University of Virginia Library

Thomas Jefferson to Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough

In answer to your letter proposing to permit the lecturing room of the Pavilion No. 1. to be
used regularly for prayers and preachings on Sundays, I have to observe that some 3. or 4.
years ago, an application was made to permit a sermon to be preached in one of the
pavilions on a particular occasion, not now recollected, it brought the subject into
consideration with the Visitors, and altho' they entered into no formal and written resolution
on the occasion, the concurrent sentiment was that the buildings of the University belong to
the state that they were erected for the purposes of an University, and that the Visitors, to
whose care they are committed for those purposes have no right to permit their application
to any other. and accordingly, when applied to, on the visit of General Lafayette, I declined
at first the request of the use of the Rotunda for his entertainment, until it occurred on
reflection that the room, in the unfinished state in which it then was, was as open and
uninclosed, and as insusceptible of injury, as the field in which it stood. In the Rockfish
report it was stated as probable that a building larger than the Pavilions might be called for
in time, in which might be rooms for a library, for public examinations, and for religious
worship under such impartial regulations as the Visitors should prescribe, the legislature
neither sanctioned nor rejected this proposition; and afterwards, in the Report of Oct 1822.
the board suggested, as a substitute, that the different religious sects should be invited to
establish their separate theological schools in the vicinity of the University, in which the
Students might attend religious worship, each in the form of his respective sect, and thus
avoid all jealousy of attempts on his religious tenets. among the enactments of the board is
one looking to this object, and superseding the first idea of permitting a room in the Rotunda
to be used for religious worship, and of undertaking to frame a set of regulations of equality
and impartiality among the multiplied sects. I state these things as manifesting the caution
which the board of Visitors thinks it a duty to observe on this delicate and jealous subject.
your proposition therefore leading to an application of the University buildings to other than
University purposes, and to a partial regulation in favor of two particular sects, would be a
deviation from the course which they think it their duty to observe. nor indeed is it
immediately percieved what effect the repeated and habitual assemblages of a great number
of strangers at the University might have on it's order and tranquility.

All this however in the present case is the less important, inasmuch as it is not farther for the
inhabitants of the University to go to Charlottesville for religious worship, than for those of
Charlottesville to come to the University. that place has been in long possession of the seat
of public worship, a right always deemed strongest until a better can be produced. there too
they are building, or about to build, proper churches and meeting houses, much better
adapted to the accomodation of a congregation than a scanty lecturing room. are these to be
abandoned, and the private room to be preferred? if not, then the congregations, already too
small, would by your proposition be split into halves incompetent to the employment and
support of a double set of officiating ministers. each of course would break up the other, and
both fall to the ground. I think therefore that, independant of our declining to sanction this
application, it will not, on further reflexion, be thought as advantageous to religious interests
as their joint assembly at a single place. with these considerations, be pleased to accept the
assurance of my great esteem and respect.

Th: Jefferson

ALS, ViU:PP, 2p [2173] with address "Mr. A. S. Brockenbrough Proctor of the University
of Va." and ASB docket "T.J. Apr 21. 25 respg preaching in the Pavilion No 7"; ADftS,
DLC:TJ. ASB calculated three columns of figures on the coversheet.

In mid-June Brockenbrough drafted a reply to this letter on the verso of TJ's letter to him of
13 June: "With your permission I will publish in the Cent Gaz: your letter of the 21 April
last seting forth your objections to permiting the lecture rooms of the Pav: to be used for
prayer & reading on sundays your objections I have no doubt are perfectly satisfactory to all
but the Bigoted part of the community and to correct any false statements that they may
make, I wish it to go to the public." On 20 June Jefferson commended Brockenbrough for
not publishing Jefferson's letter.