Re: From The Dodge Family Website:


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Posted by MoparNorm on Thursday, January 05, 2006 at 5:24PM :

In Reply to: From The Dodge Brothers Club Website: posted by MoparNorm on Thursday, January 05, 2006 at 5:07PM :

I had once tried to prove that the Dodge Brothers were jews, because there is so much misinformation about them on the web. I stubbled across this article from the Dodge Family Website, the same site that lists John and Horace Dodge as members of this English Family, it is long and boring, but excerpted here is a letter to Preisdent Jefferson from one of John and Horaces' ancestors, a Baptist Minister. That fact alone pretty much puts to rest the Hebrew Tale (I wish it had been true thast they were Jews because it makes good drama!)
A Letter to Jefferson

by William S. Dodge

Two hundred years ago, on January 1, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter observing that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had built "a wall of separation between Church and State." In the 1947 case Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court quoted Jefferson's phrase as expressing the intent of the Establishment Clause, and the "wall of separation" metaphor has been an important part of constitutional law ever since.

Jefferson's letter was addressed to Nehemiah Dodge (Tristram, Israel, John, John), Ephraim Robbins and Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in response to a letter they had sent him in October. The handwriting of this letter matches a later letter from Dodge to Jefferson, so it appears that Dodge drafted the Danbury Baptist's letter. He wrote, in part:

"Our Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty - That religion is at all times and places a matter between God and Individuals - That no man ought to suffer in Name, person or effects on account of his religious Opinions - That the legitimate Power of Civil Government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But, Sir our constitution of government is not specific. Our infant charter, together with the Laws made coincident therewith, were adopted as the Basis of our government at the time of our revolution; and such had been our Laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of Legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favor granted, and not as inalienable rights: And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those, who seek after power and gain under the pretence of government and Religion should reproach their fellow man - should Reproach their Chief Magistrate, as an enemy of Religion, Law and good order because he will not, dare not assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make Laws to govern the kingdom of Christ."

Jefferson wrote in reply: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

"The constitution of government" about which Dodge complained was Connecticut's. That state had long taxed its citizens to support the Congregational Church. Although the certificate act of 1791 allowed Baptists and other dissenters to avoid such taxes by certifying that they attended another church, dissenters who failed to file certificates continued to be taxed and were sometimes imprisoned for failing to pay taxes. From 1800 to 1807, the Baptists petitioned Connecticut's Federalist legislature repeatedly but unsuccessfully, seeking disestablishment of the Congregational Church. Disestablishment came only in 1818, after the Republican Party gained power in Connecticut and the state adopted a new constitution.

Dodge was a Baptist minister, who preached in Hampton, Southington, Berlin, Middletown, and Lebanon, before moving to New London, and was a strong proponent of disestablishment. He was active in the petition movement, but also became a supporter of Jefferson's Republican Party earlier than most Baptists. He spoke at Republican Fourth of July celebrations in 1801 and 1802 and delivered a sermon on church and state in 1805 to celebrate Jefferson's reelection. See 2 William G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630-1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State 1006-08, 1017-18 (1971). Professor McLoughlin describes Dodge as a "liberal Baptist . . . evangelical in temper, but far more liberal theologically than the average Baptist." Id. at 1024.



MN



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