THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN THE UNITED STATES.
The Constitution of the United States has these provisions:
“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”—Art. VI.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”—First Amendment.
It is thus the case that, as originally framed, the Constitution simply provided that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” but did not, in terms, prohibit Congress from erecting a state religion or interfering with the free exercise of religion otherwise than as regards office. The First Amendment was therefore adopted, in order that, as amended, the Constitution should forbid Congress from intermeddling in any way whatever with religious matters; and it has hence passed into the general understanding that the government of the United States has no religious character or powers whatsoever, but is purely a secular organization, contrived and devised for purely secular ends. As stated in the eleventh article of the treaty of Jan. 3, 1797, between the United States and Tripoli, “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” (Rev. Stats. U. S., “Treaties,” p. 756).
It being thus the case that religious liberty, as we now understand it, did not spring full-orbed and complete into existence in the United States, it may be of interest to trace the stages of its development. The provision that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” owes its immediate origin to the representations of the conventions of a number of the States upon adopting the Constitution of the United States (1 Stats. 97), such States being New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia (4
Journ. Cong., 1782-8, App. pp. 52, 53, 55). Back of these representations lay a first cause which can only be understood by a reference to the condition of the colonies at the outbreak of the Revolution. From A View of the Constitution of the British Colonies in North America and the West Indies, at the time the Civil War broke out on the Continent of America—a work published in London in 1783 by Anthony Stokes (a loyalist Welshman, who, as a barrister in the British West Indies from 1762 to 1769, and the royal Chief-Justice of Georgia from 1769 to 1783, had peculiar opportunities of becoming conversant with his topic)—we learn that the Church of England was established by law in most of the colonies in 1776. The View says: “The clergy in America do not receive tithes, but in most of the colonies before the civil war (except the New England provinces, where the Independents had the upper hand) an Act of Assembly was made to divide the colony into parishes, and to establish religious worship therein according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England; and also to raise a yearly salary for the support of each parochial minister” (p. 199). With the exception of South Carolina, our author does not specify by name the colonies in which this system obtained, but from other sources we have that information. The charter of New Hampshire provided “that liberty of conscience shall be allowed to all Protestants, and that such especially as shall be conformable to the rites of the Church of England shall be particularly countenanced and encouraged,” which substantial establishment existed in that colony up to the Revolution
(Town of Pawlet v. Clark, 9 Cr. 292). The first constitution of New York, that of April 20, 1777, recognizes a like establishment by providing for the abrogation of “all such parts of the common and statute law, and acts of Assembly, as establish any denomination of Christians or their ministers.” Dr. David Ramsay, the contemporary historian of the Revolution, says: “In Connecticut all persons were obliged to contribute to the support of the church as well as the commonwealth.… The Congregational churches were adopted and established by law” (1 Hist. U. S., p. 150); also: “The Church of England was incorporated simultaneously with the first settlement of Virginia, and in the lapse of time it also became the established religion of Maryland. In both these provinces, long before the American Revolution, that church possessed a legal pre-eminence, and was maintained at the expense not only of its own members but of all other denominations” (id. p. 220). As to the establishment of the Church of England in Virginia, see also Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cr. 43. From art. 34 of the first constitution of North Carolina, that of Dec. 18, 1776, which inhibits taxation “for the purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry,” it is inferrible that a like establishment existed in that colony. In South Carolina Chief-Justice Stokes mentions the Church of England as established by law (View, p. 199), and the constitution of that State of March 19, 1778, secured “the churches, chapels, parsonages, glebes, and all other property now belonging to any societies of the Church of England, or any
other religious societies” (art. 38). In Georgia the Church of England was established by colonial statute of March 15, 1758 (Watkins’ Dig. 52). In Massachusetts a colonial statute of 1716 established a compulsory religious establishment which remained up to the framing of the State constitution in 1780, the Assembly providing all towns declining to do so for themselves with “a minister qualified as by law is provided”—namely, “an able, learned, orthodox minister, of good conversation”—and imposing taxes for his support (Chalmers’ Colonial Opinions, p. 49; I Ramsay, Hist. U. S., p. 150).
From the foregoing it will be gathered that at the outbreak of the American Revolution some form of church establishment ordained by law was familiar to the people of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. “In Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey there never was any established religion” (I Ramsay, Hist. U. S., p. 232). One of the incidents of the religious establishments in the colonies where they existed was that the clergy thereunder were governmental appointees. In Massachusetts, under the act of 1716, the Assembly settled ministers in the unprovided towns; in Maryland the proprietary had the advowsons (Chalm. Col. Op., 42); and in the provincial establishments or king’s governments, as New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, the royal governor had the right of collation or appointment (Stokes’ View, p. 199). Another incident was the church rates or taxes, above referred to.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, then, two-thirds of the colonies were face to face with a religion established or favored by law; with a clergy appointed by government; and a general taxation to uphold one and maintain the other. The dissatisfaction thus engendered is best evidenced by the care which the people of the colonies, then States, took, in framing their constitutions, to forbid the continuance of such a system where it then existed, or to prevent its adoption where it was not as yet known.
The New Jersey constitution of July 2, 1776, provided “that there shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this province in preference to another” (art. 19); “nor shall any person within this colony ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates for the purposes of building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right or has deliberately and voluntarily engaged himself to perform” (art. 18); and so sacred were these provisions deemed that an oath was prescribed for all members of the legislature, engaging them never to assent to any law, vote, or proceeding to annul, repeal, or alter any part or parts thereof (art. 23).
The Virginia constitution of July 5, 1776, declares “that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force and violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian
forbearance, love, and charity toward each other” (art. 16); and while this does not in terms equal the New Jersey provisions ante, the Supreme Court of the United States has construed it as equipollent, saying in Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cr. 43: “Consistent with the constitution of Virginia, the legislature could not create or continue a religious establishment which should have exclusive rights and prerogatives, or compel the citizens to worship under a stipulated form or discipline, or to pay taxes to those whose creed they could not conscientiously believe.”
The constitution of Delaware of Sept. 20, 1776, provides: “No man shall, or ought to, be compelled to attend any religious worship, to contribute to the erection or support of any place of worship, or to the maintenance of any ministry, against his free-will and consent.… Nor shall a preference be given by law to any religious societies, denomination, or modes of worship” (art. 1, § 1).
The North Carolina constitution of Dec. 18, 1776, provides “that there shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination in this State in preference to any other; neither shall any person, on any pretence whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith or judgment, nor be obliged to pay for the purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes right or has voluntarily and personally engaged to perform” (art. 34).
The Georgia constitution of Feb. 5, 1777, says: “All persons whatever shall have the free exercise of their religion, provided it be not
repugnant to the peace and safety of the State; and shall not, unless by consent, support any teacher or teachers, except those of their own profession” (art. 56).
The New York constitution of April 20, 1777, abrogates “all such parts of the common and statute law, and acts of Assembly, as establish any denomination of Christians or their ministers.”
The early constitutions of Maryland, South Carolina, and Massachusetts enunciated substantially the same principles as the other organic laws above set forth, but did not entirely destroy the connection of church and state. The Maryland constitution of Aug. 14, 1776, says: “Nor ought any person to be compelled to frequent, or maintain, or contribute, unless on contract, to maintain any particular place of worship or any particular ministry: (yet the legislature may, in their discretion, lay a general and equal tax for the support of the Christian religion; leaving to each individual the power of appointing the payment over of the money collected from him to the support of any particular place of worship, or minister, or for the poor of his own denomination, or the poor in general of any particular county).”
The South Carolina constitution of March 19, 1778, says: “No person shall by law be obliged to pay towards the maintenance and support of a religious worship that he does not freely join in or has not voluntarily engaged to support” (art. 38), but in the same article ordains that “the Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State,” extending this description
to “all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State.”
The Massachusetts constitution of March 2, 1780, says: “No subordination of any sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law” (part i. art. 3), but allowed taxation to support “public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily” (id.), with this qualification, however: that “all moneys paid by the subject to the support of public worship and of the public teachers aforesaid shall, if he require it, be uniformly applied to the support of the public teacher or teachers of his own religious sect or denomination, provided there be any, on whose instruction he attends; otherwise it may be paid towards the support of the teacher or teachers of the parish or precinct in which the said moneys are raised” (id.)
If we state correctly—as we have not those documents by us—the New Hampshire constitution of June 2, 1784, provided that “no person of any one particular religious sect or denomination shall ever be compelled to pay towards the support of the teacher or teachers of another persuasion, sect, or denomination, … and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law” (part i. art. 6), but that, subject to these provisions, the legislature might authorize local taxation to support “public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality” (id.); and the Pennsylvania constitution of Sept. 28, 1776, provided “that no man can, of right, be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship or to maintain any ministry against
his consent, … and that no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship.” In Connecticut and Rhode Island the royal charter continued the fundamental law until 1818 in the former and 1842 in the latter State; but, lest it may be thought that in these States no opposition to an established church was manifested, it is proper to remark that, upon ratifying the Constitution of the United States, the Rhode Island Convention suggested as a highly desirable amendment “that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others” (1 Elliot Deb. 334); and in the Connecticut Convention Oliver Wolcott, in urging the ratification of that instrument, refers to an inclination in that assemblage to favor a like amendment, and says: “Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous to have added a clause which secures us from the possibility of such oppression” (2 Elliot Deb. 202).
We may thus say that, upon becoming States, the American colonies declared with one voice that no religious establishment should possess a legal pre-eminence in their several jurisdictions. In the Federal Convention Charles Pinckney proposed to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States that “the legislature of the United States shall pass no law on
the subject of religion” (Journ., May 29), and thus apply to the general government the rule previously adopted by the States, which proposition failed. Mr. Pinckney then submitted this proposition: “No religious test or qualification shall ever be annexed to any oath of office under the authority of the United States” (Journ., Aug. 20), which was unanimously adopted (Journ., Aug. 30), Mr. Madison giving us this much of the debate: “Mr. Pinckney moved to add: ‘But no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the authority of the United States.’ Mr. Sherman thought it unnecessary, the prevailing liberality being a sufficient security against such tests. Mr. Gouverneur Morris and Gen. Pinckney approved the motion. The motion was agreed to, nem. con.” (5 Elliot Deb. 498). Upon the final revision the words “the authority of” were struck out (Journ., Sept. 12). When the Constitution was submitted for ratification, considerable uneasiness was manifested at the failure of Mr. Pinckney’s resolution that “the legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion,” and upon ratifying the instrument the New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia Conventions urged the adoption of an amendment to that effect. The North Carolina Convention, while declining to ratify at its first session, assigned the same emendation as desirable, as did also the Rhode Island Convention upon ratifying; though, as the First Amendment had then been proposed by Congress and was before the people, the action of Rhode Island was not one of the causes leading to its submission.
The New Hampshire Convention recommended this amendment: “That Congress shall make no laws touching religion or to infringe the rights of conscience” (4 Journ. Cong., 1782-8, App. p. 52). The New York Convention: “That no religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others” (id. p. 55). The Virginia (id. p. 53), North Carolina (id. p. 60), and Rhode Island (1 Elliot Deb. 334) Conventions severally proposed “that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others.” In the Maryland Convention it was suggested as a desirable amendment “that there be no national religion established by law”; but, that body concluding to ratify the Constitution without proposing amendments at that time, no final action was had on the proposition (2 Elliot Deb. p. 553); and thereupon the change was made.
Thus it became a part of the Constitution of the United States that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” In many, perhaps we may say most, other particulars the Constitution was, when framed, an experiment, but in this the fathers of the republic had the lamp of experience to illuminate their path. While a myth to us, an established church had been a substantial reality to them, and their verdict thereupon was, that upon every ground of justice, interest, and harmony no religious sect or society ought ever to be favored or established by law in preference to others in these United States.
The second clause of the First Amendment, that Congress shall
make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, is substantially included in the other provisions cited at the opening of this paper, and need not be here specifically considered. It is a casus omissus provision which speaks for itself. The provision that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” opens, however, another field of inquiry.
At the outbreak of the American Revolution the colonists were deeply imbued with the intolerant spirit of their English ancestors as respects Roman Catholics, infidels, and Jews, and naturally impressed those feelings on their earlier governmental declarations and institutions. As the struggle progressed this aversion wore away, and on the final settlement of the present American system of polity we find the fathers of the republic formally renouncing their original prepossessions in favor of religious tests. So far as regards Jews and infidels, the citations now to be given will need no special comment; but as respects Roman Catholics, it is proper to premise that the ancestral antipathy of the colonists to those of that faith had been particularly sharpened by the old French war, closing by the peace of 1763.
In 1705 the following questions were propounded to the Attorney-General Northey: “Whether the laws of England against Romish priests are in force in the plantations, and whether her majesty may not direct Jesuits or Romish priests to be turned out of Maryland?” In reply he first takes up 27 Eliz., c. 2, making it high treason for any British-born Romish priest to come into, be, or remain in any part of the royal dominions, and says: “It
is plain that law extended to all the dominions the queen had when it was made; but some doubt hath been made whether it extendeth to dominions acquired after, as the plantations have been.” He next considers II William III., c. 4, subjecting any popish bishop or priest who shall exercise any ecclesiastical function in any part of the British dominions to perpetual imprisonment, and says: “I am of opinion this law extends to the plantations, they being dominions belonging to the realm of England, and extends to all priests, foreigners as well as natives.” Lastly, he says: “As to the question whether her majesty may not direct Jesuits or Romish priests to be turned out of Maryland, I am of opinion, if the Jesuits or priests be aliens, not made denizens or naturalized, her majesty may, by law, compel them to depart Maryland; if they be her majesty’s natural-born subjects, they cannot be banished from her majesty’s dominions, but may be proceeded against on the last before-mentioned law” (Chalm. Col. Op., 42). And that this was the accepted state of the crown law as late as May 29, 1775, appears from an address of that date of the American Congress to the inhabitants of Canada, wherein they are asked to make common cause with the other colonies, and told: “The enjoyment of your very religion on the present system depends on a legislature in which you have no share and over which you have no control, and your priests are exposed to expulsion, banishment, and ruin whenever their wealth and possessions furnish sufficient temptation” (1 Journ. Cong., p. 75, Way & Gideon ed., Washington, 1823). It was also the case that a number of the royal
charters under which the colonists had been accustomed to live denied religious liberty to Roman Catholics. The charter of New Hampshire provided “that liberty of conscience shall be allowed to all Protestants” (Town of Pawlet v. Clark, 9 Cr. 292); that of Massachusetts read: “For the greater ease and encouragement of our living subjects, inhabiting our said province or territory of Massachusetts Bay, and of such as shall come to inhabit there, we do, by these presents, for us, our heirs and successors, grant, establish, and ordain that for ever hereafter there shall be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians (except papists) inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, our said province or territory” (Chalm. Col. Op., 48). The charter of Georgia, as of force up to 1752, ordains: “There shall be a liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all persons inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, our said province, and that all such persons, except papists, shall have a free exercise of religion” (White’s Hist. Coll. Ga., p. 9). The charter of Rhode Island—which recites that it was granted the petitioners therefor because “they have freely declared that it is much on their hearts (if they be permitted) to hold forth a lively experiment that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full liberty in religious concernments”; and ordains “that all and every person and persons may, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoy his own and their judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments,
throughout the tract of land hereafter mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness and profaneness, nor to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others; any law, statute, or clause therein contained, or to be contained, usage, or custom of this realm, to the contrary hereof in any wise notwithstanding,” and which, to us, seems to guarantee absolute freedom of conscience—was interpreted by the colonial government as excepting Roman Catholics, Dr. Ramsay saying: “Since the date of the charter the form of the government has suffered very little alteration. An act was passed, in 1663, declaring that all men of competent estates and good conduct, who professed Christianity, with the exception of Roman Catholics, should be admitted freemen” (1 Hist. U. S., p. 156).
With this much we come to the Continental Congress which met at Philadelphia Sept. 5, 1774, to consider the relations of the colonies to the parent state. It at once became apparent that one prime grievance alleged against the crown was the act of Parliament (14 Geo. III., c. 83), passed early in that year, respecting the boundaries and government of the Province of Quebec, as Canada was called after its cession to England by the peace of 1763, which extended the limits of that province southward to the Ohio, westward to the Mississippi, and northward to the boundary of the Hudson’s Bay Company; qualified Roman Catholics to sit in the provincial council; applied the French laws, dispensing with juries to civil cases, and the English practice to criminal; and secured the Catholic clergy their estates and
full liberty in their religion. Massachusetts was particularly indignant at this statute, and the Congress had scarcely organized before the following resolution was presented with others from Suffolk County in that State: “10. That the late act of Parliament for establishing the Roman Catholic religion and the French laws in that extensive country now called Quebec is dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America; and therefore, as men and Protestant Christians, we are indispensably obliged to take all proper measures for our security” (1 Journ. Cong., p. 11). On the 10th of October Congress, having considered “the rights and grievances of these colonies,” “Resolved, N. C. D., That the following acts of Parliament are infringements and violations of the rights of the colonists; and that the repeal of them is essentially necessary in order to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American colonies, viz., … the act for establishing the Roman Catholic religion in the province of Quebec, abolishing the equitable system of English laws, and erecting a tyranny there, to the great danger (from so total a dissimilarity of religion, law, and government) of the neighboring British colonies, by the assistance of whose blood and treasure the said country was conquered from France.… To these grievous acts and measures Americans cannot submit” (id. pp. 20-22).
