tutes a bill of rights. It prevents not only the establishment of a particular church, as the exclusive state-religion, but it expressly guarantees at the same time to all the churches the full liberty of religion in its public exercise, and forbids Congress ever to abridge this liberty. Religious liberty is regarded as one of the fundamental and inalienable rights of an American citizen, and is associated with the liberty of speech and of the press, the right of peaceable assembly and of petition.

A large number of the most valuable provisions of the Magna Charta, which the clergy, the barons, and freemen of England wrung from the despotism of King John in 1215, and of the Bill of Rights, which was enacted against the despotism of the Stuarts in 1688, consist of the solemn recognitions of limitations upon the power of the Crown and the power of Parliament, such as the writ of habeas corpus, the right of trial by jury, the protection of life, liberty, and property from arbitrary spoliation, the right of. petition, the right to bear arms, freedom of commerce. Several of these provisions are literally inserted among the amendments to our Constitution. But it was left for America to abolish forever the tyranny of a state-religion, and to secure the most sacred of all rights and liberties to all her citizens-the liberty of religion and the free exercise thereof.

The United States furnishes the first example in history of a government deliberately depriving itself of all legislative control over religion, which was justly regarded by all older governments as the chief support of public morality, order, peace, and prosperity. But it was an act of wisdom and justice rather than self-denial. Congress was shut up to this course by the previous history of the American colonies and the actual condition of things at the time of the formation of the national government. The Constitution did not create a nation, nor its religion and institutions. It found. them already existing, and was framed for the purpose of protecting them under a republican form of government, in a rule of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Nearly all the branches of the Christian Church were then represented in America. New England was settled by Congregationalists; Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, by Episcopalians; New York, by Dutch Reformed, followed by Episcopalians; Rhode Island, by Baptists; Pennsylvania, by Quakers; Maryland, by Roman Catholics; while Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, German Reformed, French Huguenots, Moravians, Mennonites, etc., were scattered through several colonies. In some States there was an established church; in others the mixed system of toleration prevailed. The Baptists and Quakers, who were victims of persecution and nurslings of adversity, professed full religious freedom as an article of their creed. All colonies, with the effectual aid of the churches and clergy, had taken part in the achievement of national independence, and had an equal claim to the protection of their rights and institutions by the national government.

The framers of the Constitution, therefore, had no right and no intention to interfere with the religion of the citizens of any State, or to discriminate between denominations; their only just and wise course was to leave the subject of religion with the several States, to put all churches on an equal footing before the national law, and to secure to them equal protection. Liberty of all is the best guarantee of the liberty of each.

North America was predestined from the very beginning for the largest religious and civil freedom, however imperfectly it was understood by the first settlers. It offered a hos pitable home to emigrants of all nations and creeds. The great statesmen of the Philadelphia Convention recognized this providential destiny, and adapted the Constitution to it. They could not do otherwise. To assume the control of religion in any shape, except by way of protection, would have been an act of usurpation, and been stoutly resisted by all the States.

Thus Congress was led by Providence to establish a new system, which differed from that of Europe and the Colonies, and set an example to the several States for imitation.

CONVENTIONS AND THE

THE ACTION OF THE STATE

ORIGIN OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT.

The conventions of the several States, which were held in 1787 and 1788 for the ratification of the Federal Constitution, reflect the conflicting sentiments then entertained on the question of religious tests. At present nobody doubts the wisdom of that clause in the Constitution which removes such tests. "No provisions of the Constitution of the United States are more familiar to us," says a learned American historian,' " and more clearly express the universal sentiment of the American people, or are in more perfect harmony with the historic consciousness of the nation, than those which forbid the national government to establish any form of religion or to prescribe any religious test as a qualification for office held under its authority. Almost every other general principle of government embodied in that instrument has been discussed and argued about, and its application in particular cases resisted and questioned, until the intention of those who framed it seems lost in the Serbonian bog of controversy; yet no one has ever denied the rightfulness of the principle of religious liberty laid down in the Constitution."

