All language subtitles for firs87tfreedomfigh000990balm

Downloaded from
YTS.MX

- [Narrator] In the dawning days
of the American Republic,

a band of remarkable
characters came

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

to a revolutionary conclusion.

- It was an extraordinary
collection of ingenious people.

They truly were the
best and brightest.

They were very
gifted individuals.

- Jefferson was accused
of being unchristian.

Well, he said to
himself and his friends,

what does it matter whether
my neighbor believes

in 20 gods or no God?

What does it hurt me?

- George Washington was
the most cautious man

that, I think, I
have ever read about.

- Benjamin Franklin,
he believed in

the practicality of religion,

that religion was a useful
tool to organize society

and keep people loving
their neighbor themselves.

- James Madison, well,
he liked the idea

of freedom of conscience,
that each individual

makes up their own
belief about God.

- The first real life
test for religious freedom

took place in the
election of 1800

between John Adams
and Thomas Jefferson.

- [Brian] These men and others,

fathers of the
American revolution,

saw to it that religion
and religious thought

would be removed completely
from the rule of state

and that instead it
was the state itself

that should be
ruled by the people.

(singing in foreign language)

This first separation
of church and state

would change world
history forever.

- Freedom of religion is, in
many ways, the first freedom.

This established our nation

as a nation where
people could honor

their own conscientious
convictions

and worship God in the
way that they believed,

in conscience, God
wished to be worshiped.

(dramatic music)

- [Man] First Freedom
is made possible

by the generous financial
support of the GFC Foundation,

The Annenberg Foundation,

the Larry H. Miller and Gail
Miller Family Foundation,

The Arthur Vining Davis
Foundations, dedicated to

strengthening America's
future through education,

The One Foundation,

Garfield and Margo Cook,

The Sorenson Legacy Foundation,

the Brent and Bonnie
Jean Beesley Foundation,

Bill and Roceil Low,

the Alan and Jeanne
Hall Foundation,

Bud and Dixie Stoddard, through
the Stoddard Foundation,

the George S. And Delores
Dore Eccles Foundation,

Jeanne and Wayne Quinton,

Glenn and Mary Potter,

and the Legacy Films Foundation.

- [Brian] For many
early English colonists,

the very idea of America
rested on religious freedom.

The puritans hoped
to create utopia

in the New England wilderness,

a place where they could
follow their faith in peace.

Their religion would
create a community.

- We must be knit together
in this work, as one man.

We must entertain each other
in brotherly affection.

We must delight in each other,

make others' conditions our own.

- [Brian] John Winthrop,
in 1630, led a group

of puritans sailing from
England to Massachusetts.

A brilliant man and
a natural leader,

Winthrop had already
been elected as governor

of the new Massachusetts
bay colony,

and he would be reelected
no less than 12 times.

- For we must consider
that we shall be

as a city upon a hill.

The eyes of all
people are upon us.

- [Brian] As they were leaving,

Winthrop gave a
departure sermon,

telling his fellow
puritans that their colony

would be a different
kind of society.

It would be a model
of righteousness.

- There were some
who have called it

the greatest sermon of
the last thousand years.

That's quite a statement,

but it's something that
stands at the beginning

of our political
civic consciousness.

- Winthrop was very
purposefully self-conscious,

and he wanted his new
colony to be self-conscious,

to be aware that God
was watching this colony

and that other peoples
around the world

were going to be
watching it as well.

- [Gordon] The founders
were all believers in God.

They all had a confidence
that in some sense

God was looking
after the Republic.

- A lot of nations,
probably all of them,

think that they're
God's special favorite,

but America has a special
sense of responsibility

regarding itself as a model,

not a nation that seeks
to conquer so much

as one that wants to be copied.

- [Brian] Governor Winthrop
was often reasonable

and charitable, but he
could also be obstinate,

domineering, and autocratic.

"A democracy," he said,
"is accounted the meanest

"and worst of all
forms of government."

Winthrop's colony would
not abide dissent.

- They didn't come to
establish religious liberty.

They came to practice their
own form of Christianity

without interference
from anybody else.

- [Brian] In 1637, an
unlikely opponent emerged

in Boston, Anne Hutchinson,
a 46-year-old woman

then in the midst of
her 15th pregnancy.

Women in the colony were
forbidden from preaching,

but the brave and
strong-willed Hutchinson

began conducting
popular Bible groups.

- We see not that
any hath authority

to set up any other exercises

besides what authority
hath already set up.

- [Brian] By 1637, the
puritan powers had had enough.

Anne Hutchinson was brought
to civil trial for sedition

with John Winthrop presiding.

She defended herself skillfully,

but there would be no
escape from judgment.

- We are your judges
and not you ours.

Mistress Hutchinson, the
sentence of the court you hear

is that you are to be banished
from out of our jurisdiction

as being a woman not
fit for our society.

- I desire to know
wherefore I am banished?

- Say no more.

The court knows wherefore
and is satisfied.

- [Brian] The trial had to
do with the role of women,

but at its core, it was
about religious liberty,

and religious liberty lost.

- John Winthrop was
devoted to making

the Massachusetts
Bay Colony work,

and he felt religion
was the heart drive

of the whole operation,
but for that very reason,

he could not let religion
disrupt the bay colony,

and Anne Hutchinson seemed
like a very dangerous person,

and he felt obligated
to quiet her

or drive her from the colony.

- [Brian] The rampant prejudice

behind Anne Hutchinson's trial

lasted throughout the 17th
century in Massachusetts.

More than a half
century later in 1692,

over 150 people were arrested
in the infamous witch trials.

One woman was accused of
wearing pieces of lace.

Another was convicted after
testimony from her daughter,

who was 4 years old.

It was primitive,
barbaric, and sad.

In the end, 20 people
were put to death.

The puritans established stable

and quite Democratic communities
in an untamed wilderness.

The flaw in the
puritan experiment

was the inability to
allow serious dissent,

but democracy in the 1600s
seldom extended to faith.

It would take another
century to carve out

the great American achievement
of religious freedom.

It would take a revolution.

Some 80 years after the
puritans came to Massachusetts,

the American dream
began to change shape.

The new world was now
a more secular beacon.

It was the place to
look for a better life.

Religion for many new
arrivals was secondary.

The church became the
stepchild of government,

not the master, and
clergymen themselves

came under popular fire.

Some seemed to be
in it for the money.

Many had run dry of inspiration.

- The services were not all
that interesting to people.

In many cases they were long,

they were oriented
towards doctrine,

often read from manuscript.

Whitefield changed all that.

He only had about
eight sermons, I think,

and he went up and
down the seaboard,

but he was charismatic.

- He was a phenomenon.

He was sort of the first great
celebrity, you might say.

- [Brian] One day in
1740, a fevered crowd

of tens of thousands
gathered before the steps

of the Philadelphia courthouse.

They'd come not in
rebellion but in ecstasy

to hear the
passionate, energetic,

and theatrical
George Whitefield.

The son of an innkeeper,
Whitefield had worked

his way through
Oxford as a servant.

By 1740, he was
already the most famous

religious figure of the day.

He toured America,
preaching nearly every day

to huge crowds.

- He preached out in the open,

he didn't have to
be inside a church.

He preached in the fields.

He preached in Philadelphia

in the center of the
street apparently.

- Whitefield was a
radical in certain ways

in denouncing
conventional faith.

- His message was that God cared

even for the poor,
for the Indians,

for the blacks, as well
as for the wealthy.

- [Brian] At the
end of his sermons,

Whitefield would boom out
his universal invitation,

"Come poor, lost, undone sinner,

"come just as you
are to Christ."

- If religion didn't cut deeply,

if it didn't move
people powerfully,

then it was no good,

and so he would thumb
his nose at the clergy,

say they were too conventional,

they were too dry,
they were dead.

- [Brian] In the
Philadelphia crowd that day

was Benjamin Franklin,
already a well-known printer,

the author of the
hugely successful,

Poor Richard's Almanack.

Ben Franklin was a compendium

of American
intellectual interests,

an autodidact who
would go on to chart

the Gulf Stream and
invent the lightning rod,

bifocals, and the
Franklin stove.

He was a deeply
unconventional man.

He believed in God but
rejected organized religion.

- [Man] I never was without
some religious principles.

I never doubted, for instance,
the existence of the deity,

that he made the world and
governed it by his Providence

and that the most
acceptable service of God

was the doing good to man.

Benjamin Franklin.

- He believed in the
practicality of religion,

that religion was a useful
tool to organize society

and keep people loving
their neighbor themselves.

- [Man] Brethren and
fathers and all ye whom I am

about to preach
the kingdom of God,

I suppose you need not be.

- [Brian] Franklin
didn't proselytize.

He didn't discuss his
religious beliefs at all

unless he was pressed.

He gave donations to a
wide variety of churches,

yet he'd decided
beforehand that he would be

impervious to
Whitefield's message.

- [Man] I silently resolved
he should get nothing from me.

I had in my pocket a
handful of copper money,

three or four silver dollars,
and five pistoles in gold.

As he proceeded,
I began to soften

and concluded to
give the coppers.

Another stroke of his oratory
made me ashamed of that,

and determined me
to give the silver,

and he finished so
admirably that I emptied

my pockets wholly into the
collection plate, gold and all.

- [Brian] In the end,
Franklin would publish

many of Whitefield's tracts.

The preacher's
eloquence kick-started

what was known as
the great awakening,

a wave of Evangelical
fervor that lasted a decade.

The awakening went
beyond the spiritual.

It instilled the vital
idea that these 13 separate

and very different
colonies were connected,

that their people could share
not only language but beliefs.

- Suddenly, these colonists
saw themselves as large actors

upon the biggest stage of all.

- Americans began to realize
that they were one people.

- They were founding
a new world,

there was a great
deal of imagery,

a great deal of
conversation about America

being the new Israel,
the new promised land.

There was an intense
religious feeling shaping

the generation that became
the revolutionary generation.

- [Brian] When the great
awakening ebbed in the 1750s,

it left more churches but
not more church-goers.

- So somewhat
surprisingly in America

in the mid-18th century,
somewhere around 20 to 30%

at the most, of European
American colonists

had any kind of
significant relationship

with a Christian congregation.

- [Brian] It was in this era,

a time when evangelism had
ripped through America,

uniting it but then departing,

that a very different
kind of passion began

to take hold of the colonies.

This time the fervor
was political.

It would lead, in the
end, to revolution,

and that revolution,
in turn, would lead

to an unprecedented
freedom of religious faith.

The founding fathers would
try to unite 13 colonies

into a country, yet unity
was, in a sense, unnatural.

Religion mattered, and
in terms of religion,

America was strikingly diverse.

- On the Eve of the revolution,

no single denomination
held a majority.

In fact, the numbers
were very tiny.

Congregationalists were the
largest single denomination.

They comprised only 22%

of all religiously
affiliated colonists.

Next were the Presbyterians,
less than that.

Next was the Church of England.

- There were Baptists,
there were Quakers,

there were Christians of
every kind of denomination,

there were hugely
patriotic Jewish Americans.

You also have a number
of slave religions

that have disappeared.

- Lutherans, German
reform, the Dutch reform.

- That makes us really unique.

It certainly made us
unique in the 18th century,

where peoplehood was
the result of having

a common ethnic bond or
tribal bond or national bond

or something along those lines.

- No European society
looked like this at all.

In every European society,
there was a dominant group

that, by law, could
claim the membership

of virtually everyone,
and then there were some

very small minorities.

America turned that topsy-turvy.

- [Brian] But diversity was
not a recipe for tranquility.

Religious clashes among
the sects were common

and occasionally violent.

The prosperous and
powerful colony of Virginia

was in a sense typical.

Before the revolution, the
preeminent political voice

was the radical Patrick Henry.

Henry pushed a series
of anti-British resolves

through the House of Burgesses
with inflammatory rhetoric,

but Henry's own wife was
not given a Christian burial

because her mental
illness was thought to be

the work of the devil.

True toleration and
religious freedom

were not even up for debate.

- The Church of England sought,

through local authorities,
to ban the activities

of both Presbyterians
and Baptists.

(gavel banging)

- [Brian] Edmund Pendleton,
a respected Virginia judge,

was just one of
the Virginia judges

who sentenced Baptist
preachers to jail

for what an observer
called, the heinous charge

of worshiping God
according to the dictates

of their own consciences.

A local sheriff
brutally horsewhipped
one baptist clergyman.

A gang of well-dressed
men nearly drowned
two other baptists

by holding their heads
underwater in a nearby river.

Persecution was public
practice in Orange, Virginia,

the hometown of a small, frail,

and sickly 17 year-old
named James Madison,

a shy boy whose father was a
prosperous tobacco planter.

One day in 1768, the
two were out walking

and happened by the local jail.

- A Baptist minister
named Elijah Craig

was arrested in Virginia for
being a Baptist minister.

He began to preach a sermon
through the window of his cell,

and a crowd gathered, awed
by what was happening.

- [Brian] The moment
made a lasting impression

on the sensitive young Madison.

His response was a lifelong
pursuit of religious freedom

by the man who would was perhaps

the most influential
founder of all.

"That diabolical,
hell-conceived principle

of persecution rages here
in Virginia," Madison wrote.

"There are five or
six well-meaning men

"in close jail for publishing
their religious sentiments,

"so I must beg you
to pray for liberty

"of conscience for all."

Liberty of conscience
was no fact of life

in the American
colonies in the decade

before the revolution.

If Virginia persecuted its
Baptists, the Northern colonies

had their own heretics,
Roman Catholics.

In overwhelmingly
Protestant New York City,

Catholics practiced
their religion in secret.

- There were no
Catholic churches

in New York or in Massachusetts.

You couldn't enter New
York as a Catholic.

It was against the law.

They weren't even seen
by some as Christians.

They were called
heathens, but then,

the Catholics called the
Protestants heathens.

This is the way they
spoke to each other.

- Opposition to Catholicism
had actually been

a uniting force
within England itself.

England defined itself
as a Protestant nation

over against Catholic France,

and America inherited
that anti-Catholicism

from their English parents.

- The Spanish and
the French empires

as far as they stretched were,

on the whole, intolerant
of Protestants.

They put them to
death as heretics.

Protestants were afraid that
if they gave equal treatment

to Roman Catholics and
they grew and multiplied

that they would again be under
Roman Catholic authority.

- [Brian] Yet Britain had
a problem called Canada.

By winning the French
and Indian war,

Britain had taken over
what is now Quebec in 1763.

Its denizens were still
French and still Catholic.

To mollify their new citizens,
the British Parliament

passed the Quebec act in 1774.

It granted Canadian Catholics
complete freedom of worship.

Anti-Catholic
Americans were furious.

Engraver Paul Revere
drew a cartoon

showing Roman Catholic
bishops dancing in glee.

Some of the loudest
protests came from

an unsuccessful businessman
and tax collector

in Boston named Samuel Adams.

Adams was 51, an
established and vocal leader

of popular resistance
to the Crown.

He was volatile,
bellicose, God-fearing,

and deeply prejudiced.

- He came from Massachusetts
and the Puritan background

that was known for
its ferocity in favor

of its own particular
religious beliefs.

There were suspicions that
Catholics owed allegiance

to a foreign prince, that
being of course the Pope.

- [Man] Much more
is to be dreaded

from the growth of
popery in America

than from stamp acts or
any other acts destructive

of men's civil rights.

