“Of this General
Assembly, the treasurer, attorney general, register, ministers of the gospel, officers of the regular armies of this
State, or of the United States, persons receiving salaries or emoluments from
any power foreign to our confederacy, those who are not resident in the county
for which they are chosen delegates, or districts for which they are chosen
senators, those who are not qualified as electors, persons who shall have
committed treason, felony, or such other crime as would subject them to infamous
punishment, or shall have been convicted by due course of law of bribery or
corruption, in endeavoring to procure an election to the said assembly, shall be incapable of being members.
All others, not herein elsewhere excluded, who may elect, shall be capable of
being elected thereto.”
Thomas
Jefferson - Proposed Constitution for Virginia. From The Online Library of Liberty: The Jeffersonian
Cyclopedia, page 493, #4604.
.........
BILL FOR ESTABLISHING ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
In the 6th and 7th lines of the first
section, the following words, “and not being ministers of the gospel of any
denomination.”
The note of the same section of these words, “Ministers of the Gospel are excluded to
avoid jealousy from the other sects, were the public education committed to the
ministers of a particular one; and with
more reason than in the case of their exclusion from the legislative and
executive functions.”
Thomas
Jefferson - Note to Elementary School Act, 1817. Making of America
Collection pages 96
& 97.