They may as well pole and plank up a scaffold under the rotunda of The Jefferson Memorial, in front of the wall that resounds with Thomas Jefferson , fisting his chest, and oathing, "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." They may as well climb the scaffold and prise his words from the polished black granite. The country is going Christian, you see. It is happening-the very thing he feared. They may have to chisel his words, for if the Library of Congress is right, the memorial is wrong.
Mr. Jefferson wanted " the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness." He assembled the largest library in the country and gave it to the people. It became the Library of Congress… Now, a public servant of that very library has cobbled together an exhibit that disgraces him by mutilating his thoughts and beliefs. It claims that Jefferson was not really in favor of separation of state and church!!! The exhibit claims he never thought removing affairs of church from matters of state an essential element of our freedom!!!
Jefferson wrote the words to Dr. Rush , in September, 1800, just before the election, to share his thoughts about the ministers who united to defeat him. Priestcraft labeled the deist an "atheist," and the pulpits called upon the pews not to vote for a "French infidel." Just that month, Hamilton and the Federalists, whom the political clergy supported, caused to be published a pamphlet that they thought could tip the election their way if the preachers would help. It was entitled: The Voice of Warning to Christians on the Ensuing Election." Churches passed out the booklet which presented a bouquet of lewinskis outlining Mr. Jefferson’s infidelities, claiming he; "directly attacked the authenticity of the Scriptures" and gave particulars of his "lack of decent respect for the faith and worship of Christians." Mr. Jefferson , of course, was guilty and innocent at once. He had called the god of the Jews, "cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust." He laughed at the virgin birth and other miracles of the Christians, but apparently the people realized blasphemy was a victimless crime, for he was elected and reelected.
Jefferson remained aloof of the matter and never publicly referenced it, but, as the election approached he shared, with Rush, his deepest thoughts on what was occurring. Along with the calumniation of his character, the clergy had joined with the Federalists, and attacked the idea of Freedom of the Press, and this, Jefferson wrote "had given the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity throughout the United States." Then Mr. Jefferson swore out his hostility to tyrants- the words under the rotunda.
These are the tyrants that Jefferson swore hostility against. The clergy who would turn their religion into politics and their politics into religion. His hostility never cooled. Twenty one years later, now an old man, he took hand to pen and wrote Timothy Pickering, to share his hostility at what earlier tyrants had done to a man he so clearly loved: " The religion builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticism, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers to revolt against the whole and drive them rashly to pronounce the founder an impostor." Jefferson and Jesus were both hostile to hypocrites and high priests. Perhaps I repeat myself. Now they are trying to make Jefferson an impostor.
The library could just as well set up an exhibit of the American West showing how Sitting Bull was really on the side of the 7th Calvary on that hot Sunday in June, 1876. Mr. Jefferson was right-ignorance breeds credulity, the thriving ground of superstition. Superstition always was and always will be a threat to freedom. His country of farmers ignored the religiopolitical preachers with their superstitions, and elected a disbeliever President of the United States of America. The high priests of Palestine hated Jesus for the same reason the ministers hated Jefferson. It’s only human nature for the thief to dislike the sheriff.