Newnan Attorney| Essay Honoring Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson's deliberation of what to put on his tombstone wound up being: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia." The curious part of what was important to him to be remembered for and is lost in our modern world was that he was proud of writing the first statute separating the State from the church, creating in essence "religious freedom". At the time he wrote the statute [law] Virginia had but one church and there was a tax levied to support it! Imagine that today ~ you could only be a member of the Anglican Church for instance and the State levied a tax every year that was in turn paid to the church. WOW have we come a long way and forgotten the trail that led us here.