Samuel Adams.

♪ If gallic papists
have a right ♪

♪ To worship their own way ♪

- [Brian] In Philadelphia, the
outrage was put into verse.

♪ Of poor Americans ♪

- There were just enough
examples of raw friction

and even violence to give
the founding generation

first-hand knowledge of
the power of religion

and how it could shatter
a society or unite it.

- [Brian] One of
the greatest members

of the founding
generation was born

in Quincy near Boston in 1735.

John Adams, cousin of Sam,

was part of the fifth
generation of Adamses

in Puritan Massachusetts.

John studied for the ministry
but gave it up in disgust.

He found the local clergymen
were dogmatic and back-biting.

- [Man] The study of theology
and the pursuit of it

as a profession would involve
me in endless altercations

and make my life miserable.

John Adams.

- [Brian] Adams switched to
the law but proudly boasted

that when healthy he never
once missed Sunday services

during his entire life.

- [Man] Ask me not, then,
whether I am a Catholic

or a Protestant,
Calvinist or Armenian.

As far as they are Christians,

I wish to be a fellow
disciple with them all.

John Adams.

- [Brian] Yet John Adams
would never be loved by all.

He was a prominent, skillful,

and deeply knowledgeable lawyer.

His ideas on government
would help shape the nation,

but John Adams was simply
too contentious to be loved.

- He wore his heart
on his sleeve,

a very passionate
man, full of ideas,

honest to the core,
politically incorrect.

- In Lewis Carroll terms,
Adams is the red queen,

everything was, off
with their heads.

He was a great fulminator,

tremendously energetic,
always angry.

- [Brian] By the 1770s,
Adams was always angry

about British assaults
on American liberty.

He would soon form an alliance

with another like-minded lawyer,

Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.

The young Jefferson
was brilliant

in everything from
archeology to zoology,

with architecture, music,
and paleontology in between,

but was less good at
making and handling money.

He was romantic and idealistic.

Among his ideals were
an abiding belief

in individual rights,

a dislike for
centralized government,

and a faith in the need
for religious freedom.

- Adams would have
been very doubtful

about the virtue of the
people, and Jefferson,

who had a very magnanimous
view of human nature,

believed that people were
essentially virtuous,

and that's what separates
one founder from another,

their view of human nature.

- [Brian] Yet Jefferson and
John Adams became close friends.

"Adams is so amiable,"
Jefferson told a friend,

"that I pronounce
you will love him

"if you ever become
acquainted with him."

The two were an odd couple.

Adams was short,
stout, Northern, blunt,

and much attached to tradition;

Jefferson, tall, elegant,
Southern, thoughtful,

and sweepingly revolutionary.

Both men were unconventional
in their faith,

but here, too, they
were different.

Adams was a devout Christian,
but he was a Unitarian

and flatly rejected
standard Christian doctrines

of the trinity and
predestination.

Jefferson was even
more unorthodox.

- Jefferson was born
and raised an Anglican

and sometime in his
teenage years experienced

a kind of religious crisis,

became more rationalist,
more skeptical.

- He did have great doubts
about, well, not just doubts.

He just denied the
divinity of Jesus,

and he was accused of
being un-Christian.

Well, he said to himself,
I am a real Christian

because I believe
in Jesus' morality.

- Jefferson did
maintain an attachment

to the Anglican church, also
known as the Episcopal church,

but mainly for the
sake of his daughters

and their activities.

- He did make two
statements publicly,

one in his Notes of
Virginia where he said,

"What does it matter
whether my neighbor believes

"in 20 gods or no God?

"What does it hurt me?"

Well, that did hurt
him, that statement,

and then he said in his
preamble to the bill

for religious freedom, a
very important document,

"Well, religion is
no more important

"to our civic rights
than our beliefs

"in geometry and physics."

- [Brian] "I am a sect by
myself, as far as I know,"

Jefferson once wrote.

- He clearly was someone

who disliked
ecclesiastical authority.

He saw it, I think, as
an unnecessary layer.

- In his own mind, he was
a deeply religious man

because his faith and his
knowledge were all of a piece.

- [Brian] Jefferson
knew how controversial

his own version
of faith would be

if revealed in public, so
he kept it very private.

- [Man] Our particular
principles of religion

are a subject of accountability
to our God alone.

I inquire after no man's
and trouble none with mine.

Thomas Jefferson.

- [Brian] Adams
very deeply believed

that government and
religion should be separate.

He later wrote how pleased
he was that the United States

were founded on the natural
authority of the people alone,

without a pretense of
miracle or mystery.

Yet Adams also believed
that religion played

a crucial role in public life.

Only a religious people
with God-fearing leaders

could guide an orderly and
rational popular government.

He had, he said, a
veneration for the religion

of a people who profess and
call themselves Christians.

- [Man] Without religion,
this world would be something

not fit to be mentioned
in polite company.

I mean hell.

John Adams.

- [Brian] For the next
50 years, these two men

at the forefront of
American politics

would be friends, rivals,
enemies, and friends again.

Their agreements and
differences alike

would shape the nation.

Almost 50 years
after the events,

ex-president John Adams wrote
about the history he'd seen.

- [Man] They thought
themselves bound to pray

for the king and queen
and all the royal family

and all in authority under them

as ministers ordained
of God for their good,

but when they saw
those powers bent

upon the destruction
of all the securities

of their lives,
liberties, and properties,

they thought it
their duty to pray

for the Continental Congress.

John Adams.

- [Brian] By the autumn
of 1774, British policies

like the Stamp Act
and the Coercive Acts

had incensed many Americans.

Revolution was in the air.

Every colony except
Georgia sent a delegation

to Philadelphia to discuss
what measures to take,

how far to go.

This first Continental
Congress was the first time

that the separate colonies
had met in a single assembly.

Could they act together?

A crowd milling around
outside the meeting hall

expected news and wanted action.

Yet on the first day of the
first American Congress,

with the overpowering
issue of rebellion hanging

in the balance, the first
issue discussed was faith.

A delegate from
Massachusetts proposed

that they open the
meeting with a prayer,

but as delegate John Adams
wrote his wife Abigail:

- [Man] The motion was opposed
because we were so divided

in religious sentiments,
some were Episcopalians,

some Quakers, some Anabaptists,
some Presbyterians,

and some Congregationalists,
so that we could not join

in the same act of worship.

John Adams.

- Well, in 1774, everything
almost went to a crashing halt

at the Continental Congress
over the issue of a prayer.

What would be appropriate,
what Bible to use,

would you say something
that would alienate

an Episcopalian
or a Presbyterian?

And it became just
a hot button issue.

- [Brian] Suddenly
religion stood like

an immediate roadblock to
the entire idea of America.

Among the most
prominent delegates

was the uncompromising
Samuel Adams.

The firebrand Congregationalist
was well-known

for his harsh condemnation
of both Roman Catholics

and other Protestant sects.

- Samuel Adams was
possibly the most devout

of all the delegates
to the Congress.

- [Man] Mr. Samuel Adams arose
and said he was no bigot.

- I am no bigot.

Now I can hear a
prayer from a gentleman

of piety and virtue,
who is at the same time

a friend of my country.

- [Man] He moved that Mr.
Duche, an Episcopal clergyman,

might be desired to read prayers

to the Congress
tomorrow morning.

The motion was seconded and
passed in the affirmative.

John Adams.

- Therefore, for
thy name's sake,

lead me and guide me.

- [Brian] An
Episcopal clergyman.

It was, as one delegate
said, a masterly stroke.

If a notoriously stubborn
Congregationalist like Adams

could accept an Episcopalian,
the other sects could, too.

- [Man] We must remember
this was the next morning

after we heard
the horrible rumor

of the cannonade of Boston.

