Liberty Letters, Thomas Jefferson
Almighty God hath created the mind free, and … all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments … tend only to begat habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone.
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Source: Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s draft of his Article of Religious Freedom.
