via: American Minute w/Bill Federer
James Madison’s defense of religious freedom began when he stood with his father outside a jail in the village of Orange and heard Baptists preach from their cell windows. He wrote of another incident to William Bradford, JANUARY 24, 1774:
“There are at this time in the adjacent Culpepper County not less than 5 or 6 well meaning men in jail for publishing their religious sentiments which in the main are very orthodox.”
Madison helped pass the Virginia Bill of Rights, which stated:
“Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator, and the Manner of discharging it, can be directed only by Reason and Convictions, 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 Forbearance, Love, and Charity towards each other.”
As President, Madison wrote July 23, 1813:
“If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy of the favorable regard of the Holy and Omniscient Being to whom it is addressed, it must be…guided only by their free choice . . . as proving that religion, that gift of Heaven for the good of man, is freed from all coercive edicts.”
