1John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams 2d, 1 – 8 August 1785 (Adams Papers)
...I hear nothing else: so that I am obliged bongré, malgré, as the french say, still to dip a little in that subject: but I don’t care how soon, I leave it off entirely. Mr. Church goes on Thursday.
Nonetheless, disestablishment was an accomplished fact, a social symptom of declining interest in organized Christianity. Church-going in Virginia had long been on the decline as communicants found more reasons for attending Sunday horse races or cock fights than for being in pews. In 1784 a foreign traveler in Richmond noted that the village had only...