Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Dissenters in Virginia: Unlikely Allies for Religious Freedom

This book follows the campaign to disestablish religion in Virginia from 1776 to 1786, when Thomas Jefferson’s bill to establish religious freedom was passed. This volume seeks to tell the story of Jefferson and James Madison’s collaboration with Virginia’s religious dissenters; in doing so, Neill works to understand why religion was disestablished in Virginia. Neill argues that despite their religious differences these unlikely allies shared a basic understanding of what religious freedom meant and how best to secure it: by severing the ties between church and state.

Debra Neill is a lecturer at the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus, USA. She received her PhD in History from Arizona State University and has published in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography and Journal of Southern History.