The director of the john w hosted the experience of inflated african muslims in the 19th century, and Supreme Court decisions on religious issues after world war ii. The library of congress hosted this event. Study anotherg to that hasublic debate roiled the republic since its earliest days, how religion touches our daily life in washington and around the country. It wasnt that much noted in the media this morning as they were rushing to cover Todays Health Care vote, but its also a day in which President Trump is asking for or issuing an executive order that will relax the socalled johnson amendment, which was a law passed by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 prohibiting religious organizations from overt political activity for fear of tax consequences. That is also changing today. Day night was the National Today is the national day of prayer at the white house. Last night President Trump met with his evangelical advisory board. That is a group of people who only a year ago were not very happy with the candidacy of President Trump. These things change very quickly. In a meeting i went to this morning it was clear what we michael evangelical in the first decade of the republic was coming from new england and the supporters of then president john adams. It changes substantially from generation to generation. We are lucky to have three leading thinkers to help us consider three different moments when religion and politics intertwined. We will begin with sally beringer gordon, who will tell madison the way james was thinking about separation of church and state even before the famous First Amendment to the constitution. Sally is the professor of constitutional law and professor of history at the university of pennsylvania. An expert on religion and church and state. Especially how religious liberty developed over American History. Is current book project about the historical relationships among religion, politics, and law. I have not quite been able to announce this but she will soon be joining our community as a member of the kluge center. Speaking onwill be 1860 and the forgotten voices of american religious diversity. He is the curator of american religious history at the smithsonians Institution National museum of American History. He is the author of six books. I only just met peter but i feel an immediate can sit with him because during a fellowship he held in chestertown, maryland, he lived in my former house. We are lucky to have a member of our scholars counsel, john he will be speaking on the year 1947 and the Supreme Court and modern era constitutional religious freedom. Law andthe professor of distinguished professor and director of the center for the study of the law and religion at emory university. He is a specialist that legal history, marriage law, the author of 26 books and 220 articles. That is not a typo. 220. They have appeared in 12 linkages and has received honors around the world. Former holder of the and mcguire chair in ethics in American History. These panelists will speak for 21 its. At 4 20, we will take a five minute break then open it up to audience questions. Thank you again for being here today. Why dont we begin by welcoming sally beringer gordon to the stage. Thank you. [applause] sally oh yeah. Thank you so much. Is this too loud . Good . Ok. My talk today, and im sorry it is not about madison, but it is about religion and slavery in 1785. It does focus on virginia. Virginia, as many people know has long been considered the most important jurisdiction to this established early republic. I hope to persuade you that a single antislavery methodist and many proslavery presbyterians were actually crucial to this establishment in virginia. Streams ofwo activism among labor unions that have not previously been studied together. It centers on two preachers. Churchmen are not the only or even the only important actors in the story, but through their sermons, lectures, and journals we can learn about the common folks whose traces dont appear in the historical record. First is this guy, and upstart britt. Bornir a big little man into a prosperous english family in 1747, educated at oxford, ordained as a priest in the church of england in 1770. He came under the influence of john wesleys evangelical methodism in 1776. Fields,in preaching in a good sign in north america and a bad sign in britain. Influential person or subjected. A new priest was secretly hired. Whileas dismissed preaching on Easter Sunday and 1777. Likes wrong out of church, being drummed out of the military. He strolled down the center mobe and was greeted by a that was drunk on cider. But he rebounded. He became john wesleys confidant. September 1784, wesley ordained coke as a bishop for the rapidly growing American Branch of the movement. Americat quickly for when fellow clergy accused him of exercising undue influence over a senile wesley. 1784, he arrived in america and begin the work of organizing a new separate Methodist Church here. Drafted new5, coke rules for the church in a book of discipline. The rules were designed to eradicate slavery. He included provisions that copied virginias statute that allowed masters to free slaves in the commonwealth. That statute had been enacted in 1782. Produced and, had dedicated opposition from a proslavery majority. Coke took it a step further. He required all Church Members release their slaves within two years or be denied communion and eventually expelled. After the church was formed and discipline written, coke left on a preaching tour of virginia. 