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