The main work of the Congress of 1774 was the famous “Continental Association,” which is, in brief, a solemn engagement on the part of the colonies to break off commercial relations with Great Britain until
such time as divers obnoxious acts of Parliament were repealed. It opens by arraigning the British ministry for adopting a system of administration “evidently calculated for enslaving these colonies,” and proceeds to specify among other instruments to this end “an act for extending the province of Quebec, so as to border on the Western frontiers of these colonies, establishing an arbitrary government therein, and discouraging the settlement of British subjects in that wide-extended country, thus, by the influence of civil principles and ancient prejudices, to dispose the inhabitants to act with hostility against the free Protestant colonies whenever a wicked ministry shall choose to direct them” (id. p. 23). The Congress also resolved upon addresses to the people of Great Britain, to the inhabitants of the colonies represented in the Congress, to the king, and to the people of Canada. That to the people of Great Britain says: “Know that we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the Constitution to establish a religion, fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of government in any quarter of the globe” (id. p. 27). It then charges that at the close of the French war a plan of enslaving the colonies was concerted “under the auspices of a minister of principles, and of a family unfriendly to the Protestant cause and inimical to liberty,” and says: “Now mark the progression of the ministerial plan for enslaving us.… By another act the Dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modelled, and governed as that, by being disunited from us, detached from our interest, by civil as well as religious
prejudices, that by their numbers daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and, on occasion, be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient, free, Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery with themselves. This was evidently the object of the act; and in this view, being extremely dangerous to our liberty and quiet, we cannot forbear complaining of it as hostile to British America.… Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged your island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, and murder through every part of the world” (id. p. 30). The memorial to the colonists also refers to the Quebec act, “by which act the Roman Catholic religion, instead of being tolerated, as stipulated by the treaty of peace, is established,” and says: “The authors of this arbitrary arrangement flatter themselves that the inhabitants, deprived of liberty, and artfully provoked against those of another religion, will be proper instruments for assisting in the oppression of such as differ from them in modes of government and faith” (id. p. 37). To reassure the colonists, it concludes: “The people of England will soon have an opportunity of declaring their sentiments concerning our cause. In their piety, generosity, and good sense we repose high confidence, and cannot, upon a review of past events, be persuaded that they, the defenders of true religion and the asserters of the rights of mankind, will take part against their affectionate
Protestant brethren in the colonies, in favor of our open and their own secret enemies, whose intrigues for several years past have been wholly exercised in sapping the foundations of civil and religious liberty” (id. p. 38). The petition to the king represents as one of the obstacles to a restoration of harmony between the colonists and the crown the act “for extending the limits of Quebec, abolishing the English and restoring the French laws, whereby great numbers of British Frenchmen [sic] are subjected to the latter, and establishing an absolute government and the Roman Catholic religion throughout those vast regions that border on the westerly and northerly boundaries of the free Protestant English settlements” (id. p. 47); reminds the monarch that “we were born the heirs of freedom, and ever enjoyed our right under the auspices of your royal ancestors, whose family was seated on the British throne to rescue and secure a pious and gallant nation from the popery and despotism of a superstitious and inexorable tyrant”; and adjures him “for the honor of Almighty God, whose pure religion our enemies are undermining,” and “as the loving father of your whole people, connected by the same bonds of law, loyalty, faith, and blood,” to withstand the ministerial plan (id. p. 49).
The terrific arraignment of the Roman Catholic religion made in these various state papers will show to what an extent the colonists were unfavorably disposed toward that faith at the inception of the Revolutionary struggle. The fourth and last address, however, adopted remains to be noticed, and in this appears the first indication of that
spirit of universal religious liberty and toleration which afterwards became one of the main animating impulses of the American system of government. The Journal, unfortunately, does not disclose the name of the wise and just man who drew up this document, but the internal evidence points to John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who afterwards prepared the Articles of Confederation (1 Secret Journ., p. 290). Oct. 21, Thomas Cushing of Massachusetts, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and Mr. Dickinson were appointed a committee to prepare an address to the inhabitants of Quebec, and, as adopted, this urges the Canadians to make common cause with the other colonists, setting before them their rights as British subjects, and saying: “What is offered to you by the late act of Parliament in their place? Liberty of conscience in your religion? No. God gave it to you; and the temporal powers with which you have been and are connected firmly stipulated for your enjoyment of it. If laws, divine and human, could secure it against the despotic caprices of wicked men, it was secured before” (1 Journ., p. 42). The address then imagines the president, Montesquieu, urging his countrymen to unite with the English colonists, and concludes: “We are too well acquainted with the liberality of sentiment distinguishing your nation to imagine that difference of religion will prejudice you against a hearty amity with us. You know that the transcendent nature of freedom elevates those who unite in her cause above all such low-minded infirmities. The Swiss cantons furnish a memorable proof of this truth. Their union is composed of Roman Catholic and Protestant
states, living in the utmost concord and peace with one another, and thereby enabled, ever since they bravely vindicated their freedom, to defy and defeat every tyrant that has invaded them” (id. p. 44).