I never saw a greater
effect upon an audience.

It seemed as if
heaven had ordained

that psalm to be
read on that morning.

John Adams.

- Constrain them to
drop the weapons of war

from their unnerved hands
in the day of battle.

Amen.

(delegates murmuring)

- Certainly there was a
need for some sort of unity

in the great project
of building America.

There was a need for some
sort of, one might call it,

spiritual unity, that
did not implicate

the great divisions that the
founders had theologically.

I think Samuel Adams
understood this.

- [Brian] Despite
their partitions,

the 56 delegates of the
first Continental Congress

were all one thing, English
Protestants and anti-French.

An anti-Catholic rancor was
rampant at the Congress,

yet as America prepared
to separate from Britain,

the Congress hoped to
make Canada an ally.

The assembly composed an
open letter to Canadians.

- [Man] What is offered to you

by the late act of parliament?

Liberty of conscience
in your religion?

No, God gave it to you.

John Dickinson.

- [Brian] That single
sentence was a watershed.

Religious freedom, America's
founders were saying,

came from God, not
from government,

and if the two could
be separated at all,

they could eventually
be separated for good.

The revolution did not begin

with the founders
declaring independence.

Paul Revere made his
celebrated midnight ride,

preceding the impromptu battles
of Lexington and Concord,

on the 18th of April in 1775.

Though not everyone
knew it, war had begun.

A few weeks later, a
second Continental Congress

gathered in Philadelphia.

This time, they voted to
create a continental army

with a 43 year-old
Virginian as commander.

George Washington was
tall, athletic, and sickly.

He'd already suffered from
diphtheria, dysentery,

malaria, smallpox,
and tuberculosis

and hadn't a single
tooth left in his mouth.

He was a supremely
successful planter,

quite probably the richest
man in colonial America,

yet he was known
for his reserve,

a public figure's sense
of eternal caution.

- George Washington was
the most cautious man

that, I think, I
have ever read about.

He was so aware of how
everything he did was watched

and would be followed
or commented upon,

seen to have some significance.

- [Brian] He was reserved
but not unfeeling.

Washington hoped, as
he said, to promote

the happiness of mankind.

- [Man] I trust the people
of every denomination

will be convinced that I
shall always strive to prove

a faithful and impartial patron
of genuine, vital religion.

No one would be more
zealous than myself

to establish effectual
barriers against

the horrors of spiritual tyranny

and every species of
religious persecution.

George Washington.

- [Brian] Washington
even showed respect

toward the religious
freedom of his enemies.

In 1775, he ordered
Colonel Benedict Arnold

to invade Canada, hoping
the French Canadians there

would jump into the war
on the American side

and take up arms against their
old enemies, the British,

but Washington gave the invaders

very particular instructions.

- As far as lays in your
power, you are to protect

and support the free exercise
of the religion of the country

and the undisturbed
enjoyment of conscience

in religious matters with
your utmost influence

and authority, so
forth and so on.

- [Brian] Washington's
orders to Colonel Arnold

on the army's conduct

in the Canadian
provinces were explicit.

- I would ask you to avoid
all disrespect to or contempt

of the religion of this
country and its ceremonies.

That is clear?

- The campaign in Quebec
was a military disaster.

The American army was
turned away from Canada,

which was more than
happy to turn away

from the American rebellion.

- [Brian] With the
invasion a failure,

Canada would remain British,
but a precedent had been set.

George Washington had made
it clear that the cause

of American liberty would
include freedom of religion.

On the face of it, the
American Revolution

was nothing less than blasphemy.

The King of England was chosen
by God and aligned with God,

yet virtually every
founder felt that religion

was a keystone of
his very being.

How could the founders
rationalize their
rebellious actions?

- What I do think religion did
for the founding generation

is it gave them a confidence and

a way of seeing the world in
which the individual became

the primary organizing
element of the society.

It was no longer the
king and the aristocracy.

It was the citizen, and the
citizen drew its authority,

drew its being from
being a creature of God.

- [Brian] The emphasis
on individual rights

came directly from John Locke,

the 17th century
English philosopher.

"Everyone," said Locke,
"had a natural right

"to defend his life, health,
liberty, or possessions."

- It was his thinking
that helped them see

that we needed to move from
the divine right of kings

to the idea that we
were all created equal

and that, in fact, divinity
resided in every person.

Rights that came from a
king, or even from a mob,

were rights that could be taken
away by a king or by a mob.

Rights that came from
God were permanent.

- [Brian] Not only did
individuals have rights,

America's founders were
willing to claim those rights

in the face of the armed
might of the English Crown.

In the summer of 1776,
a committee of five,

including Jefferson,
Adams, and Franklin,

submitted their work.

56 members of
Congress then signed

the Declaration of Independence.

(gentle music)

- You were putting
your life on the line

for liberty by
signing that document.

(gentle music)

- [Brian] The Declaration
of Independence

was a secular document
based on implicit faith.

It mentioned God four times,

twice in the first
two sentences.

- Even as it ticked off a list
of reasons for the rebellion,

some of which may seem
quite petty today,

it raised the dimension of
the demand for independence

and made it a spiritual thing.

- [Brian] Where did their
right to rebel come from?

From God.

It was not a king, pope,
preacher, or politician

who bestowed freedom on
human beings but God.

The laws of nature and nature's
God, the declaration said,

entitled the American
people to be both

equal to the British
and separate from them,

and all men are endowed
by their creator

with certain inalienable rights,

including life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.

The third reference to God

was an appeal to the
supreme judge of the world.

The fourth acknowledged the
protection of divine Providence.

God was there four times
in just 1,337 words,

yet more important were things

that the declaration
did not talk about.

- Christianity
was not mentioned,

Jesus was not mentioned,
the trinity was not invoked.

The founders understood
that it was going to become

a country of many
different faiths,

of many different tongues,

and they wanted to preserve
the right of everyone

to pursue that
part of their lives

in as free a
context as possible.

- [Brian] With so
many different faiths,

religion could have broken
the new country apart,

but diversity could also
bind Americans together.

Difference,
paradoxically enough,

was something we
all had in common.

We were all part
of a diverse whole.

As Madison would later argue,

the fact that there were
so many different groups

could act as the best
guarantee of religious freedom.

No single powerful group
could bully the rest.

- There is such a rich legacy

that comes to us from
the founding of America,

a rich culture of
faith and morality

that teaches us that
other human beings matter,

that we should care for them,

that there is something like
transcendent truth out there.

- They've held us accountable
for justice and equity.

- Alexis de Tocqueville
in his classic work,

Democracy in America,
asked the question,

what has been responsible

for America's
Democratic greatness?

He argued, that the difference
was America's mores,

its character, its national
sense of values and ideals.

- To be an American is to
believe in some things,

and those things are equality,
liberty, constitutionalism.

And those founders created
this basis for nationhood.

There was no nation in 1776.

- No one has ever come up
with better principles.

No one's come up with
a better principle

than the equality
of human beings,

the basic equality of human
beings as children of God.

No one's ever come up
with a better principle

than the idea that we are
endowed by our creator

with certain unalienable rights,

rights that the
government didn't give us

and therefore the government
has no right to take away.

Those are principles
that are perennial.

They'll live forever.

- [Brian] For all the soaring
grandeur of the declaration

and the greatness of
the American character,

the new country
had a tragic flaw,

one that would ruin
millions of lives.

- I see a paradox that
is so extraordinary

that it does not submit
itself to honest reasoning.

They were fighting
for their freedom.

At the same time, they held
large numbers of people

in slavery with no intention,

with no intention of
setting them free,

and spending their
time rationalizing

why they should not be free.

- [Brian] Thomas Jefferson
was among dozens of founders

who owned slaves, including
Washington and Franklin,

yet he was also the author
of the immortal words,

all men are created equal,
and he hated slavery.

