Rev. Matthias Burnet (1803)

“Finally, ye… whose high prerogative it is to…invest in office and authority or to withhold them and in whose power it is to save or destroy your country, consider well the important trust…which God…[has] put into your hands. To God and posterity you are accountable for them…Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you.”

Rev. Matthias Burnet

Thomas Jefferson (Clergyman)

“I observe in…[ the Virginia] Constitution an abridgment of a right…I do not approve. It is the incapacitation of a clergyman from being elected.”

Thomas Jefferson (Founding Father/Constitution)

Basically what this is saying, is that the people of Virginia at the time were putting together their own Constitution they were trying to keep deeply devoted religious people from being elected to positions in government. This straight contradicted what Thomas Jefferson believed about “Separation of Church and State”, he believed as explained to the Danbury Baptist members that the State had no right to invade your church. Which is now perverted by our current government to the exact opposite of its original intent. Americans had just left Europe where the government ran the church and after the Revolution the people were concerned that they might be susceptible to another invasion of their religious rights, and as you can see Thomas Jefferson seen that this is exactly what these politicians were trying to do with not wanting to let a pastor or preacher be elected to a governmental position.