May 10, 1775, another Congress met. Blood had been shed; it was seen the sword must decide the event; and from this time the American Congress may be said to have remained in permanent session until the government under the Constitution was inaugurated. May 26, 1775, John Jay, Samuel Adams, and Silas Deane were appointed a committee to draught a letter to the people of Canada, which, as adopted, urged them to unite with the other colonists, declaring “the fate of the Protestant and Catholic colonies to be strongly linked together”; and adding: “The enjoyment of your very religion, on the present system, depends on a legislature in which you have no share and over which you have no control; and your priests are exposed to expulsion, banishment, and ruin whenever their wealth and possessions furnish sufficient temptation” (id. p. 75). This failing, Congress came closer by directing Robert Livingston, Robert Treat Paine, and J. Langdon, Nov. 8, 1775, to proceed to Canada, and there use their utmost efforts to procure the assistance of the Canadians in Gen. Schuyler’s operations, and to induce them to enter into a union with the other colonies, the instructions mentioning as one inducement to be held out: “And you may and are hereby empowered farther to declare that we hold sacred the rights of conscience, and shall never molest them in the
free enjoyment of their religion” (id. p. 170). This also failing, a third effort was made to the same end by appointing Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton—the latter not a member of Congress at the time, but selected as a Roman Catholic (2 Ramsay Hist. U. S., p. 65)—commissioners to Canada, May 20, 1776, instructing them: “You are farther to declare that we hold sacred the rights of conscience, and may promise to the whole people, solemnly in our name, the free and undisturbed exercise of their religion; and, to the clergy, the full, perfect, and peaceable possession and enjoyment of all their estates; that the government of everything relating to their religion and clergy shall be left entirely in the hands of the good people of that province and such legislature as they shall constitute; provided, however, that all other denominations of Christians be equally entitled to hold offices, and enjoy civil privileges and the free exercise of their religion, and be totally exempt from the payment of any tithes or taxes for the support of any religion” (1 Journ., p. 290). This failed in turn, but the fathers were long loath to relinquish their hopes of the accession of Canada. The Articles of Confederation provided that “Canada, acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States” (art. 11); and guaranteed that each State should be protected in its religion by the common strength of all (art.
3). It is further memorable that the King of France co-operated with the Americans in the attempt to secure the accession of Canada to the Union, and that in accordance with the royal instructions the Count d’Estaing published an address on the 28th of October, 1778, in his majesty’s name, to the Canadian French, adjuring them by every tie of lineage and religion to make common cause with the United States. The priests, in particular, were besought to use their influence to this end, and reminded that they might become a power in a new government, and not be dependent on “sovereigns whom force has imposed on them, and whose political indulgence will be lessened proportionally as those sovereigns shall have less to fear” (2 Pitk. U. S., p. 68). This, however, like all the invitations of the American Congress, was in vain. The contemporary fact was—and no doubt the British crown officers took care to have it well known throughout Canada—that while England was enacting laws to exempt the Canadians from her anti-Catholic statutes, and to indulge them with full liberty of conscience in their ancestral Catholic faith, the American Congress was solemnly resolving and declaring “that we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by the constitution to establish a religion fraught with sanguinary and impious tenets in any quarter of the globe.” “Nor can we suppress our astonishment that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a religion that has deluged England in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion throughout every part of the world.” So sharp a contrast had a powerful effect
on the sixty-five thousand Roman Catholics who then inhabited Canada, according to Stokes (View, p. 30), and is, in all human probability, the reason why that extensive country is not a part of the United States to-day. That invaluable contemporary authority, Dr. Ramsay, assures us that the predilections of the Canadian masses were in favor of a union with the other colonies, but “the legal privileges which the Roman Catholic clergy enjoyed made them averse to a change, lest they should be endangered by a more intimate connection with their Protestant neighbors.”
The founders of the republic seem early to have perceived the mistake of yielding to what they termed in their first overture to Canada “the low-minded infirmity” of religious prejudice, and the severe recoil of that error in this case had much to do with their subsequent prohibition of religious tests.
Recurring now to the States, we find a religious test prescribed as a qualification to office in a number of the early constitutions. The New Jersey constitution of July 2, 1776, provides “that no Protestant inhabitant of this colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles; but that all persons professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably under the government as hereby established, shall be capable of being elected into any office of profit, or trust, or being a member of either branch of the legislature, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity enjoyed by others their fellow-subjects” (art. 19). The North Carolina constitution of
December 18, 1776, says “that no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State” (art. 32). The Georgia constitution of February 5, 1777, says that the members of the legislature “shall be of the Protestant religion” (art. 6). The South Carolina constitution of March 19, 1778, provides for “a governor and commander-in-chief, a lieutenant-governor, both to continue two years, and a privy council—all of the Protestant religion” (art. 3); that “no person shall be eligible to sit in the House of Representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion” (art. 13); and “that all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State demeaning themselves peaceably and faithfully shall enjoy equal religious and civil privileges” (art. 38). In this State the governor was sworn “to the utmost of his power to maintain and defend the laws of God, the Protestant religion, and the liberties of America” (Grimke’s Laws So. Ca., 297). The Delaware constitution of September 11, 1776, provided the following oath to be taken by all members of the legislature: “I, A. B., do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration” (art. 22). The Maryland constitution of August 14, 1776, provided that “a declaration of a
belief in the Christian religion” (Bill of Rights, art. 35) should be a qualification to office; and “that every person, appointed to any office of profit or trust shall, before he enters on the execution thereof, … subscribe a declaration of his belief in the Christian religion” (Const., art. 55). The New Hampshire constitution of January 5, 1776, while not expressly prescribing a religious test, is understood by the provision continuing the body of the colonial law in force to have required all members of the legislature to be of the Protestant religion. The spirit occasioning the above tests was remarkably manifested in the convention framing the New York constitution of April 20, 1777. An article granting “to all mankind the free exercise of religious profession and worship” being under consideration, John Jay, afterwards the first Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, moved to add the following: “Except the professors of the religion of the Church of Rome, who ought not to hold lands in, or be admitted to a participation of the civil rights enjoyed by the members of, this State until such time as the said professors shall appear in the Supreme Court of the State, and there most solemnly swear that they verily believe in their consciences that no pope, priest, or foreign authority on earth has power to absolve the subjects of this State from their allegiance to the same; and, farther, that they renounce and believe to be false and wicked the dangerous and damnable doctrine that the pope, or any other earthly authority, has power to absolve men from sins described in and prohibited by the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ, and particularly that no
pope, priest, or foreign authority on earth has power to absolve them from the obligation of this oath,” which was lost—yeas, 10; nays, 19; one county divided (Sparks’ Life of Gouverneur Morris, vol. i., p. 124). The Pennsylvania constitution of September 28, 1776, required members of the General Assembly and civil officers to sign “a declaration of belief in one God, the creator and governor of the world, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked,” and also to make “an acknowledgment that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are given by divine inspiration” (Stokes’ View, p. 81).