- [Man] The rights of human
nature are deeply wounded

by this infamous
practice of slavery.

Thomas Jefferson.

- [Brian] But would all
13 colonies agree to unite

if slavery were outlawed
in the new nation?

Jefferson didn't
think they would.

Without allowing the
infamous practice,

there would be no America.

In his own life, too,
Jefferson felt trapped.

His plantations needed slave
labor to compete, and survive.

- [Man] As it is, we
have the wolf by the ear,

and we can neither hold
him nor safely let him go.

Justice is in one scale and
self-preservation in the other.

Thomas Jefferson.

- Part of him that
was trying to survive

was saying, there's nothing
we can do about this,

or, it's up to
another generation.

He turned his eye away
while recognizing,

there is no way that the notion
all men are created equal

does not include our black
brothers and sisters.

He was divided right
down the middle.

You can call that
hypocrisy if you want.

- This is a manifestation of
the fact that the founders

were human, just like
we're human today.

They fell short of their ideals

just like we fall short
of our ideals today.

What rescues the founders
for me, though in this,

is that they put into
place the principles

that would over time
repudiate slavery.

- [Brian] In the
Declaration of Independence,

the founders did not
mention slavery at all.

- We do justice to them,
not by deifying them,

but by taking them all
and all and realizing

that if human beings
as flawed as Washington

and Jefferson and
Adams and Madison were

can do great things, then
potentially we can, too.

- [Brian] By may of 1778,
Washington's army had survived

a killing winter
at Valley Forge,

but how could the tattered
remnants of an army win a war?

The powerful British
forces took control

of America's major
cities, sat back,

and waited for the rebel
army to disintegrate.

The colonials were
poorly paid, badly fed,

and sometimes overwhelmed by
the formidable army they faced.

What could hold these troops

from entirely different
colonies together?

For Washington, the challenge
lay in establishing unity

in an army and a country
with disparate beliefs.

- Those differences were
never clearer than on Sunday.

The sabbath was a day
of rest in New England,

and it was day of
recreation in Virginia,

and so when Washington
would declare

these days of Thanksgiving,

which were to celebrate
a great victory,

he made sure everyone went
to church in the morning,

and then he invoked
play and recreation

as the agenda for the afternoon.

So everyone was
100% half satisfied.

- [Brian] Washington himself

was a kind of religious amalgam.

By his mid-30s he'd
served as a vestryman

in his local Episcopal church.

- Even though he
was a vestryman,

he never joined a church,
never took communion,

was very, very mum
on Christian matters.

- [Brian] Yet Washington
authorized the appointment

of army chaplains, something
not common in European armies.

It would be a good
thing, he thought,

if his men were devout.

- To the distinguished
character of patriot,

it should be our
highest glory to add

the more distinguished
character of Christian.

- Washington encouraged
religion among his troops

during the Revolutionary War.

He encouraged it for
purposes of troop morale.

He wasn't cynical in that.

He knew that many soldiers
were themselves religious.

Washington saw a military
usefulness in that.

I think he also saw a
moral usefulness in that.

- The founders, all of
them were believers in God.

There's not an
atheist among them.

They were not emotionally
religious people, most of them,

but faith in that sense
was important to them,

but it was important
as an inculcator

of virtue, of morality.

Society needed
religion to survive.

- [Brian] Yet Washington
was more comfortable

talking about Providence
rather than God.

- His letters are
full of statements

about the hand of
Providence intervening

and that assertions
that the revolution

could not possibly
have succeeded

without God's intervention.

His work overflows with
references about Providence,

but his exact nature of his
private religious beliefs

is hard to discern.

- [Brian] In 1779, Washington
gave Benedict Arnold

command of the vital
West Point stronghold

on the Hudson river,
north of New York City.

Arnold was a traitor.

He devised a plot to turn
West Point over to the British

and gave the papers
detailing his plan

to a spy named John Andre.

Andre disguised himself
in an American uniform

and rushed with the plans

toward British
headquarters in New York.

The next morning, a wandering
group of American soldiers,

absent without leave from
the Continental Army,

stopped Andre for
no reason at all.

They searched him and
discovered the papers,

ending Benedict Arnold's
treasonous plot.

- [Man] In no instance since
the commencement of the war,

has the interposition
of Providence appeared

more remarkably conspicuous
than in the rescue of the Post

and Garrison of West Point from
Arnold's villainous perfidy.

Your humble servant,
George Washington.

- [Brian] The word
Providence was used often

by many of the founders.

It meant the benign intervention
of God, but what God?

- There's become a tradition

of great Americans
of invoking God,

but it's a god not
of a particular sect.

It's a universal god,
an American creator.

- Providence meant that
he was moving forward

the good causes.

So when the revolution occurs,
it's very important to them

to know that God
is on their side

because he was
active in history.

- Washington thought God was
looking after the Republic.

He thought he was looking
after him personally

because he survived
the Revolutionary War.

So I think faith in that
sense was important to them.

- [Brian] In 1630,
John Winthrop had hoped

that Boston would be
the city on the hill,

the perfect model for the world.

Almost 150 years later,
many of the founders hoped

and believed that America would
be the nation on the hill,

a model for the world.

In 1776, we were fighting
for independence,

and even then, it was already
clear that we were fighting

for much more, a
new kind of nation.

For almost 170 years, the
government of Virginia

had been closely intertwined
with the Anglican church,

but as the war went on,
Virginia began to take

the first steps
toward another kind

of revolution,
religious freedom.

George Mason drafted the
Virginia Declaration of Rights

in June, 1776.

It would deeply influence both

the Declaration of Independence
and the Bill of Rights.

Mason's first draft
included a clause

that guaranteed toleration
of all religious creeds.

- [Man] All men should
enjoy the fullest toleration

in the exercise of religion,
unpunished and unrestrained.

George Mason.

- [Brian] It was a
giant step forward,

but for James
Madison not enough.

The small, frail boy who'd been
moved by a sermon from jail

was now a small, frail
man with weak nerves

and a squeaky voice.

He was once described as a man

no bigger than a
half piece of soap,

but Madison was an
incisive thinker

who prepared with
incredible thoroughness

and a voracious student
who was passionate

about religious freedom.

- What he got out
of his readings

was a firm belief that
he carried through life

that it was the individual's
pursuit of religion,

that it was not doctrine
that had to be spoon-fed you,

that you needed
to read scripture

and come up with your
own interpretations

and be a church unto yourself.

- [Brian] As a young lawyer,
he defended Baptist preachers

arrested for preaching
without a license

from the Anglican church.

For Madison, the idea
that the government

could tolerate various
beliefs was not sufficient.

Nor was the idea new.

In 1689, the English
Parliament had passed

the Act of Toleration,
granting freedom of worship

to Protestants alone, and
dissenters like the Puritans

had to register with the church.

Toleration presupposed that
there was a dominant church

willing to let the others exist.

- Toleration was a
very different thing

from religious liberty.

It took a long time for
a true understanding

of liberty to develop.

- [David] It was Goethe
who said that toleration

is an insult because when
toleration is granted

it can always be withdrawn.

- [Brian] So the quiet
Madison helped Mason rewrite

Virginia's
Declaration of Rights.

It was now quite different.

- [Man] Religion can be
directed only by reason

and conviction, not
by force or violence,

and therefore, all men
are equally entitled

to the free exercise
of religion,

according to the
dictates of conscience.

James Madison.

- The great challenge to
the American founders,

the great experiment
that they undertook,

was to see if it
would be possible,

as the first
federalist papers said,

to create a government based
on reflection and choice

rather than on
accident and force.

- [Brian] Toleration
had become freedom.

Yet the amended declaration
of rights also suggested

that the government depended
on Christian virtues.

