The power for the Virginia government to proclaim public days of prayer in Bill #85 was applied by Jefferson while Governor of Virginia in 1779. On November 11, Governor Jefferson issued a “Proclamation for a Public Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer.” The official document began: “By his Excellency Thomas Jefferson, Esq. Governour or Chief …
This is a blog that will make more sense if you check the previous entry. The bottom line is, as Governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson pushed for a plethora of bills related to religion. Rather than prove him to be an anti-Christian zealot, many of these bills showed a respect …
As we noted in a recent blog, Dr. Daniel Dreisbach, professor at American University, wrote that in 1779, Thomas Jefferson, then serving as governor of Virginia, was the “chair of the Virginia Committee of Revisors,” and as such “he was chief architect” of the set of religious bills that were …
A general revision of all laws in Virginia was necessary once America was independent of England. Virginia’s leaders needed to decide how much of the English legal system they would keep as is, and what they would modify to more accurately represent them as independent Virginia Americans. Thomas Jefferson and his …