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John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 1825

Near the end of his life, John Adams tells Thomas Jefferson that laws against religious doubt still punish blasphemy across the Christian world, and argues they should be repealed.

Quincy 23rd January 1825.

My dear Sir.

We think ourselves possessed or at least we boast that we are so of Liberty of conscience on all subjects and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment, in all crises and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact. There exists I believe throughout the whole Christian world a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or to doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the old and new Testaments from Genesis to Revelations.

In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel in England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red hot poker in America it is not much better, even in our Massachusett which I believe upon the whole is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States A law was made in the latter end of the last-century repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the old Testament or new Now what free inquiry when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigation into the divine authority of those books?

Who would run the risk of translating Volney's Recherches Nouvelles? who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? but I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarassment. great obstruction to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them; but as long as they continue in force as laws the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed.

The substance and essence of Christianity as I understand it is eternal and unchangeable and will bear examination forever but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients which I think will not bear examination and they ought to be separated

Adieu John Adams

Why this letter

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were the second and third presidents of the United States, once close allies, then bitter political rivals, and by the 1820s reconciled correspondents in old age, each with only a year or so left to live. Their letters from this period range widely over religion, politics, and the meaning of the Revolution they had lived through. Here, at eighty-nine, Adams argues that laws punishing blasphemy and religious doubt, still on the books across Europe and even in his own Massachusetts, obstruct the free inquiry both men valued, and that they ought to be repealed.

Provenance

Author
John Adams (1735–1826)
To
Thomas Jefferson
Written
23 January 1825, Quincy
Source
To Thomas Jefferson from John Adams, 23 January 1825, Founders Online, National Archives (The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series)
Rights
Public domain — John Adams died in 1826; the text follows the transcription in Founders Online, National Archives, a U.S. federal government project.
Formatting
Paragraph breaks added for readability; the wording is unchanged.

Printed in Founders Online, National Archives (The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series), from the manuscript held by the Library of Congress (Papers of Thomas Jefferson).

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