George Wythe portrait by unknown artist (Photo courtesy College of William & Mary Law School)
In early 1786, Baptists, Presbyterians and other dissenters descended on Richmond to demand their religious rights. Many had been among America’s best warriors in the fight for freedom against England, then they returned home to find their religious freedom abused.
Powerful forces rallied in opposition. The old guard, led by Patrick Henry and other men of influence, believed that Virginians would slide into perdition without an official state religion. A holdover from Colonial days, the official religion was the Church of England or the Anglican Church. Dozens of Virginia laws exacted penalties for those of other faiths.
Champions of a new religious freedom law included Thomas Jefferson, George Wythe, James Madison and other reformers. In 1786, Jefferson was in Paris, and Wythe was no longer in the legislature, so Madison led the charge. He had been angered by persecution of his Baptist neighbors in Orange County, and he found a forceful advocate in the Baptist preacher Elijah Craig.
Finally, on Jan. 16, 1786, the Virginia legislature passed the first religious freedom law in the world. Five years later, religious freedom was forged into America’s Constitution as the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Virginia’s original bill for religious freedom was submitted to the state legislature in 1779. Thomas Jefferson claimed sole authorship, as one of the three lifetime achievements that he wanted engraved on his tombstone. In fairness, he should have shared the honor with his mentor and law professor George Wythe. They had served as the remaining two members of a five-man committee tasked with revising Virginia’s legal code. Jefferson and Wythe worked together on 126 proposed laws. Although Jefferson wrote the final draft of the bill, it was a team effort, the product of two like-minded reformers.
Suzanne Munson is the author of a new biography about Thomas Jefferson’s mentor George Wythe titled “Jefferson’s Godfather: The Man Behind the Man.”