- [Man] It is the
mutual duty of all

to practice Christian
forbearance, love,

and charity towards each other.

James Madison.

- [Brian] Madison's friend
and fellow Virginian,

Thomas Jefferson,
still wasn't satisfied.

- He was a legislator
in Virginia

when he authored a bill for
establishing religious freedom.

Its main point was quite simple,

all men shall be free to
profess and by argument

to maintain their opinions
in matters of religion.

- [Brian] When Jefferson was
appointed minister to France,

he took care to
pack ample copies

of his bill for
religious freedom.

The great thinkers
of Europe had created

the theory of man's
natural rights of man,

but it took the
new American spirit

to put those ideas into
the language of law,

but Jefferson's bill
was not yet a law.

In Virginia, the bill
stalled in the legislature.

In 1783, the Treaty of Paris
ended the Revolutionary War.

Against all odds, the
Americans had won.

- [Man] I was but the humble
agent of favoring heaven,

whose benign interference
was so often manifested

in our behalf and
to whom the praise

of victory alone is due.

- I think at the end of the war

Washington's view of divine
intervention was heartfelt,

and I think he was humbled
by what had happened,

almost crushed in New York,

Valley Forge, all the
great images that we know.

No rational person would
have bet on us in 1776,

and so certainly, it
seemed like a miracle.

If anything, I think
Washington believed

that it was virtue rewarded

and that a great sense of
responsibility came with that,

that this was a covenant.

This wasn't victory
without strings.

The strings were
you have to live up

to what you've been given,
fought for, but also given.

- [Brian] A conquering
general had always taken up

the reins of authority.

Power was the usual
reward for victory,

but George Washington
went home to Virginia.

His home state was in the midst

of a very different struggle.

Several states had passed
what was essentially

a religious tax, government
support for churches

in the form of a
general assessment.

Thomas Jefferson was outraged.

- [Man] To compel a man to
furnish contributions of money

for the propagation
of religious opinions

which he disbelieves
and deplores is
sinful and tyrannical.

Thomas Jefferson.

- [Brian] The
Baptist church, too,

opposed the general assessment,

but the powerful Anglican church
strongly supported the tax,

led by the eminent
Patrick Henry.

The revolutionary
orator famed for,

"give me liberty,
or give me death"

had been raised as an Anglican,

but as a lawyer, he defended
both Baptists and Quakers.

He'd even been known
to pay the fines

of imprisoned Baptists
out of his own pocket.

His bill would
eliminate the idea

of a single
state-supported church

but it would deliver
tax money to ministers

of various Christian
denominations,

linking government with church.

- He thought that
religious morality

was absolutely critical
to sustaining liberty

and therefore government
had some role to play

to shore that up.

- [Brian] Jefferson
and Madison opposed

any state support for religion,

earning themselves a
formidable political foe.

The fiery Henry was
universally revered in Virginia

and had been elected
governor four times.

To a friend, Jefferson wrote:

- [Man] What we
have to do, I think,

is pray devoutly for his death.

Thomas Jefferson.

- [Brian] Instead of praying,
the scholarly Madison wrote

a persuasive, if anonymous,
argument against Henry's bill.

"The state had no authority to
involve itself in religion,"

Madison said.

"True religious freedom did
not mean that all churches

"would be linked
to the government

"but that none of them would."

An effective argument.

Some 11,000 Virginians
signed a petition opposing

the general assessment,
and the measure soon died.

Jefferson's act for
religious freedom,

instead, became
Virginia law in 1786.

- The legacy of the Virginia Act

is providing the
intellectual foundation,

underpinnings, and argument
for a culture and nation

in which religion is a matter
of choice and not coercion,

and almost every other country,

it had been an
issue of coercion.

- [Brian] Jefferson's
act took a simple

but revolutionary step.

It entirely separated
the institutions

of government and religion.

Jefferson and Madison had
redefined the modern state.

- [Man] We have in this
country extinguished forever

the ambitious hope of making
laws for the human mind.

James Madison.

(gentle music)

- [Brian] Within a few
years after it had begun,

the United States was
on the brink of failure.

The former colonies
were united only loosely

under the articles
of confederation.

The federal government
could neither pay its debts

nor protect its people.

Something had to be done.

In the summer of 1787,
delegates from 12

of the 13 states
gathered in Philadelphia.

James Madison came
from Virginia 11 days

before the meeting
was supposed to begin.

He needed to be prepared,

for Madison wanted his
delegation to present

an ambitious plan
to the convention.

Instead of fixing the
broken government,

the assembly would create

an entirely new
system, a constitution.

The United States Constitution

had a long, difficult nativity.

Four months of wrangling,
compromise, and distrust.

So much of Madison's
original plan was discarded

that he became
bitterly disappointed.

Before long, the assembly

was on the verge
of breaking apart.

- Sir, fairness
demands that each state

be represented equally and not.

- [Brian] The only one who
could not be discouraged

was 81 year-old
Benjamin Franklin.

Not known for his
public speaking,

Franklin delivered
a perfectly timed

and delicately
articulate suggestion.

- I have lived, sir, a long
time, and the longer I live,

the more convincing proofs
I see of this truth,

that God governs in
the affairs of men.

- Benjamin Franklin
was virtually

a second father of this country.

George Washington had
attained his high standing

in the public mind
through his generalship.

Benjamin Franklin attained
it through diplomacy,

so though he said very little

in the Constitutional
Convention,

whenever he spoke,
everyone listened.

- I therefore beg leave
to move that henceforth,

prayers imploring the
assistance of heaven

and blessings on
our deliberations

be held in this
assembly each morning

before we proceed
to our business.

- For the people's sake
and for the country's sake,

they needed to invoke
God's blessing.

- Your excellency.

- [Brian] But what the founders
did next was astounding,

a kind of American
revolution all by itself.

Most of them thought that
a common religious belief

was necessary for
a moral society,

yet the venerable Ben Franklin
was quickly voted down.

On the bottom of his
speech, Franklin scrawled,

the convention, except
three or four persons,

thought prayers unnecessary!

The impasse over the
representation of states

was eventually circumvented,
and the Constitution

was written during
the course of 1787.

- The constitution is
an amazing document.

It's an amazing document
in a structural fashion.

It's an amazing document
as a political fact

because it was forged
in a sense from nothing.

It is amazing in its
inventiveness, its creativeness.

Nothing like this
had existed before.

And it's frankly amazing
in its secularity,

that is, its power isn't derived

from claims about the divine.

- [Brian] The only
mention of religion

in the original Constitution
was meant to enforce

the idea of religious liberty.

It came from Charles
Pinckney, an unlikely source.

Pinckney was an ambitious,
unrestrained South Carolinian

from a powerful family.

He had no apparent interest
in religious freedom.

Against the inclinations
of many delegates,

Pinckney eventually
pushed through

a seminal line in article VI.

- And so I propose
that no religious test
should be required

as a qualification to
serve in public office

or the other public trusts.

- [Brian] Pinckney's
line distinguished

the United States from the
old world and pointed the way

toward a secular
conception of the state.

In the finished Constitution,
God was not mentioned at all.

Who was in charge?

"This constitution,"
the document says,

"shall be the supreme
law of the land."

- The religion question
wasn't seen as proper

to a question about the
structure of government.

It was also seen as dangerous.

In other words, if you
put the religion question

out in the structure
of government,

would that undermine the chances

for the ratification of
a new federal government?

- [Brian] To an extent,

the Constitution
displeased everyone.

Benjamin Franklin lamented
that it didn't abolish slavery.

Several delegates
lamented that the omission

of a bill of rights,
including religious freedom,

was an appalling mistake.

Near the end, Ben Franklin
offered the convention

his wisdom one more time
but decided it would be

more effectively
delivered by someone else.