It will thus appear that the early constitutions of New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, and New Hampshire made a profession of Protestantism, and those of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania made a belief in Christianity, a qualification for office; and so the fundamental law of those States remained until after the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.
In 1787 the Federal Convention met, and, as has already been stated, while declining to make it a part of the Constitution that “the legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion,” did insert in that instrument the provision that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Or, in other words, the Federal Constitution did not inhibit Congress from creating a religious establishment, but did forbid it to prescribe a religious test as a qualification to office; while, per contra, the State constitutions, while prohibiting such an establishment, admitted
such tests. We have seen how the States conformed the Federal Constitution to their own in the article of the inhibition of an established church, and are now to inquire how the State constitutions modelled themselves upon the Constitution of the United States so far as respects the prohibition of religious qualifications for office.
When the Federal Constitution was proposed for ratification to the State conventions, considerable opposition was manifested in some of those bodies to this prohibition. It was alleged that, as the Constitution stood, the Pope of Rome might become President of the United States, and there was even a pamphlet published to sustain that objection (4 Elliot Deb., p. 195). In the North Carolina Convention, in particular, a hot debate occurred. Mr. Abbott said: “The exclusion of religious tests is by many thought dangerous and impolitic. They suppose that if there be no religious test required, pagans, deists, and Mahometans might obtain offices among us, and that the senators and representatives might all be pagans” (id. p. 192). Mr. Iredell referred to the deplorable results of religious tests in all ages, and said: “America has set an example to mankind to think more modestly and reasonably—that a man may be of different religious sentiments from our own without being a bad member of society.… But it is objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves
so warmly contend for?… I met, by accident, with a pamphlet this morning in which the author states as a very serious danger that the Pope of Rome might be elected President. I confess this never struck me before; and if the author had read all the qualifications of a President, perhaps his fears might have been quieted. No man but a native or who has resided fourteen years in America can be chosen President. I know not all the qualifications for pope, but I believe he must be taken from the college of cardinals; and probably there are many previous steps necessary before he arrives at this dignity. A native of America must have very singular good fortune who, after residing fourteen years in his own country, should go to Europe, enter into Romish orders, obtain the promotion of cardinal, afterwards that of pope, and at length be so much in the confidence of his own country as to be elected President. It would be still more extraordinary if he should give up his popedom for our presidency. Sir, it is impossible to treat such idle fears with any degree of gravity.… This country has already had the honor of setting an example of civil freedom, and I trust it will likewise have the honor of teaching the rest of the world the way to religious freedom also. God grant both may be perpetuated to the end of time!” (id. p. 193 et seq.) Gov. Johnston said: “When I heard there were apprehensions that the Pope of Rome could be the President of the United States, I was greatly astonished. It might as well be said that the King of England or France or the Grand Turk could be chosen to that office. It
would have been as good an argument.… It is apprehended that Jews, Mahometans, pagans, etc., may be elected to high offices under the government of the United States. Those who are Mahometans, or any others who are not professors of the Christian religion, can never be elected to the office of President or other high office but in one of two cases: First, if the people of America lay aside the Christian religion altogether, it may happen. Should this unfortunately take place, the people will choose such men as think as they do themselves. Another case is, if any persons of such descriptions should, notwithstanding their religion, acquire the confidence and esteem of the people of America by their good conduct and practice of virtue, they may be chosen” (id. p. 198). Mr. Caldwell said: “There was an invitation for Jews and pagans of every kind to come among us. At some future period this might endanger the character of the United States.… I think that in a political view those gentlemen who formed this Constitution should not have given this invitation to Jews and heathens” (id. p. 199). Mr. Spencer said: “Religious tests have been the foundation of persecutions in all countries. Persons who are conscientious will not take the oath required by religious tests, and will therefore be excluded from offices, though equally capable of discharging them as any member of society” (id. p. 200). Mr. Spaight, who had been in the Federal Convention, said: “No test is required. All men of equal capacity and integrity are equally eligible to offices. Temporal violence may make mankind wicked, but never religious.
A test would enable the prevailing sect to persecute the rest” (id. p. 208). Mr. Wilson “wished that the Constitution had excluded popish priests from office” (id. p. 212). Mr. Lancaster said: “As to a religious test, had the article which excludes it provided none but what had been in the States heretofore, I would not have objected to it.… For my part, in reviewing the qualifications necessary for a President, I did not suppose that the pope could occupy the President’s chair. But let us remember that we form a government for millions not yet in existence. I have not the art of divination. In the course of four or five hundred years I do not know how it will work. This is most certain: that papists may occupy that chair, and Mahometans may take it. I see nothing against it. There is a disqualification, I believe, in every State in the Union; it ought to be so in this system” (id. p. 215).
