[87] Arts. 102, 106. Ibid.
[88] C. Ellis Stevens, Sources of the Constitution of the United States, New York, 1894, P. 217.
[89] Laws agreed upon in England, Art. XXXV. Poore, II, p. 1526.
[90] Charter of Privileges for Pennsylvania, Art. I. Poore, II, p. 1537. For holding office the confession of belief in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world was necessary, but no special creed.
[91] Art. VIII, section 3.
[92] Poore, I, p. 950. On this point cf. Lauer, Church and State in New England in Johns Hopkins University Studies, 10th Series, II-III, Baltimore, 1892, pp. 35 et seq.
[93] Poore, I, p. 375.
[94] In England the Toleration Act, I. Will. and Mary, c. 18, first granted toleration to Dissenters. This was again restricted under Anne and restored under George I. Since George II. they have been admitted to all offices. As is well known, however, the restrictions upon the Catholics and Jews have been done away with only in our century. In Germany after the scanty concessions of the Peace of Osnabrück, a state of affairs similar to that earlier in America was first created by the Toleration Patent of Joseph II. of 1781, the Edict of Frederick William II. of July 9, 1788, that which codified the principles of Frederick the Great, and above all by the Prussian Allgemeines Landrecht (Teil II, Titel 11, §§ 1 et seq.).
[95] To be sure the carrying out of this right, in the direction of full political equality to the members of all confessions, differed in the different states. New York was the first state after Rhode Island that brought about the separation of church and state. Virginia followed next in 1785. For some time after in many states Protestant or at least Christian belief was necessary to obtain office. And even to-day some states require belief in God, in immortality, and in a future state of rewards and punishments. Massachusetts declared in her bill of rights not only the right but the duty of worship, and as late as 1799 punished neglect of church attendance. In the course of the nineteenth century these and other restrictions have fallen away except for a very small part. For the Union the exercise of political rights is made entirely independent of religious belief by Art. VI of the Constitution, and also by the famous First Amendment the establishment of any religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof is forbidden. On the present condition in the separate states, cf. the thorough discussion by Cooley, Chap. XIII, pp. 541-586; further Rüttiman, Kirche und Staat in Nordamerika (1871).
[96] "Among the natural rights, some are in their very nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them. Of this kind are the Rights of Conscience." Art. IV. Poore, II, 1280.