In the State Chamber is Gilbert Stuart’s rare full-length portrait of General Washington. In the Secretary of State’s office is the original charter, granted in 1663, under which the colony and State were governed until 1843. In a subbasement there is a collection of State historical exhibits, originally collected for the Jamestown Exposition. On the dome of the State House there is a colossal bronze statue of “Independent Man, or the Genius of Religious Liberty,” designed by Brewster.
The Court House is on the corner of Benefit and College Streets. In its corridor there is a historical painting by C. F. Grant, picturing “The return of Roger Williams with the first charter for the Colony in 1644.”
Capitol Building in Providence, Where the Charter is Kept
City Hall, Providence, Where the Compact, Indian Deed, and
Letter of Transference are Kept
Rhode Island in the Revolutionary War
Rhode Island was the first to strike a blow for civil liberty as she was the first in the struggle for religious liberty. She was last, however, to adopt the Constitution of the United States. She hesitated to surrender to the federal government the liberties enjoyed under her charter, the most liberal ever granted to a colony. She has a right to be proud of her record, before, during, and after the Revolutionary war. E. Benjamin Andrews opened his case for Rhode Island’s recognition with these words:
States are great or small according to their miles, and as the little birth town of the Christ, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, was not least among the princes of Judah, so Rhode Island, diminutive as she is physically, is far from least among the princely Constituents of this republic.
The history of Rhode Island proves that the best compatriot political liberty ever had was absolute religious liberty.