The first attempt to grant and try out re ligious freedom must be credited to Con stantine in. the Edict of Milan, 313 A.D. This edict granted °both to the Christians and to all others free power of following whatever religion each may have preferred . . . The absolute power is to be denied to no one to give himself either to the worship of the Christians, or to that religion which he thinks most suited to himself .° This exceedingly liberal decree did not inspire his successors. Not until we come to the American State con stitutions is so broad a statute met with. Be tween 313 A.D. and approximately 1775, re ligious freedom, with but one or two excep tions, was never conceded. Acts of toleration more or less generous, usually less, were occasionally granted with the hope of effect ing a compromise. The practice of persecuting persons for dissent and heresy gradually went out of fashion. More and more frequently the courts ruled that it was not the business of law to prohibit a person from exercising his religious faith so long as it did not, as Black stone put it, °threaten ruin or disturbance of the state.° In the recent (1918) trial of the followers of Pastor Russell the court made it plain that religious freedom never could be stretched to confer the right to commit crime.
Toleration was not the end sought. Tolera tion is simply a favor granted. Toleration kept alive all sorts of political and other dis abilities. In New England a person could not enjoy the franchise unless he were a member of a particular church in good and regular standing. In Europe similar disabilities were laid upon persons who refused to conform .to the state's religion. Toleration was as odious as oppression. What was all along demanded was the right of absolute equality of all re ligions before the law.
America led the way to this goal. It was the first and for a long time the only country to write the principle not of toleration but of religious freedom into the fundamental laws. What is perhaps the earliest attempt since the Edict of Milan to grant something like reli gious freedom is found in the Maryland Tolera tion Act of 1649. It reads °Whereas the en forcing of the conscience in matters of Re ligion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those common wealths where it hath been practiced, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this Province, and the better to preserve mu tual Love and amity amongst the Inhabitants thereof ; Be it therefore . . . enacted . . . that no person or persons within this Province . . . professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall henceforth be in any ways troubled, molested or discountenanced for, or in respect to, his or her religion, not in the free exer cise thereof . . . nor in any way compelled to believe or exercise any other religion against his or her consent, so that they be not un faithful to the lord proprietary, or molest or conspire against the civil government.° Just bow much the liberal spirit toward religious differences which actuated the Plymouth colo nists contributed to the establishment of reli gious freedom in America there is no way of telling. The contribution was undoubtedly large. More conspicuous if not more im portant is the work in this direction of Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island. To secure real religious liberty was the ambition of his life. His great desire was °to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained with a full liberty of religious concernments.° The charter issued in 1663 reads °No person within the said colony (Rhode Island), at any time hereafter, shall be in any wise molested, pun ished, disqualified, or called in question for any difference of opinion in matters of re ligion: every person may at all times freely and fully enjoy his own judgment and con science in matters of religious concernments.° Although religious persecutions and dis abilities continued far into the 18th century in many parts of America the principles of re ligious liberty were gradually becoming clearer and more firmly established. When, therefore, during the Revolutionary period and soon there after the various States made constitutions for themselves, liberty of religion was one of the things most explicitly provided for. The Con
stitutional Convention of Virginia, 1776, led the way in its adoption of the Bill of Rights. The amendment proposed by Madison and adopted puts the point clearly, No man or class of men, ought on account of religion to be invested with peculiar emoluments or privi leges, nor subjected to any penalties or dis abilities, unless under color of religion the preservation of equal liberty and the existence of the state are manifestly endangered.° Jefferson points out that the law of October 1785 entitled, eAn Act Establishing Religious Freedoms in Virginia was designed to °com prehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Ma hometan, the Hindu and Infidel of every de nomination.* The provisions of the act itself are so broad as to be virtually the last word in the matter. it enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatever; nor shall be en forced, restrained, molested, burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief ; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities' Other States were moving in the same direction though not always with the same completeness. Some States hesitated to grant fullest liberty. Thus Pennsylvania, while conceding that all men have a natural and inalienable right to worship God, according to the dictates of their own conscience)! required office holders (1776) to affirm belief in God, in future rewards and punishment and the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. This test was abolished by the constitution of 1790, but the case of Updegraph v. the Commonwealth in 1824 disclosed the curious fact that it is still unlawful in Pennsylvania °to speak lightly or profanely of Almighty God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Ghost or the Scriptures of Truth.* But pite this, and evidencing that full religious liberty no longer even waits on the law, ews, Unitarians, Ethical Culturists and tians are free to worship as they will and suffer no sort of disability therefrom. It is hardly necessary to state that the United States Constitution most effectively guarantees full liberty of religion. °Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.! The situation in the United States may be summed up as follows: All the State constitutions pro vide that no law can be passed establishing a religion, no person can be compelled to attend any form of religious service, or contribute to the support of any religion. No restraint can be put on the free exercise or expression, or promulgation of any religion. But this free dom must not be °so construed as to excuse acts inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state.° A limitation of religious freedom not con templated in the statute or in judicial decisions came to light in the Crapsey heresy trial of 1906. Against the defendant's claim of the right of freedom to teach what he conceived to be the truth in religious doctrine it was argued by the prosecution that as a regularly ordained priest of the Episcopal Church and by the terms of his ordination he was free only to teach what the Church set forth as true, and this argument was sustained by the ecclesiastical court that tried the case. It is doubtful whether that decision can be con strued as a contradiction of the principles of religious liberty for which men fought so long. But "gradually,* as Herbert Spencer remarks, °during recent centuries, the right of free speech on religious matters, more and more asserted has been more and more admitted; until now there is no restraint on the public utterance of any religious opinion, unless the utterance is gratuitously insulting in manner or form.* The literature of the subject is widely dis tributed through various historical writings and the contemporary chronicles of different periods. A very sound and comprehensive survey of the subject will be found in Sanford H. Cobb's 'Rise of Religious Liberty in America.)