But before the adoption of that instrument there was a wide difference of opinion on this, as well as on other articles. The exclusion of religious tests from qualification for public office under the general government was opposed in those States which required such tests, under the apprehension that without them the federal government might pass into the hands of Roman Catholics, Jews, and infidels. Even the Pope of Rome, said a delegate from North Carolina, might. become President of the United States! On the other hand, several States, while adopting the Constitution, proposed amendments guaranteeing religious freedom and other fundamental rights.

The opposition to the abolition of religious tests was strongest in Massachusetts, where Congregationalism was

1 Dr. Charles Stillé, "Religious Tests in Provincial Pennsylvania." A paper read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, November 9, 1885.

the established church. Major Lusk, a delegate to the. convention of that State, "shuddered at the idea that Romanists and pagans might be introduced into office, and that Popery and the Inquisition may be established in America." But the Rev. Mr. Backus, in answer to this objection, remarked: "Nothing is more evident, both in reason and the Holy Scriptures, than that religion is ever a matter between God and individuals; and, therefore, no man or men can impose any religious test without invading the essential prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ. Imposing of religious tests has been the greatest engine of tyranny in the world. . . . Some serious minds discover a concern lest if all religious tests should be excluded the Congress would hereafter establish Popery or some other tyrannical way of worship. But it is most certain that no such way of worship can be established without any religious tests." The same clergyman spoke strongly against slavery, which "grows more and more odious in the world," and expressed the hope that, though it was not struck with apoplexy by the proposed Constitution, it would die with consumption by the prohibition of the importation of slaves after a certain date (1808). The Rev. Mr. Shute was equally pronounced in his defence of the clause. "To establish a religious test," he said," as a qualification for offices would be attended with injurious consequences to some individuals, and with no advantage to the whole. Unprincipled

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and dishonest men will not hesitate to subscribe to any thing. Honest men alone, however well qualified to serve the public, would be excluded by the test, and their country be deprived of the benefit of their abilities. In this great and extensive empire there is, and will be, a great va riety of sentiments in religion among its inhabitants. . Whatever answer bigotry may suggest, the dictates of candor and equity will be: no religious tests. . . . I believe that there are worthy characters among men of every denomination-among Quakers, Baptists, the Church of England, 1 Elliot's "Debates," vol. II. 148. 2 Ibid., II. 148 sq. 3 Ibid., II. 118 sq.

the Papists, and even among those who have no other guide in the way of virtue and heaven than the dictates of natural religion. . . . The Apostle Peter tells us that God is no respecter of persons, but, in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him. And I know of no reason why men of such a character, in a community of whatever denomination in religion, cæteris paribus, with other suitable qualifications, should not be acceptable to the people, and why they may not be employed by them with safety and advantage in the important offices of government." The Rev. Mr. Payson spoke in the same strain, and insisted that "human tribunals for the consciences of men are impious encroachments upon the prerogatives of God." It is very evident that these Congregational ministers of the gospel represented the true American spirit in the convention, rather than Major Lusk and Colonel Jones, who favored religious tests. The Convention of Massachusetts ratified the Constitution, February 7, 1788, by a majority of 19 (187 to 168), with proposition of 9 alternatives and provisions which, however, do not include religious liberty, unless it be implied in the first proposition: "That it be explicitly understood that all powers not expressly delegated by the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to the several States to be by them exercised."

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In the Convention of North Carolina, held July, 1788, the same fear was expressed, that, without some religious tests, Jews, infidels, and Papists might get into offices of trust, but Mr. Iredell said, that " under the color of religious tests the utmost cruelties have been exercised," and that America has set an example "of moderation and general religious liberty. Happily no sect here is superior to another. As long as this is the case, we shall be free from those persecutions with which other countries have been torn." Among the twenty amendments proposed by North Carolina as a "declaration of rights," and put on record, the last is this, which literally agrees with one proposed by Virginia:

1 Ibid., ii. 120.