Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

So said Jefferson.

Of course, Jefferson owned many slaves over his lifetime.

Some find it baffling that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves yet was outspoken in saying that slavery was immoral and it should be abolished. Biographers point out that Jefferson was deeply in debt and had encumbered his slaves by notes and mortgages; he chose not to free them until he finally was debt-free, which he never was. Jefferson seems to have suffered pangs and trials of conscience as a result. He wrote about slavery, "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."

So the "evidence" referred to in his quotation is perhaps unclear; or maybe Jefferson, like every other human was tainted by sin.

“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall”