The Danbury Baptists' letter to 

Thomas Jefferson

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The address of the Danbury Baptists Association in the state of

Connecticut, assembled October 7, 1801. To Thomas Jefferson,

Esq., President of the United States of America. 

Sir,
 

 Among the many million in America and Europe who rejoice in your

election to office; we embrace the first opportunity which we

have enjoyed in our collective capacity, since your inauguration,

to express our great satisfaction, in your appointment to the

chief magistracy in the United States: And though our mode of

expression may be less courtly and pompous than what many others

clothe their addresses with, we beg you, sir, to believe that

none are more sincere. 

  Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious

liberty--that religion is at all times and places a matter

between God and individuals--that no man ought to suffer in name,

person, or effects on account of his religious opinions--that the

legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to

punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our

constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter

together with the law made coincident therewith, were adopted as

the basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and

such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that

religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and

therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of

the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable

rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such

degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of

freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those who seek

after power and gain under the pretense of government and

religion should reproach their fellow men--should reproach their

order magistrate, as a enemy of religion, law, and good order,

because he will not, dare not, assume the prerogatives of Jehovah

and make laws to govern the kingdom of Christ.

  Sir, we are sensible that the president of the United States is

not the national legislator, and also sensible that the national

government cannot destroy the laws of each state; but our hopes

are strong that the sentiments of our beloved president, which

have had such genial effect already, like the radiant beams of

the sun, will shine and prevail through all these states and all

the world, till hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the

earth. Sir, when we reflect on your past services, and see a glow

of philanthropy and good will shining forth in a course of more

than thirty years we have reason to believe that America's God

has raised you up to fill the chair of state out of that goodwill

which he bears to the millions which you preside over. May God

strengthen you for your arduous task which providence and the

voice of the people have called you to sustain and support you

enjoy administration against all the predetermined opposition of

those who wish to raise to wealth and importance on the poverty

and subjection of the people.

  And may the Lord preserve you safe from every evil and bring you

at last to his heavenly kingdom through Jesus Christ our Glorious

Mediator.

  Signed in behalf of the association,  Nehemiah Dodge

                                      Ephraim Robbins

                                      Stephen S. Nelson

Jefferson's Wall of Separation Letter

Thomas Jefferson was a man of deep religious conviction—his conviction was that religion was a very personal matter, one which the government had no business getting involved in. 

He was vilified by his political opponents for his role in the passage of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and for his criticism of such biblical events as the Great Flood and the theological age of the Earth. 

As president, he discontinued the practice started by his predecessors George Washington and John Adams of proclaiming days of fasting and thanksgiving. 

He was a staunch believer in the separation of church and state.

Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 to answer a letter from them written in October 1801. 

A copy of the Danbury letter is available here. 

The Danbury Baptists were a religious minority in Connecticut, and they complained that in their state, the religious liberties they enjoyed were not seen as immutable rights, but as privileges granted by the legislature—as "favors granted." 

Jefferson's reply did not address their concerns about problems with state establishment of religion—only of establishment on the national level. 

The letter contains the phrase "wall of separation between church and state," which led to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: "Separation of church and state."

The letter was the subject of intense scrutiny by Jefferson, and he consulted a couple of New England politicians to assure that his words would not offend while still conveying his message: it was not the place of the Congress or the Executive to do anything that might be misconstrued as the establishment of religion.

Note: The bracketed section in the second paragraph had been blocked off for deletion in the final draft of the letter sent to the Danbury Baptists, though it was not actually deleted in Jefferson's draft of the letter. 

It is included here for completeness. 

Reflecting upon his knowledge that the letter was far from a mere personal correspondence, Jefferson deleted the block, he noted in the margin, to avoid offending members of his party in the eastern states.

A year after Rana Plaza: What hasn’t changed since the Bangladesh factory collapse

By Jason Motlagh 

April 18, 2014--When I met Rajina Aktar in February of last year, her eyes were still red and her memory still fuzzy from the toxic smoke that had knocked her unconscious three weeks earlier.

The 15-year-old had been sewing pockets onto winter jackets when a fire broke out at Smart Export Garments, an illegal factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

Walking through the ruins, I saw what appeared to be handprints and scratch marks on the walls of the stairwell where eight workers were crushed to death as 350 people tried to push through a single locked exit.

