Quotes about Religious Freedom From Our Founding Fathers

“If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.”
                ~John Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772

“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.”
              ~John Adams, Defense of the Constitutions , 1787

“Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.”
             ~John Adams, Letter to Benjamin Rush

“Indeed, when religious people quarrel about religion, or hungry people about victuals, it looks as if they had not much of either among them.”
           ~ Ben Franklin, quoted by Joseph Lewis in Benjamin
             Franklin - Freethinker

“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself, and when it does not support itself, and God does not care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of civil power, ‘tis sign, I apprehend, of it’s being a bad one.”
        ~Ben Franklin, Poor Richards Almanac, 1754
         (Works, Volume XIII)

“Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has to be regulated it cannot be a bad one.”
      ~ Thomas Jefferson

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof , thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
      ~Thomas Jefferson, Letter of Response to the Danbury Baptist Association, 1802

“I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”
         ~Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Alexander von Humboldt,
          Dec 6, 1813

“I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”
       ~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Miller

“Conscience is the most sacred of all property.”
        ~James Madison, essay on Property

“Every new and successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
         ~James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822

“All men are by nature born equally free and independent.”
        ~George Mason, remarks on the annual Elections for the Fairfax Independent Company, April 1775

“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 forebearance, love, and charity towards each other.”
        ~George Mason, Virginia Bill of Rights, 1776

“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 forebearance, love, and charity towards each other.”
        ~George Mason, Virginia Bill of Rights, 1776

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”
         ~George Washington, 1737

“ I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
        ~George Washington, letter to the General Committee of the United
         Baptist Church in Virginia, May 1789

“The liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreeably to their conscience is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights.”
             ~George Washington, to the Annual meeting of Quakers,
              September 1789