Book Review: Steven K. Green. The Grand Collaboration: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and the Invention of American Religious Freedom. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press in cooperation with the Robert Nusbaum Center at Virginia Wesleyan University, 2024.
Few if any political collaborations in American history have been more consequential than that between Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and James Madison (1751-1826). Historian Adrienne Koch wrote a book explaining this relationship in “Jefferson and Madison – The Great Collaboration.”
Steven K. Green, the Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and affiliated professor of history and religious studies at Willamette University, chronicles this relationship as it related to their preoccupation with, and their defense of, religious freedom in their native state of Virginia, and in American politics more generally.
Jefferson’s and Madison’s background and beliefs
Green traces the respective backgrounds of Jefferson and Madison, both of whom were tutored by Anglican clerics. Jefferson was shaped by his education at the College of William and Mary and his tutelage in law under George Wythe. Madison was educated at Princeton under President John Witherspoon. Green shows how both became convinced of the dangers of governmental establishments of religion as they respectively navigated the Second Continental Congress (where Jefferson was primarily responsible for authoring the Declaration of Independence), Virginia politics (where both served as delegates to the state legislature and Madison worked to change the provision in the Virginia Declaration of Rights to include not simply toleration of, but protection for the free exercise of, religion), and, in time, in positions of secretary of state and U.S. president.
Despite Madison’s tutelage under Witherspoon, neither he nor Jefferson appear to have accepted orthodox Christian theology, although some letters that Madison wrote immediately after leaving Princeton suggests that for a time, at least, he may have done so. Madison was particularly cagey about sharing his religious views. Jefferson, who was often falsely accused of being an atheist, was wise enough to conceal his own attempts to cut and paste his own version of the gospels from any mention of miracles, which he believed violated the laws of nature.
Jefferson’s and Madison’s legislative efforts
Both statesmen had fairly broad support from the evangelical community because of their advocacy of religious freedom, although both were wary of the enthusiasm stirred by the Second Great Awakening (with Madison being somewhat less so). Jefferson was particularly wary of Presbyterian clergy whom he believed would, if given the chance, establish their church in Virginia as Anglicans had done before them. He was disappointed when his vision of a populace that embraced Unitarianism did not come to fruition.
Although Jefferson chose to list his authorship of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which resulted in the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church, as one of three accomplishments on his gravestone, Madison did much of the heavy lifting of steering the bill to legislative success while Jefferson was a diplomat in France. In doing so, Madison beat back Patrick Henry’s bill to finance teaching by clerics through general tax assessments.
Green analyzes the language of the Virginia Statute, as well as Madison’s famed Memorial and Remonstrance. He points to their common attachment to reason and freedom of conscience, built in part on Lockean principles. Green argues that they were also leavened by Scottish common sense philosophy, and by Madison’s own encounters with religious intolerance against Baptists and other dissenters in Virginia.
Role in the Constitution and Bill of Rights
Green devotes additional chapters to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and the adoption of the Bill of Rights, where Madison played a starring role, with Jefferson (particularly in the case of the the Bill of Rights) kibbitzing via letters from France from the sidelines.
The Constitutional Convention decided against religious oaths for public office and neither mentioned nor disparaged God. The constitution’s omission of a bill of rights proved to be a tactical mistake. Madison had in his Federalist essays defended the constitution by arguing that the plurality of interests encompassed by the new government would help mitigate the effect of factions, including those that were religiously based. Later, he shepherded the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment which declared religious freedom, through the first Congress.
Green details how Madison had won the trust of Baptists and other dissenters to help get the Constitution adopted with the promise of a bill of rights. Green also references Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, the Jefferson Bible, Madison’s Detached Memoranda, early presidential inaugural addresses and proclamations of national days of prayer or Thanksgiving, and an assortment of letters.
Green devotes separate chapters to the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, who were both more favorable toward public acknowledgments of religion and the issuance of national days of prayers and Thanksgiving than the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and (later) Andrew Jackson. Green continues his narrative into discussions of Jefferson and Madison’s retirement years and their mutual work in establishing the University of Virginia as a secular institution that would serve to pass on the principles of democratic republican government.
As one who is fairly familiar with their works, on several occasions, this reviewer found himself wondering why Green hadn’t referred to a letter or speech by Madison or Jefferson only to find a reference to it a few pages later. Green is not only conversant with a wide variety of original sources, but he traces interpretations of Jefferson and Madison throughout U.S. history, compares and contrasts the views of Jefferson and Madison to other contemporary statesmen, and ends with a chapter detailing how courts have used their writings to explicate and apply the First Amendment.
Modern applications of establishment clause more difficult
Green notes that Jefferson’s and Madison’s words were more frequently cited in Everson v. Board of Education (1947) and other early establishment clause cases than by the modern court.
Green is adept at fairly explaining central interpretations of the religious views and writing of the great collaborators and showing how some such interpretations are better than others. He notes that Chief Justice William Rehnquist and subsequent conservatives have been somewhat dismissive of strict separationism and the influence of Jefferson and Madison.
Acknowledging that the status of religious establishments varied from state to state, Green portrays Jefferson and Madison as being on the vanguard of securing church and state separation. This reviewer is a bit less certain how their insights apply in cases where the establishment and free exercise clauses appear to conflict. As advocates of limited government, both Jefferson and Madison might have been concerned that the government was so dominating education, health care, and other areas as to make it more difficult for individuals to follow their own consciences.
No matter how courts ultimately resolve such issues, Green’s book will likely long serve as the definitive account of Jefferson’s and Madison’s contributions to this debate.
John R. Vile is a political science professor and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University.