In the Massachusetts Convention there was considerable debate on the same clause. Mr. Singletary “thought we were giving up all our privileges, as there was no provision that men in power should have any religion; and though he hoped to see Christians, yet, by the Constitution, a papist or an infidel was as eligible as they” (2 Elliot Deb., p. 44). Several members of the convention urging that the provision “was a departure from the principles of our forefathers, who came here for the preservation of their religion; and that it would admit deists, atheists, etc., into the general government,” Rev. Mr. Shute said: “To establish a religious test as a qualification for offices in the proposed Federal Constitution, it appears to me, sir, would be attended
with injurious consequences to some individuals, and with no advantage to the whole.… In this great and extensive empire there is and will be a great variety of sentiments in religion among its inhabitants. Upon the plan of a religious test the question, I think, must be, Who shall be excluded from national trusts? Whatever answer bigotry may suggest, the dictates of candor and equity, I conceive, will be, None. Far from limiting my charity and confidence to men of my own denomination in religion, I suppose and I believe, sir, that there are worthy characters among men of every denomination—among the Quakers, the Baptists, the Church of England, the papists, and even among those who have no other guide in the way to virtue and heaven than the dictates of natural religion. I must therefore think, sir, that the proposed plan of government in this particular is wisely constructed; that as all have an equal claim to the blessings of the government under which they live and which they support, so none should be excluded from them for being of any particular denomination in religion. The presumption is that the eyes of the people will be upon the faithful in the land; and, from a regard of their own safety, they will choose for their rulers men of known abilities, of known probity, of good moral characters. 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, cœteris 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 exclusion of a religious test in the proposed Constitution, therefore, clearly appears to me, sir, to be in favor of its adoption” (id. p. 118).
These utterances form so excellent a commentary on the last clause of the sixth article of the Constitution of the United States that it is to be regretted that we know no more of their admirable and sagacious author than that he was the Rev. Daniel Shute, of Hingham, in Suffolk County, and voted on what the original journal calls “the decision of the grand question” in favor of ratifying the Constitution; as did also his colleague, Major-General Benjamin Lincoln.
Recurring to the debate, Col. Jones “thought that the rulers ought to believe in God or Christ, and that, however a test may be prostituted in England, yet he thought, if our public men were to be of those who had a good standing in the church, it would be happy for the United States” (id. p. 119). Major Lusk “passed to the article dispensing with the qualification of a religious test, and concluded by saying that he shuddered at the idea that Roman Catholics, papists, and pagans might be introduced into office, and that popery and the Inquisition may be established in America” (id. p. 148). Rev. Mr. Backus said: “I now beg leave to offer a few thoughts upon some points in the Constitution proposed to us, and I shall begin with the exclusion of any religious test. Many appear to be much concerned about it; but 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. Ministers first assumed this power under the Christian name, and then Constantine approved of the practice when he adopted the profession of Christianity as an engine of state policy. And let the history of all nations be searched from that day to this, and it will appear that the imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny in the world. And I rejoice to see so many gentlemen who are now giving in their rights of conscience in this great and important matter. 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 test” (id. p. 149).
In the Conventions of Virginia (3 Elliot Deb., p. 204), and Connecticut (2 ib. p. 202), and in the South Carolina Legislature (1 id. p. 312), the same clause was discussed, but more briefly, and after the final ratification of the Constitution the principle of the provision seems to have been universally conceded as correct. The Georgia constitution of May 6, 1789, the first new State constitution adopted after the inauguration of the government under the Constitution of the United States, omitted the qualification that members of the General Assembly should be of the Protestant religion; the South Carolina constitution of June 3, 1790, the next adopted, omitted the same test, as also all the former provisions making
the Protestant religion the State faith, and provided that “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall for ever, hereafter, be allowed within this State to all mankind” (art. 8, sec. 1), and from this time forward it may be taken as the case that as fast as the States remodelled their constitutions of the Revolutionary era the religious-test provisions were formally omitted, and in the interim passed sub silentio.
The immediate cause of this universal abrogation of religious qualifications for office was, as we have seen, the sixth article of the Constitution of the United States, but beyond this were some potent operative causes. The loss of Canada was one. Dr. Ramsay, who tells us that he had access to all the official papers of the United States up to 1786, when he ceased to be a member of the Congress under the Confederation (pref. 2 Hist. U. S.), says: “The province was evacuated with great reluctance. The Americans were not only mortified at the disappointment of their favorite scheme of annexing it as a fourteenth link in the chain of their Confederacy, but apprehended the most serious consequences from the ascendency of the British power in that quarter” (id. p. 71). It was felt too late that the indiscreet utterances of the Congress of 1774 respecting the Roman Catholic religion had led to this loss.
Another operative cause was the yearning desire of the early statesmen of the United States to invite and secure foreign immigration. As early as the address of Congress of Oct. 21, 1774, it was noticed that the population of Canada was
“daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe”; and after the peace of 1783 showed that Canada was to remain a British possession, it was seen that to impress an anti-Catholic character on the government of the United States would tend to build up that province at the expense of the United States, and that only by proffering religious as well as civil liberty could this country hope to divert that emigration to its own shores. Some of the States had already suffered, when colonies, from legalizing inequalities in religion, and that, too, had no doubt its weight; Ramsay telling us that the legal pre-eminence of the Episcopal Church, and its maintenance at the expense not only of its own members but of all other denominations in Virginia and Maryland, “deterred great numbers, especially of the Presbyterian denomination, who had emigrated from Ireland, from settling within the limits of these governments” (1 Hist. U. S., p. 220).
Another cause operating in favor of a removal of religious tests to office was the eminent services rendered the States in the establishment of their independence by two Catholic powers, France and Spain. It is currently supposed that it was not until after the Americans, by their capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, had demonstrated their power that they received efficient assistance from those nations; but the contrary is the case. Before the Declaration of Independence Silas Deane was sent to France for assistance, and contemporaneous with the Declaration large supplies of money and arms were furnished by that power. Arms, clothing, and ammunition for 25,000 men and 100 field-pieces were asked by
Congress, and the response of his Christian majesty was 2,000,000 livres in money and small arms, 200 field-pieces, the best in the royal arsenals, a credit for 1,000,000 livres with the clothier-general of the French forces, and the services of Monsieur Coudray, the best military engineer in the royal army, and as many of his officers as were needed (1 Pitk. Hist. U. S., pp. 387, 500). Spain also assisted the Americans with 1,000,000 livres as early as May, 1776 (id. p. 411). Still another 1,000,000 livres were added by France before the treaty of 1778; and to appreciate fully the various pecuniary aids given by this power to the United States during the struggle, the reader may well consult the treaties with that power of 1782 and 1783 (Rev. Stats., “Treaties,” pp. 214-9). Prior to 1778 some 3,000,000 livres were advanced, and from that time to 1782 some 18,000,000 more were granted and an endorsement given to Holland for 10,000,000 in addition. In 1783 a further grant of 6,000,000 livres was made, making 37,000,000 in all. All expenses of commissions, negotiations, etc., were borne by France and made a present to the United States, as also all the interest accrued during the entire war on the debt, and the total principal of the sums forwarded in 1776, for all of which benefactions the most lively acknowledgments were made by the United States in the treaties referred to above. Nor were French fleets and armies wanting. In July, 1778, a French squadron of twelve line-of-battle ships and four frigates reached the United States under Count d’Estaing (2 Ramsay Hist. U. S., p. 258). In 1779 the same commander appeared off the Georgia
coast with 20 ships of the line and 11 frigates, and some 3,500 French troops, infantry and artillery; and at this time occurred the bloody assault on the British entrenchments at Savannah, where Gen. Lincoln, at the head of 600 Continentals, and d’Estaing at the head of the French infantry, charged side by side, 200 of the Americans and 637 of the French being left on the field. In July, 1780, still another French fleet arrived at Rhode Island with 6,000 troops (2 Pitk. 117). In 1781 Count de Grasse arrived with 28 ships of the line and 3,200 French troops under the Marquis de St. Simon (2 Ramsay, p. 427). In 1782 a French fleet of 34 ships of the line, having on board 5,500, rendezvoused in the West Indies to draw off the British by an attack on Jamaica, and here sustained an appalling defeat at the hands of Admiral Rodney. The French troops were so crowded on the vessels that in one ship alone 400 men were killed, and the total slaughter amounted to thousands (id. p. 5). In the same year we find 7,000 French regulars at Yorktown; and from the contemporary accounts the French engineers and artillery were eminently instrumental in forcing the surrender of Cornwallis, particularly Major-General du Portail, Brigadier-General Launcy, Col. Gouvion, and Capt. Rochefontaine, who were thanked and promoted by Congress and warmly commended to their sovereign (id. p. 438; 4 Journ. 290).
Nor was Spain backward in her efforts. Before the Declaration of Independence she sent the Americans 1,000,000 livres (1 Pitk. 411). In 1777 she forwarded several cargoes of naval stores, cordage, sail-cloth, anchors, etc., from Bilboa
(id. p. 528). In 1779 she declared war against Great Britain, and carried on a campaign in Florida with such vigor as to drive out the British from that province. In 1780 an immense Spanish armament appeared in the West Indies to co-operate with the French in creating a diversion in that quarter, the combined fleet numbering thirty-six ships of the line, crowded with troops (2 Ramsay, 374). In 1782 a grander attempt was made in the same field, the combined French and Spanish navies numbering sixty ships of the line, with an immense number of frigates and smaller armed vessels, and conveying thousands of land forces. The first attempt failed by the appearance of a mortal disease which decimated the Spanish troops, and the latter by the bloody defeat of the French by Admiral Rodney. In the course of the war the Spanish navy received a terrible blow at Cape St. Vincent, though the Spanish admiral, Don Juan de Langara, fought till his flag-ship was a mere wreck and his fleet was sunk or taken. One vessel in particular, the San Domingo, of 70 guns and carrying 600 men, blew up, and all on board perished (id. p. 372).
To sustain American independence, in short, French and Spanish blood was poured out like water. The arms, the gold, the ships, the armies of the two great Catholic powers were given in unstinted measure to the United States, and on the establishment of the present polity of the republic it would have been disgraceful beyond measure to have fixed therein a stigma on the faith of those friends in time of need. In answering the congratulations of the Catholic clergy and laity on his first accession to
the presidency, Gen. Washington said: “I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed” (Cath. Al., 1876, p. 63). Possibly, also, the demeanor of the French troops may have removed many misapprehensions and prejudices against their religion. Madison, who was an eye-witness of their march through Philadelphia, where Congress was then in session, in 1782, en route to Yorktown, highly applauds their regularity and decency of conduct in his letters of that date (Mad. Papers); and speaking on the same subject Dr. Ramsay, also then in Congress, says: “The French troops marched at the same time and for the same place. In the course of this summer they passed through all the extensive settlements which lie between Newport and Yorktown. It seldom, if ever, happened before that an army led through a foreign country, at so great a distance from their own, among a people of different principles, customs, language, and religion, behaved with so much regularity. In their march to Yorktown they had to pass through 500 miles of a country abounding in fruit, and at a time when the most delicious productions of nature growing on and near the public highways presented both opportunity and temptation to gratify
their appetites. Yet so complete was their discipline that in this long march scarce an instance could be produced of a peach or an apple being taken without the consent of the inhabitants” (2 Hist. U. S., p. 434). Allies of this character were in high favor with the American people, and most gratefully remembered at the time of the final settlement of civil government in the United States, not to speak of the influence of the Continental soldiery, who, no doubt, bore in mind their brethren in arms at Savannah and Yorktown, and recalled Washington’s general order whereby the black cockade of the American army was mounted with a white relief in honor of Catholic France (2 Ramsay, p. 358).
To conclude, then, the provisions of the Constitution of the United States bearing on religion are not mere ill-considered generalities, but positive convictions based upon long and sore experience. The prohibition of a national religion or of any governmental interference with spiritual persuasions owes its origin to the actual existence in former days of church establishments, the hierophants wherein were appointees of the political power, and the expenses whereof were compulsorily borne by those of other creeds. And the inhibition of religious tests for office arises out of the fact that the history of this country demonstrates it equally impolitic, ungrateful, and dishonest to require such qualifications in these United States.