Thomas Jefferson was a towering figure among America’s founding generation, serving as the nation’s third president from 1801–1809. Influenced by Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke, Jefferson was a fierce advocate of religious freedom. Indeed, he authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1777, which later served as a model for the First Amendment. Religious freedom in America enabled religious diversity to flourish, heavily influencing the way people used and encountered the Bible. Jefferson reflected on religious freedom in this letter, which he wrote at the end of his presidency, to a Methodist church in Connecticut. He wrote, “No provision in our constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority . . . I trust that the whole course of my life has proved me a sincere friend to religious, as well as civil liberty.”