The following article should be interesting to you if you think our American
forefathers were attempting to protect us from religion.
Well aware that
Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal
punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of
hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our
religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions
on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators
and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and
uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own
opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to
impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest
part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of
money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that
even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is
depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular
pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive
to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal rewards, which
proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to
earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have
no dependence on our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry;
that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying
upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he
profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those
privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural
right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to
encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will
externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed those are criminal who do not
withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;
that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to
restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill
tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he
being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and
approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from
his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its
offices to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good
order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is
the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict,
unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate,
error ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
Be it therefore
enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any
religions worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained,
molested, or burdened 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 opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise
diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know this
Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no
power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with the powers equal to
our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law,
yet we are free to declare and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the
natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the
present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.