He asked his friend
James Wilson to read it.

- I doubt whether any other
convention we can obtain

may be able to make a
better constitution,

for when you assemble
a number of men

to have the advantage
of their joint wisdom,

you inevitably
assemble with those men

all their prejudices,
their passions,

their errors of opinion,
their local interests,

and their selfish views.

It therefore astonishes me, sir,

to find this system
approaching so near

to perfection as it does.

(delegates murmuring)

- [Man] Hear, hear!

- [Brian] Moments later, all
but three of the delegates

signed the constitution.

After its passage, even the
disappointed James Madison

began to look approvingly
on the document.

Many of the ideas in the
constitution had been his work,

but he now pointed toward
a different author.

- [Man] It is impossible for
the man of pious reflection

not to perceive in
the constitution

a finger of that almighty
hand which had been extended

to our relief in the Revolution.

James Madison.

(triumphant music)

- [Brian] The Constitution
was finished and signed.

The question was whether it
would be accepted by the people.

For it to become
law, nine states

would need to ratify it in
special state conventions.

The debate was long
and contentious.

Finally the supporters
of the Constitution,

called the Federalists, agreed
to add a Bill of Rights.

With that concession, the U.S.
constitution was ratified.

On April 30, 1789,
George Washington

became the first president
of the United States.

His was a job and a role
that was entirely undefined.

- Newly independent
Americans were acting

on centuries of tradition
in looking to their leader

for guidance on
religious matters,

but George Washington
was extremely careful
in that regard.

- He was deeply aware
of his responsibility

to bring people together.

He did not want religion

to be a divisive
force in any way.

To use language of
Jesus and Jesus Christ

often could be seen as
divisive and unneeded.

- If you appeared to speak

in one form of
religious language,

you're going to alienate
people who spoke

another religious language,
and Washington knew well

that he had to rise
above that fray.

- We can credit him with
laying the groundwork

for religious freedom by leaving
his own position neutral.

- [Brian] In 1790,
when George Washington

was in the second year
of his presidency,

he received a letter from
the Jewish congregation

Yeshuat Israel of
Newport, Rhode Island.

In reply, he wrote
a memorable response

about religion in America.

- [Man] For happily the
government of the United States,

which gives to
bigotry no sanction,

to persecution no assistance,

requires only that they who
live under its protection

should demean themselves
as good citizens.

- [Brian] People
still come together

at the synagogue in
Newport every August,

the anniversary of
Washington's letter.

- The reading of the letter
is a very special occasion

because the words are
among the most important

in terms of American history.

"May the children of
the stock of Abraham,

who dwell in this land"

- [Man] Continue
to merit and enjoy

the goodwill of the
other inhabitants,

while everyone
shall sit in safety

under his own vine and fig tree,

and there shall be none
to make him afraid.

- [Brian] There shall be
none to make him afraid.

The president's
biblical reference

was a poetic and
powerful assurance,

but Washington wasn't going
to be president forever.

- Everybody knew that religion

would ultimately come
to affect politics,

and the question was if
the wrong group or groups

got power with the
federal government,

wouldn't they try to establish

their church as the
national church?

Couldn't some group just lop on

to the federal
government and say,

okay, the Presbyterian church

is going to be the
national church,

or, the Congregational church

is going to be the
national church?

And so there was a fear
about the religion question

if it wasn't handled.

- [Brian] What rights did
small religious groups

have in a new nation, and
what about individuals?

Perhaps a more
power-hungry president

than Washington would want

to tell the people
what they could say

or where they could pray?

Critics of the new Constitution
clamored for changes,

the changes that
had been promised

during the struggle for
ratification two years earlier.

- I beg to differ
with you, Mr. Madison.

The people of Virginia
insist there be a list

of assured individual liberties.

- Patrick Henry, George Mason,

these prominent anti-federalists

are ones that
really put the heat

on James Madison
and others to say,

if you're gonna
have our support,

or if we're gonna move forward,

we really need to have a Bill
of Rights as part of this,

and one of the things
that is preeminent there

is a commitment to
religious liberty.

- [Brian] Baptists, too,
were strong supporters

of religious freedom
for a very good reason.

- The baptists'
experience had been,

unless it is made explicit,
we are going to be burned,

government will turn against us,

the established parties
will persecute us,

will tax us for the support

of other religious
institutions, namely their own.

- Madison opposed a bill
of rights on principle.

- [Brian] For James Madison,

a list of certain
individual rights implied

that there couldn't
be other rights.

Whatever you didn't
list could be denied.

And changing the Constitution

might be like opening
up Pandora's box,

all kinds of bad
laws would follow.

- Madison was forced by
his Baptist constituents

to deal with what he called,

this nauseating
business of amendments.

- [Brian] If it had to be
done, it would be better

if Madison just did it himself.

He took the lead in
writing the Bill of Rights,

10 amendments that
guaranteed what we now see

as the basic rights
of Americans.

The very first amendment began:

- Congress shall make
no law respecting

an establishment of religion

or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof.

- That, I think, is
rightly interpreted

as meaning that the
founders wanted to make sure

that the institution
of the church

and the institution of the state

were separate institutions.

- The First Amendment
has two parts.

It bans the idea, it
bans the possibility

of an established church,

and it argues that
everyone should have

the free exercise of religion.

- The First Amendment
applied at the outset

only to the federal government

so that we have to
keep that in mind

that that First
Amendment was saying

the federal government cannot
interfere with certain rights,

but the states were
still free to put limits

on religious freedom and speech.

- [Brian] The first
amendment was a milestone

in world history.

For the first time, a
national government promised

to stay out of religion.

- The Declaration
of Independence,

the Constitution,
the Bill of Rights,

our charters of freedom,
they're our glue.

They are what make us a country,

and once we have that
pulling us together,

then we have the
freedom and the ability

to be diverse in all
kinds of other ways.

- It's not simply the
freedom to choose whether

to be a Mormon or
an Episcopalian or
Catholic or a Muslim.

It is the liberty of
those not to believe.

I am gonna pursue my own
destiny, my own code,

my own vision without
being pressured by

or buffeted by larger forces.

- The first real life
test for religious freedom

took place in the
election of 1800

between John Adams
and Thomas Jefferson.

- [Brian] Adams was
running for a second term

against Jefferson,
his long-time friend,

and by now his
political opposite.

Together they'd done
much of the work

to create the Declaration
of Independence,

but Adams had beaten Jefferson
in the last election.

Then as president, he
moved to suppress criticism

of his government.

He had made the government
a force in religious matters

to great discontent.

- Adams declared a fast day,
a national day of fasting.

It was written in very
Christian language.

Adams himself believed that
the support of the church

was necessary if government
were going to stand.

The fast Eve, there were
riots in the streets.

That fast day led the
sectarian Christians,

the Baptists, the Methodists,
and also Jews and others

to be very wary of Adams
as a religious president

who would impose his
religious views upon them.

- [Brian] Jefferson, the
vice president, was outraged.

The election campaign
of 1800 was bitter.

- The election of 1800
was a crucial moment

in our national history.

People think our politics
today is polarized, and it is,

but, boy, if you wanted
to see polarization,

you should look at
the election of 1800,

bitterness, recriminations,
nasty campaigning.

- [Brian] Jefferson
hired James Callender,

a writer who specialized
in political slander.

- [Man] Adams, the corrupt
and despotic monarch!

A hideous,
hermaphroditical character!

- [Brian] The Jefferson
campaign called Adams a fool,

a hypocrite, a
criminal, a tyrant,

but Adams' supporters
retaliated.

Jefferson was
branded a weakling,

a libertine, and a coward.

Perhaps the worst
accusation of all,

this politician who said
he was in a sect by myself,

did he believe in God at all?

