ABSTRACT
As a young man Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) had ceased to believe in a Christianity based on a supposedly historically-grounded Biblical revelation. He was temperamentally cool towards religious zeal which he feared promoted intolerance. By defining freedom of belief as a 'natural right', the bill of 1779, presented to the Virginia legislature on Jefferson's behalf, justified divorcing the power of the state from the content of an individual's beliefs and from restricting civil rights according to religious opinions. The bill eventually became law, with minor modifications, in 1786.
