Establishing Religious Freedom

Establishing Religious Freedom offers wise lessons about the relationship between past and present and about the writing of history to illuminate the past versus the writing of history to guide the present....Buckley's book is essential reading for all who wish to deepen their understanding of a host of subjects, in particular the complex struggle to order the world of law and religion with words.

-- "Virginia Magazine"

A brilliant book--Buckley's most wide-ranging work to date on church and state in Virginia. Establishing Religious Freedom deepens and adds texture to a story that others have overlooked or oversimplified. Buckley's book will immediately become the go-to source in the field.

--Sarah Barringer Gordon, University of Pennsylvania, author of The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America

Buckley has left almost no stone unturned; Establishing Religious Freedom is a comprehensive and impressive account of one episode in the long and contentious history of religious liberty in America.

--Andrew R. Murphy, Rutgers University

Buckley wonderfully traces the political and legal struggles over a variety of critical questions and these elite and state-level battles are well narrated and explored... Establishing Religious Freedom is that wonderful historical work that calls readers to think about seemingly settled issues in new, contingent, and complex ways.

--Roy Rogers, Early Americanists

Given that so much has been written about the Virginia statute, it is truly remarkable that Buckley has revealed so much for the first time. Establishing Religious Freedom: Jefferson's Statute in Virginia is well written, accessible, and well worth the forty-year wait.

-- "Journal of Southern History"

Thomas Buckley has provided in this book--by far--the deepest and most comprehensive analysis of what many believe is the political and religious foundation of the First Amendment. His careful attention to primary sources, his fluid writing style, and his rare ability to derive his interpretation from the facts themselves are all brought to bear on this fascinating story of how Virginians wrestled with Jefferson's now-iconic statute over the course of more than a century. This is new, important, and really interesting.

--Donald Drakeman, author of Church, State, and Original Intent