Sec. 4. No preference shall be given by law to any Christian sect or mode of worship.
Sec. 5. Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.
Sec. 6. No law shall ever be passed to curtail or restrain the liberty of speech or of the press.
Sec. 7. In all prosecutions or indictments for libels, the truth may be given in evidence; and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the facts, under the direction of the court.
[ah] Mr. Trumbull asserts that "writers and historians are in error when attributing to Mr. Morse of Suffield (the Baptist minister aforementioned) the drafting of the Article on Religious Liberty. The drafting committee were Messrs. Tomlinson and Stow, and the first clause, as reported, seems to have been taken with slight alteration from Governor Woleott's speech to the General Assembly, May, 1817, namely, 'It is the right and duty of every man publicly and privately to worship and adore the Supreme Creator and Preserver of the Universe in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience.'" —J. H. Trumbull, Notes on the Constitution, pp. 56, 57.
[ai] The second section remained unchanged.
[aj] Seven hundred copies were distributed among the towns.
[ak] By later amendments, judges of the Supreme Court of Errors and the Superior Court are nominated by the governor and appointed by the General Assembly. Judges of probate are now elected by the electors in their respective districts; justices of the peace in the several towns by the electors in said towns; and sheriffs by their counties.
[al] By amendment of 1901, the vote for governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary, treasurer, comptroller, and attorney-general was changed from a majority to a plurality vote, the Assembly to decide between candidates, if at any time two or more should receive "an equal and the greatest number" of votes.
[am] "It cut the churches loose from dependence upon state support—It threw them wholly on their own resources and on God." "The mass is changing," wrote Dr. Beecher. "We are becoming another people. The old laws answered when all men in a parish were of one faith."—Lyman Beecher, Autobiography, i, pp. 344, 453.