1785, heuary to april sermonized against slaveholding. He reported repeatedly he was greeted by outraged and violence. He pleased near north look, and im quoting for him, the high headed lady offered 50 pounds to anyone who would give that little englishman 100 lashes. At another house, coke debated slavery with a colonel bedford who used some threat. As his reputation spread doors were closed against him. He was indicted for sedition. One plan was formed to murder him. But he left the state and may before the law or the assassins could catch up with him. Antislaverynd and petition that he gave to methodist evangelists to carry around virginia. Coke called for the legislature to he argued that slaveholders acted against the most fundamental goal of christianity, the return of the messiah. He said that enslavement made it virtually impossible for a slave to receive the noble principles of the gospel, meaning that slaveholders actively prevented christian progress. The boldness of the claim might , because heproar argued anyone who owned a slave was antichristian. Added anothercook insult, a political one. As an englishman, he should have known his opinions on the American Revolution might not be well received in virginia. Etheless, his condition formally exercised over the states by great britain. These were fighting words and william graham, our second preacher, picked up the gauntlet. He was born in 1746 in pennsylvania. Irish,ily were scots presbyterians who still remembered the brutal british suppression of the scottish rebellion in the 17th century. Graham hated the british and antivigilante movement. Cooks opposite. He was not a gifted speaker. His service were monotonous and he was a strict disciplinarian. His congregations tended to be small. He excelled as a schoolmaster, where his discipline was imposed on less powerful objects. The school he founded was first known at the Liberty Hall Academy and now washington and lee university. Never successful, but it made him much money, which brings me to my next point. The question of ministers salaries and how the debate eventually it blended into the backlash against thomas cook. Patrick henry784, proposed a bill that would require each taxpayer to designate a portion of his taxes to a christian minister of his choice. Bill, asral assessment a was called, worried about decline in Church Attendance in the closing of schools maintained by the clergy, many of whose churches had been looted during the revolution and whose support had been suspended since 1776. By 1784, the church was in freefall. Presbyterians were actually sympathetic. Graham often wrote petitions for the General Assembly on behalf of the church and now he coauthored an endorsement of the assessment bill. Byham had been dismayed enlightenedism. But his income had suffered terribly during the revolution, even though he was an ardent patriot. He was so patriotic that one sunday sermon he is the call for volunteers to fight against the british and he wound up keying himself up so much he volunteered himself. But had sought Action Service to the revolution for the rest of his life. That impoverished him, because all of his students went off to fight in and cash and the end of the war only brought a deep recession. The general assessment bill gave him the prospect of a steady income. Learned that his congregants would not stand for a general assessment. They had been used to controlling salaries of objected thatthe he would free clergy from control. Graham was not known to back away from a fight. He might well have stood his ground on the general assessment bill, but slavery entered the picture. Cook appeared on the scene just after grams pro assessment petition was submitted. Cook was british, elite, arrogant. Cookhreat to slavery from affected graham directly. He owned six slaves, according to the census, into school also owned slaves. 1785, coinciding with cooks. Our by the mid spring of 1785, grams aboutface on this establishment was so complete that presbyterians selected him once again to draw up a petition. For e a call establishment. Now we argue that patriots had fought against edition oppression in spiritual as well and it was a religious war. That continued establishment will be a fatal symbol of what he called object slavery erie for the first time, a religious organization directly called for passage of Thomas Jeffersons bill for establishing religious freedom, which had been kicking around in the legislature for years without much support. All, in 1785, Popular Support took off. Explanation is that smart parliamentary maneuvering by James Madison deserves credit. I wanted to think about another side of the story. The missing link is thomas cooks antislavery campaign, which convinced graham and others availing between proslavery and prodisestablishment or slavery and anti disestablishment. He explained how the separation of church and state would protect slavery. He also became the first clergyman and academic leader to speak out in favor of slavery and he did so clearly in response to cook. Ata lecture that graham gave liberty hall starting in the mid1780s, he explained why virginia must embrace both slavery and disestablishment and how each reinforced the other. Revolution been fought to secure slavery, he said, but now a tool of the british administration, meaning the american taken victory and hit his plot to destroy the country behind the veil of piety. In am altered cook religious register, the word of god, graham said, directly contradicted the methodists. As grams petition was carried petitione grahams was carried around, cooks petition was carried around by methodists. Graham and proslavery petitions growing 1500, evangelical signatures and dwarfing the few dozen on the antislavery petition. Proslavery petition grahams word for word. It did not condemn slavery and any attempt to interpret either the Old New Testament as antislavery would prefer the word of god. Instruction instructed that it in no way altered civil status, such as enslavement. The liberty conferred by Christian Faith was an internal freedom from sin and the devil, rather than any change in the believers outward condition. Pauls first letter to the corinthians establish that even christians slaves would remain loyal and obedient to their masters. Colonial statutes had written this into law as early as 1677. Conversion was not a ticket to emancipation. In other words, spiritual freedom and bodily coercion longed to two distinct fears. The