Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 70.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

9 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

tax,  Madison  warned,  the  bill  threatened  to  “destroy  that
moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws 
to intermeddle with Religion, has produced among its sev-
eral sects.”  Id., at 69. 

The  opposition  galvanized  by  Madison’s  Remonstrance 
not only scuttled the Assessment Bill; it spurred Virginia’s
Assembly to enact a very different law, the Bill for Religious
Liberty drafted by Thomas Jefferson.  See Brant, Madison: 
On  the  Separation  of  Church  and  State,  8  Wm.  &  Mary
Q.  3,  11  (1951);  Drakeman,  Religion  and  the  Republic:
James Madison and the First Amendment, 25 J. Church & 
St. 427, 436 (1983); Everson, 330 U. S., at 12. 

Like  the  Remonstrance,  Jefferson’s  bill  emphasized  the
risk to religious liberty that state-supported religious indoc-
trination threatened.  “[T]o compel a man to furnish contri-
butions of money for the propagation of opinions which he 
disbelieves,” the preamble declared, “is sinful and tyranni-
cal.”  A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779), in 2
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 545 (J. Boyd ed. 1950).  The 
statute  accordingly  provided  “that  no  man  shall  be  com-
pelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, 
or ministry whatsoever.”  Id., at 546.  Similar proscriptions
were  included  in  the  early  constitutions  of  many  States.
See Locke, 540 U. S., at 723 (collecting examples). 

I see no meaningful difference between the concerns that 
Madison and Jefferson raised and the concerns inevitably 
raised  by  taxpayer  support  for  scholarships  to  religious 
schools.  In both instances state funds are sought for those 
who would “instruc[t] such citizens, as from their circum-
stances  and  want  of  education,  cannot  otherwise  attain 
such knowledge” in the tenets of religious faith.  A Bill Es-
tablishing  a  Provision  for  Teachers  of  the  Christian  Reli-
gion, reprinted in Everson, 330 U. S., at 72.  In both cases, 
that would compel taxpayers “to support the propagation of 
opinions” on matters of religion with which they may disa-
gree,  by  teachers  whom  they  have  not  chosen.  A  Bill  for