Founding Issues
Conscience

  1. "Internal judgment of right and wrong; the principle within us that decides on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of our own actions and instantly approves or condemns them. Conscience is first occupied in ascertaining our duty before we proceed to action, then in judging of our actions when performed. Conscience is called by some writers the moral sense. Example: Being convicted by their own conscience, they went out one by one. John 8. 30 ." - United States Founding Father, Noah Webster, Dictionary (1828), s. v. "conscience."

  2. "Consciences of men are not the objects of human legislation." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the U.S. Constitution, Governor, William Livingston, B. F. Morris, "Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic", (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864) pp. 162-163

  3. "Security under our constitution is given to the rights of conscience." - United States Founding Father, an author of the Federalist Papers, original Chief Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, and President of the American Bible Society, John Jay, B. F. Morris, "Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, Developed in the Official and Historical Annals of the Republic", (Philadelphia: George W. Childs, 1864), p. 152

  4. "No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Third U. S. President under the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D.C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XVI, p. 332, letter to the Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church at New London, CT, February 4, 1809.

  5. "[O]ur rulers can have no authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Third U. S. President under the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1794), Query XVII, p. 213.

  6. "A right to take the side which every man¡¯s conscience approves . . . is too precious a right ¨C and too favorable to the preservation of liberty ¨C not to be protected." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Third U. S. President under the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Julian P. Boyd, editor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), Vol. VIII, p. 260, letter to Katherine Sprowle Douglas, July 5, 1785.

  7. "It is inconsistent with the spirit of our laws and Constitution to force tender consciences." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Third U. S. President under the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, Papers (1951), Vol. IV, p. 404, ¡°Proclamation Concerning Paroles,¡± January 19, 1781.

  8. "Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . . [and] conscience is the most sacred of all property." - United States Founding Father, Signer of the Constitution, a framer of the Bill of Rights, U. S. President under the Constitution, James Madison, James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam¡¯s Sons, 1906), Vol. VI, p. 102, ¡°Property,¡± from the National Gazette, March 29, 1792.

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