaders quickly realized that their support was desperately needed in the fight against Britain. Dissenters saw their chance and demanded religious freedom as their price for supporting the war.
An extended negotiation ensued. Dissenters flooded the General Assembly with petitions listing needed reforms—ending church taxes, making poor relief a civil matter, and giving dissenting ministers the right to perform marriages. “These things granted,” they would support the fight. If religious freedom was guaranteed, internal “animosities may cease,” they offered—an implicit threat. Noting the desperate need for unanimity, a newspaper letter demanded restrictions be removed, closing portentously, “a word to the wise is enough.”
In what Jefferson described as “the severest contests” he ever fought, the General Assembly slowly lifted restrictions on dissent. But by War’s end, reforms were incomplete.
When supporters of the old Anglican order sought to impose a new church tax in 1784, dissenters reacted with outrage. One Baptist minister wrote “the unlawful cohabitation between Church and State, which has so often been looked upon as holy wedlock, must now suffer a separation and be put forever asunder.”
With Jefferson serving as minister to France, Madison introduced in the Assembly Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom which later became a foundation for the First Amendment.
The Virginia Statute separates church and state, explaining that “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions” and religion “shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect [a person’s] civil capacities.” Jefferson later triumphantly declared that the First Amendment created a “wall of separation between church & state.” In 1879, a unanimous Supreme Court agreed.
Of course, religious restrictions continued for years: officials and people testifying in court often had to take a religious oath. Bible reading was mandated in many schools. Other discrimination was imposed. But over time, a strong American movement steered toward Jeffersonian separation of church and state.
This shouldn’t surprise us. In fact, many of the principles on which this nation was built were aspirational, and not always met by the Founders. The foul institution of slavery, as well as persistent discrimination against women and Native Americans, made a mockery of the declaration that “all men are created equal.” But the principle became a rallying cry for millions who demanded, and continue to demand, that they be treated with equity.
The same has been true for religious freedom. Our nation continues to struggle with fully implementing the principle, including separation of church and state.
For example, Jefferson was clear that religious freedom did not give anyone a right to ignore neutral (what he called “impartial”) laws. Up to the late 20th century, the religious exemptions that Jefferson warned about were widely rejected. For example, in a 1990 Supreme Court case, Employment Division V. Smith, Justice Antonin Scalia pointed out that religious exemptions to “neutral” laws would entangle government and religion, and result in a hodge-podge of laws.
But then, in the poorly-named “Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993,” Congress overturned that principle and put the burden on the government to oppose such exemptions.
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Now, if a law prohibits a business from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, a business might try to refuse to serve a same-sex couple citing religious beliefs. A business or hospital opposed to birth control might try to claim an exemption from government health care or insurance regulations. In 2017, President Trump sought to expand such religious exemptions by executive order and has since promised more church/state entanglements. In the past, this type of exception left the door open, for example, to businesses refusing to serve African Americans claiming that they are suffering the “curse of Ham.” Today, people may attempt to justify other illegal actions based on religion.
Jefferson and his supporters understood that such mixing of church and state corrupted both. In 2005, when the Supreme Court struck down a courthouse display of the Ten Commandments, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor channeled Jefferson by asking “those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state, … why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” The question rings true today.
The fight for religious freedom and separation of church and state continues, as it does for all founding principles, from equality to citizenship rights to freedom of movement.
But in spite of the failures and shortcomings, these principles still stand as ideas that Americans can strive to realize.
John A. Ragosta, formerly the Interim Director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, is author of Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy, America’s Creed.
The Road to 250 series is a collaboration between Made by History and Historians for 2026, a group of early Americanists devoted to shaping an accurate, inclusive, and just public memory of the American Founding for the upcoming 250th anniversary.Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
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