New Hampshire provides that: The people of this State have a right to empower, and do hereby fully empower the Legislature to authorize, from time to time, the religious societies within this State to make adequate provision at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public Protestant preachers of piety, religion, and morality; provided, notwithstanding, that the several towns, parishes, bodies corporate, or several religious societies shall at all times have the exclusive right of electing their own public teachers, and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance.
Vermont, after providing freedom of con science for all and the free exercise of religious worship in sweeping phrase, adds in Article III: Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of Christians ought to observe the Sabbath or Lord's Day, to keep up some sort of religious worship which to them shall seett most agreeable to the revered will of God.
Virginia, though perhaps the first State after Rhode Island to provide for absolute separation of Church and State, introduces a curious incon,sistency, evidently quite unconsciously, in this wise: It is the mutual duty of all to practice Chrisfias for bearance, love, and charity toward each other.• "Tell the committee to be on the alert,* were the last audible words that Jefferson spoke. His lips seemed to dictate to the fingers that still imagined a pen between them. This sug gests the "eternal vigilance' that is the "price of liberty?) Ever since the signing of the Declaration of Independence there have been those in the United States who would dispose of its funda mental contention as a "glittering• generality,* or limit its application to their own sect or race; but, spite of sneers, past or present, eva sions and contemptuous appeals to technical ities, it still survives as the matchless document that not only liberated the United States from foreign thrall, but by its logic is destined to en franchise the children of the world. Side by side, Jefferson's Declatation of Independence and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation stand in the world's library, unmatched and un dimmed, to rebuke, to instruct and to inspire unborn generations. They were and still are prophetic documents. The Civil War which Jef ferson foresaw came, and he who would study the story of civil and religious liberty in Amer ica must take note of such events as the mar tyrdom of Elijah Lovejoy (q.v.), and the de
struction of his abolitionist press at Alton, Ill. (1837) ; the appearance of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (1852) ; the exe cution of John Brown (q.v.) at Harper's Ferry (1859) ; the firing upon the flag at Fort Sum ter (1861) ; the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln (1863) ; the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox (1865).
In studying civil and religious liberty we find that, though they may be distinguishable in their sources, they are one in their culmination. Not more clearly did the passion for religious liberty make of Roger Williams an advocate of polit ical liberty than did Thomas Jefferson's zeal for political liberty make of him an apostle•of reli gious liberty. The government has recently ordered published a little manuscript book of Thomas Jefferson's, entitled 'The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Extracted Textu ally from the Gospels, together with a Com parison of His Doctrines with Those of Others.' In this book the author compiled the ethical and spiritual portions of the Gospel, eliminating the miraculous and theological pas sages. Of the compilation he himself wrote: A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a REAL CHRISTIAN,• that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists who call ME infidel and THEMSELVES Christians and preachers of the Go spell while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw.
The conviction indicated in this book may be right or wrong. I refer to it because it illus trates the liberty vouchafed by the fundamental laws of the United States, which not only guar antee freedom of utterance, but lead to a re spect for sincere opinions, however they may differ from prevailing opinions.
Any sketch of the history of civil and re ligious liberty in America would be incomplete without reference to the interesting contribu tions of Lord Baltimore in Maryland, of Wil liam Penn in Pennsylvania and the Utopian schemes of John Locke and Lord Shaftesbury in the Carolinas. It is one of the interesting paradoxes of history that the Catholic Calverts, who held the most sweeping charter ever brought to the New World, should establish a standard of hospitality in religion and liberality in politics exceeding that of any other colony.