1311. CLERGY, Public office and.—
In the scheme of constitution for Virginia
which I prepared in 1783, I observe an abridgment
of the right of being elected, which after
seventeen years more of experience and reflection,
I do not approve. It is the incapacitation
of a clergyman from being elected. The
clergy, by getting themselves established by
law, and ingrafted into the machine of government,
have been a very formidable engine
against the civil and religious rights of man.
They are still so in many countries, and even
in some of these United States. Even in 1783,
we doubted the stability of our recent measures
for reducing them to the footing of
other useful callings. It now appears that
our means were effectual. The clergy there
seem to have relinquished all pretension to
privilege, and to stand on a footing with lawyers,
physicians, &c. They ought, therefore,
to possess the same rights.—
To Jeremiah Moor.
Ford ed., vii, 454.
(M.
Aug. 1800)
