Yankee Doodle went to Washington,
Just to drum in circle!
We Are Those Yankee Doodles A-OK!!
This humorous ditty is a gentle parody of a song written by George M. Cohan from the Broadway musical play Little Johnny Jones which opened at the Liberty Theater on November 7, 1904.
There have often been annual Samhain drumming circles, held outside the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, which is located on the tidal basin [13 E Basin Dr SW, Washington, DC 20242. (202) 426-6841.]
Why were Neo-Pagans drumming at the Jefferson Memorial? Well, it is an Official National Park Service site and a nice public venue...
However aside from that, Thomas Jefferson--for all his human flaws--was a great suporter of religious freedom. Neo-Pagans drummed at the Jefferson Memorial to publically celebrate their Constitutionally protected religious freedom...
The following quote of Thomas Jefferson is one of my favorites:
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1782Jefferson felt that any form of governmental control of religion created tyranny. He thought that our civil rights as citizens ought to have no dependence on our religious opinions.
Jefferson took greatest pride in his authorship of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. Indeed this Statute for Religious Freedom was one of only three accomplishments that Jefferson instructed be put on his grave's epitaph.
This statute disestablished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including Catholics and Jews as well as members of all Protestant denominations. It was a notable precursor of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;What did Thomas Jefferson believe? Hard to define in some respects:That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our 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,
That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;
That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;
That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,
That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,
That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;
That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;
That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;
That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;
And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone. -- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, 11 January 1817It is clear that he rejected much of orthodox Christianity. In 1819, Jefferson wrote to Ezra Stiles Ely:
You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know. I am not a Jew, and therefore do not adopt their theology, which supposes the God of infinte justice to punish the sins of the fathers upon their children, unto the third and fourth generation; and the benevolent and sublime reformer of that religion has told us only that God is good and perfect, but has not defined them.-- Thomas Jefferson, June 25, 1819He wrote very contemptuously to John Adams of Calvin's teachings:
I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823He does seem to have believed in the existance of a Supreme Being and a Creator. This concept of the divine seems to have resembled that of the god of Deism. Deists at this time period used the term "Nature's God." Jefferson had a radical rejection of both Triniarianism as well as the miracles and divintiy of Jesus--who he refered to as a "reformer" rather than a "savior."
copyright 2015 Myth Woodling