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Jefferson, Thomas.

[Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in the] Aurora General Advertiser.

[Philadelphia:] Published (Daily) at William Duane, Successor to Benjamin Franklin Bache, in Franklin-Court, Market-Street, 1 February 1802. Folio newspaper, 4 pp.

One of a smattering of contemporary printings of Thomas Jefferson’s celebrated letter to the Danbury Baptist Association commenting on the separation of church and state. These newspaper printings were the only contemporary appearances in print of this highly influential letter, which was not published again until it appeared in a collection of Jefferson’s writings in 1853.

Writing in response to the Association’s letter congratulating him on his election to the Presidency and expressing its concern regarding the state of religious liberty in Connecticut, Jefferson observes:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties . . .

The Aurora General Advertiser was the leading Jeffersonian organ in America, and the natural publisher of this letter, which was likely submitted by Jefferson himself. It was printed here just a month after he wrote to the Association. Jefferson’s use of the phrase "wall of separation between Church & State" gave us both the language most frequently used in reference to the Establishment clause (”the separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution) as well as the guiding principle in interpreting the founders’ intent.

Rare, with just two copies recorded at auction in the past forty years.

Item #5292

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