first inward and religious and the second outward and political. Arguments were made with new force to counter the methodists, who charged that bondage affected the Spiritual Health of slaveholders and urged changes in the secular law. The danger to slavery was apparent and graham and others realized that antislavery religion had been let loose in virginia. Under the general assessment bill, tax dollars could well slow flow to antislavery ministers, either because the individual taxpayers directed the funds to preachers who opposed slavery or ministers who received tax funding acted at the behest of Church Leaders like cook. A religious establishment, therefore, posed a danger. Separation of church and state in virginia was built on this distrust of clarity who were not dependent directly on local congregations. Set them free from their congregant and who knows what will happen. Evidence for this overlap and commitment to slavery and disestablishment is found in the signatures on both sets of petitions. That is pro establishment and proslavery. We can trace the political actions through this unique resource. Five of the six counties memorialized in favor of slavery also sent prodisestablishment petitions. Common signatures are found in about 40 of the total, a remarkable convergence of religious and political activism. Religiousnvergence, conviction was painted as private and personal, while enslavement rested firmly on the political side, that is, with the legislature. One might think of this resolution as a kind of compromise. Proslavery evangelicals apparently believed they could buy peace by putting slavery in the political realm. They told themselves that they were neutral or apolitical on the question, even as their doctrines of division between religion and politics clearly protected a proslavery status quo. Worked. Em it silenced antislavery voices quickly and effectively. 1787s cook conceded in that it had been ill judged of him to preach antislavery from the pulpit. In 1791, the hanover presbyterian decided that enslaved persons could be married in the sight of god, even though the civil realm wasnt recognized. If one was sold away from the other, the marriage was dissolved as if the other was dead. Endorsed a removal standard, saying any other policy might yield unpleasant consequences. Potentiallyes were an enormous issue. One study concluded that one out of three slave marriages was terminated by the internal slave trade. Acceptance of the divide between freedom of the spirit and the physical coercion of slavery also spread among the methodists. By the mid1790s, they had backed away from their emancipatory rules, saying now they hoped Christian Faith would sweeten the bitter cup of bondage. Rejected,elicals including one minister in the 1790s who said that human laws cannot wash away the guilt of an act prohibited by the word of god. Methodistn, also a minister, became a slaveholder. So where does the story of freedom and coercion leave us . Ofs a different picture disestablishment, maybe a little less heroic, but believable in light of religious history and political reality. And there is the question of jefferson. What did he think . He was out of the country in 1785 but follow the debate closely. Did he accept the divide between freedom and coercion . It looks like he did 20 years later. Include from 1815 found in a letter he wrote to a man who sent him a book of servants by alexander macleod, called for preaching politics and opposition of slavery. In his letter, jefferson thanked his correspondent for the book but then said macleod had breached the contract that underlay religious freedoms by discussing Public Affairs on the pulpit. He advised ministers to avoid such topics, as the construction of government or the character or conduct of those administering it. Otherwise, they would violate the terms of disestablishment. We see in a similar debate today, right . Virginias outside importance of the early republic, it didnt actually control how other jurisdictions interpreted their own law. As it wasia model called in the 19th century, governed separation of church as thete perfectly proslavery christians hoped it would. Instead, the mandate and concerns about slavery to the political sphere began to create its own politics. Those who could not stand the constraint often left and many who had no other choice were sold away. Some found their way to freedom. Divideme, the strict between religion and slavery began to work its own undoing. The end of that story is beyond the scope of my talk today, but one way to summarize the trajectory is to note that the first wall of separation was all nott power, but it wound up being allpowerful. Thank you. [laughter] host thank you, sally. That was mind blowing. Thank you for the earlier introduction. It is wonderful to be here with you. My name is peter. I work down the road and am a curator of religious history. This is my first time speaking in a building where i have done a lot of research. It is an honor to be here. I would like to speak to you about religion in america before the civil war. One way in which the subject is often addressed his resident with sallys talk. As way of exploring the tensions among christians about slavery in scripture, how was it that some religious people saw it as an abomination while others argued as texas did in its causes for secession that african certitude was authorized and revealed by the revealed will of the almighty creator . That religion can be used to argue both sides of the issue will not be a surprise to anyone here today. Instead of pursuing that dimension, i would like to focus on a lesserknown aspect of religion in america in the middle of the 19th century, and that is the struggle and endurance of forgotten forms of religious diversity. The landscape of religious difference in the u. S. Changed dramatically in the 1860s. Some of this had to do with the war and some of it had to do with the ways in which the lines between religious traditions tend to blur over t