Madison & Liberty

Today I was learnding about Herr Madison and his dedication to building and preserving a rational structure of liberty, anchored by a true freedom of religion -- taking it one step further than John Locke's toleration of religious choice. Thomas Paine wrote, "Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but it is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding Liberty of Conscience, and the other of granting it." Madison was a member of this critical club. He was guided in his studies @ The College of New Jersey (Princeton) by Dr. John Witherspoon, who earlier in his life studied with Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, and the great David Hume, so you know he was down for some serious talk on Reason >> "Common Sense Realism" they called it. That's some hardcore Scottish Enlightenment action right there! Anyway, all through his coming up young in Virginia government, Madison worked on protections of religious freedom. Then, as the stage moved to the new national level, he remained firm in keeping others like Patrick Henry at bay, while championing the concept of vigorous separation of church and state at every level of government. Jefferson arrived at similar understandings, although through an independently different path, and this was partially why they became fast friends. These guys consciously -- rigorously -- built our government with this distinction of separation in mind.