Someone had managed to carry Aktar to safety.

In the dank basement room where she lived, she told me that with four relatives to support and no education, she expected to return to the assembly line as soon as she recovered.

“There is nothing else,” she said.

Fires in the factories of Bangladesh’s $20 billion garment export industry were occurring an average of two to three times a week then.

I wrote for The Washington Post that dangerous conditions weren’t likely to improve as long as major Western companies continued to send high-volume orders and consumers continued to demand the lowest possible prices.

Then came Rana Plaza.

When the eight-story building collapsed on April 24, the scale of suffering—more than 1,134 killed, 2,515 injured—seemed too great for even the most apathetic companies and governments to ignore.

Haunting imagery fueled protests around the world.

Parallels were drawn to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911, when the deaths of 146 garment workers in a New York City factory locked by its owners led to lasting safety reforms.

Indeed, a year later, Bangladesh’s garment industry has improved.

More than 150 mostly European companies have signed the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, while 26 companies, most of them American, including Wal-Mart, Sears and Gap, have joined a separate alliance that commits them to invest in safety upgrades (and limits their liability when things go wrong).

The factories they source from are gradually being upgraded, and monitoring is getting better.

Meanwhile, foreign government pressure, including the suspension of U.S. trade privileges for Bangladesh, helped lead to new labor laws that, at face value, protect workers by making it easier for them to organize.

Emboldened workers are now speaking out against bad conditions, walking out if necessary.

And their collective efforts have secured a minimum-wage increase that will provide some financial security.

But we’d be foolish to believe that the industry has thoroughly cleaned up its act or that it will continue to try to as Western concern flags.

Reports from independent factory inspections conducted late last year painted a worrisome picture.

Dangerously heavy storage loads sent cracks down walls and stressed sagging support beams.

In some cases, basic fire equipment was missing, and exit routes didn’t lead outside.

One of the best factories in the country—a client of Hugo Boss, Marks & Spencer and PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger—received multiple citations.

And those are the front-line factories.

The open secret in Bangladesh is that there’s a vast underworld of off-the-books operations that backstop the export industry.

Sandwiched inside apartment buildings, in basements and on rooftops, underpaid and overworked employees finish orders from larger companies under fierce pressure to stay apace with fast fashion.

Hidden from view, bosses are free to abuse workers and cut corners on safety.

One afternoon last September, I snuck inside a signless Dhaka factory to see for myself.

On a packed floor without windows, workers ironed T-shirts beneath droning fans and fluorescent lighting.

In the corner, a man affixed tags to pink children’s jumpsuits priced at 5 pounds sterling.

Though I had chosen the factory at random, the fire code violations were plenty.

Evacuation maps were covered with flyers, hoses were missing from their hinges, stacks of boxes and piles of synthetic fabric blocked exits.

It was not hard to imagine the worst.

A top garment producer admitted to me that unauthorized subcontracting remains standard practice across the industry.

With so many variables threatening to disrupt production—political violence, strikes, electrical breakdowns—he still farms out some work to meet deadlines.

“There will be subcontracting every day—you cannot stop it,” he told me in his posh headquarters, flanked by a wall of framed audit certificates commending his company.

“Officially, the brands will say ‘No more,’ that they are controlling it.

But unofficially, it will always happen, and they know it.”

The U.S. government is guilty of the same negligence.

While President Obama espouses workers’ rights, our military is sourcing clothing from sweatshops, according to a report from the International Labor Rights Forum.

Military retail stores known as exchanges purchase millions of dollars worth of apparel from Bangladesh each year without vetting supply chains.

Instead, they rely on companies with dubious track records to ensure safety compliance.

That is why clothing designs bearing the Marine Corps logo were found among the ashes at Tazreen Fashions, where 112 workers died in a fire in November 2012.

The Marines responded by mandating that all licensees sign the safety accord, but a legislative measure that would have required exchanges associated with the other branches of the military to do the same was stripped out of the defense spending bill last year.

******

Jason Motlagh is a writer, photographer and filmmaker. Reporting for this essay and for “The Ghosts of Rana Plaza,” featured in the spring issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review, was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.