Daniel Dreisbach on Thomas Jefferson and the First Amendment

Here is historian Daniel Dreisbach's opinion of Thomas Jefferson and separation of church and state. Dreisbach says:

Jefferson firmly believed that the First Amendment, with its metaphoric "wall of separation," prohibited religious establishments by the federal government only.

Does Dreisbach believe the modern notion of establishment is what Jefferson believed? That isn't what TJ believed nor is it what he practiced. Jefferson used the historical definition of establishment used by the other framers that was defined by the Toleration Act of 1689, although the definition was common knowledge years before that. Modern liberals and conservatives are still getting TJ's separation letter to the Danbury Baptists confused. While TJ was President, there were worship services in many government buildings, including the House of Representatives. His letter to the Baptists was to protect the church from the state, not the state from the church. Here is the ultimate violation of modern separation dogma found in a government document:

And whereas, The greater part of the said tribe [Kaskaskia Indians] have been baptised and received into the Catholic church to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually for seven years one hundred dollars towards the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for the said tribe the duties of his office and also to instruct as many of their children as possible in the rudiments of literature. And the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church.

Liberals come up with all kinds of excuses for this one, that because they were Indians, we could give them money and they could establish and evangelize whatever faith they wanted, with our money! The fact is, the founding fathers believed the Law of Nature applies to all peoples at all times. Secularists even claim the catholic priest will not evangelize, as if they know what a catholic priest does. Warren Throckmorton is another fake Christian, who promotes homosexual sin in his writing and distorts the truth of the Kaskaskia Treaty TJ signed, by writing, "The Kaskaskia were already Catholic converts." Yet the treaty says, "The greater part of the said tribe have been baptised and received into the Catholic church." The point is not that they were all Catholics or not; it's what the treaty says. They weren't all Catholics and it's no different than in our nation, where almost everyone were Christians, so why not promote Christianity?

Liberals want it both ways. Throckmorton's next sentence is just as misleading, writing:

Nothing is said directly about evangelizing, and is an inference. Nothing in the treaty required the priest to attempt to make converts.

Does that mean they won't evangelize? Of course they will evangelize. That's what they do. It's another smokescreen. And then he makes a stupid assumption, "He certainly could have involved himself in numerous other pastoral duties to the already converted."

Whether TJ wanted to evangelize the Kaskaskia is irrelevant. The point is TJ violated the first amendment given the fact he didn't believe he violated it. The law of nature applies to everyone:

[A] Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse.

--TJ to James Madison, December 20, 1787.

If Throckmorton is correct, TJ contradicted himself here by interfering with the Kaskaskia's religion:

I presume the views of the society are confined to our own country, for with the religion of other countries, my own forbids intermedling. I had not supposed there was a family in this state not possessing a bible and without having the means to procure one. when, in earlier life I was intimate with every class, I think I never was in a house where that was the case. however, circumstances may have changed, and the society I presume have evidence of the fact. I therefore inclose you chearfully an order on Messrs Gibson and Jefferson for 50.D.

--TJ to Samuel Greenhow, January 31, 1814.

TJ did not feel he could intervene with other nations and their religion because those rights are inerrant in the Law of Nature. James Madison believed the same thing:

[E]very government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights.

--JM. Annals of Congress, June 8, 1789.