- [Man] The only question to
be asked by every American,

laying his hand on his heart,

is shall I continue
in allegiance to God

and a religious president

or impiously declare for
Jefferson and no God?

- Jefferson was accused
of being an atheist,

and he felt he was
not an atheist.

He never was.

He learned his lesson,

which Franklin had voiced
several years earlier,

1784, he said, look,
anybody who speaks out

against religion, it's
like spitting in the wind.

You just don't do it in America.

- [Brian] The brutality
of the campaign severed

the old friendship.

It was a tragedy of spirit
that seemed to endanger

everything that the two
great men had worked

so hard to create, the
American system itself.

- There was great
fear that America

was gonna be destroyed
because suddenly

this two-party system
had reared its head,

and the Adams crowd, the
federalists, were saying

that he was a pagan, Thomas
Jefferson, a crazy deist,

and that he was going to
forever ban Christianity

in the United States,
and it got very heated.

- [Brian] The partisan
maelstrom created genuine fear.

Citizens actually
believed that Jefferson

would banish the Bible.

- In 1800, one of
the questions was,

are we gonna go the
Jeffersonian/Baptist route

with no established
religions of any kind

and take the risk that religion
will diminish in America

and virtue will go down with it?

- [Brian] It was a close
and confused election.

In the end, Jefferson won.

- The election proved a point
that reverberates to this day,

that the implementation
of religious freedom

and separation of
church and state

were laws laid down
by the founders,

but the protection
of those ideas

was in the hands of the people.

- [Man] If the
freedom for religion,

guaranteed to us
by law in theory,

can ever rise in practice under

the overbearing inquisition
of public opinion,

truth will prevail
over fanaticism.

Thomas Jefferson.

- [Brian] Jefferson and
Madison both realized

that freedom is a
greater spur than force.

The absence of federal
government intervention

actually helped
religion to grow.

- There was tremendous upsurge.

I was reading the diary
of William Bentley,

who kept talking about
how the common people

of the town were holding
night religious meetings,

and there'd be
sailors preaching,

there would be women preaching,

there would be
African-Americans preaching.

- I shout, hallelujah,
when I think of His life.

- The First Amendment
forbids an establishment

and also protects the
right of religious worship,

and both of them working
together have encouraged

religious groups to go
out and seek members.

In the old days, in the
days of an establishment,

you didn't need to seek members

because the state paid
for religious services.

- Look at the yellow pages
of any town in America,

and you can find forms of
faith that the founding fathers

would have found unimaginable

but would have given free
choice to any individual

to belong to a wide variety
of groups or to no group,

and I think that would
have pleased them.

- The state of the United States

at the beginning of the
21st century suggests

that they were
completely correct.

They couldn't have
been more correct.

We now live in a society
that has far more religions,

far more religious
participation,

far more religion involved
in the nature of society

than happened to have
been true at the time

of the American Revolution

and the creation of
the First Amendment,

and that in part is a
testament to their conviction

that religion would
flourish on its own.

- The great good news
about the country

is that religion has shaped
us without strangling us.

- [Brian] The American
Revolution we all know

came with drums and guns,
with battle and bloodshed.

The quieter revolution
was less spectacular

and much slower, coming
only step by step,

but it was more unique
in human history.

This was the story of an
idea, a government devoted

to maintaining liberty,
not uniformity.

- The story of liberty
is never a simple story.

That requires constant
attention, constant thought.

It requires argument and debate,

and only out of that
process can we achieve

the goal that we want, which
is religious freedom for all.

- The founding fathers
not only created

the institutions by which
we still govern ourselves,

but they infused into
the culture, our culture,

all of our highest
aspirations, our ideals,

our greatest values,
including religious liberty

being one of the most important.

- The struggle for
religious liberty

is a perennial struggle.

There will always
be the temptation

to cut back on
religious freedom.

There will always
be some end in view,

some fear that people have
that will tempt us as a people

to dishonor the fundamental
right to religious freedom

and the right to bring faith
into the public square.

- It was a world historic
contribution to say that

yes, religion matters for
the health of a society,

but government must
leave people free

to pursue their beliefs
as they see fit.

- It is a system
that we should change

with great care, if at all.

- [Brian] Ben Franklin
was the first to go.

By 1790, he was
84 and quite ill.

One day his daughter said,

"I hope, father, that
you will yet recover,

and live many years."

"I hope not," Ben Franklin said.

His wish was granted.

He died that April, 1790.

It was soon discovered that
he'd added a note onto his will.

- [Man] My fine
crab-tree walking stick

with a gold head
curiously wrought

in the form of a cap of liberty

I give to my friend
and the friend

of mankind, George Washington.

- [Brian] Washington himself
still had miles to go

before he could rest from
his eight years as president.

It was 1796 before
he would write

his farewell address
to the American people.

An advisor suggested
that Washington mention

a generally received and
divinely authoritative religion

in the address.

Washington refused, but
he believed that faith

needed to be a part of
the national character.

He was leaving a
nation that was,

as he said, "in command
of its own fortunes."

- [Man] I anticipate
with pleasing expectation

that retreat in which
I promise myself

the sweet enjoyment of good
laws under a free government.

- [Brian] Less than three
years after leaving office,

George Washington died and
was buried at Mount Vernon.

James Madison was the last
founding father to die.

In 1817, he retired
to Montpelier, his
tobacco plantation.

For his final 19 years, he
never left Virginia again.

Among his last
works was a protest

against the appointment
of chaplains for Congress.

Even at the end, James
Madison was a watchdog

for the revolutionary
American concept

of separation between
church and state.

- [Man] I am far from desponding

of the great
political experiment

in the hands of the
American people.

Much has already been gained.

Much may be expected.

- [Brian] The bitter
election of 1800 had severed

the friendship between Thomas
Jefferson and John Adams.

In time, the two
great men reconciled.

- [Man] Now, my friend
Jefferson, there is now,

ever will be, and
never was but one being

who can understand the universe

and that it is not
only vain but wicked

for insects to pretend
to comprehend it.

John Adams.

- [Man] These are
things which you and I

may perhaps know ere long.

We have so lived as to fear
neither horn of the dilemma.

We have, willingly,
done injury to no man

and have done for
our country the good

which has fallen in our way.

Be our last as cordial as
were our first affections.

Thomas Jefferson.

- [Brian] John Adams
died on July 4, 1826,

exactly a half century after

the Declaration of Independence.

Adams' last words were,
"Jefferson still survives."

He was wrong.

Thomas Jefferson had
died just hours before,

but what they had created

with the other founders
still survived.

The shocking and very
basic American principles

of a separate church
and state of a nation,

that guaranteed religious
liberty in these United States.

Religious freedom has always
been a fundamental human right,

but freedom does not
always come easily.

America's first freedom
was freedom of faith.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote,

"Almighty God hath
created the mind free.

"No man shall suffer on account

"of his religious
opinions or belief,

"but all men shall be free
to profess their opinions

"in matters of religion.

"Truth is great and will
prevail if left to herself."

(gentle patriotic music)

- [Man] First Freedom
was made possible

by the generous financial
support of the GFC Foundation,

The Annenberg Foundation,

the Larry H. Miller and Gail
Miller Family Foundation,

The Arthur Vining Davis
Foundations, dedicated to

strengthening America's
future through education,

The One Foundation,

Garfield and Margo Cook,

The Sorenson Legacy Foundation,

the Brent and Bonnie
Jean Beesley Foundation,

Bill and Roceil Low,

the Alan and Jeanne
Hall Foundation,

Bud and Dixie Stoddard, through
the Stoddard Foundation,

the George S. And Delores
Dore Eccles Foundation,

Jeanne and Wayne Quinton,

Glenn and Mary Potter,

and the Legacy Films Foundation.