Shapers of the Great Debate on the Freedom of Religion: A Biographical Dictionary (Shapers of the Great American Debates)

SHAPERS GREAT DEBATE FREEDOM OF RELIGION OF THE

ON THE

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SHAPERS OF THE GREAT DEBATE ON THE

FREEDOM OF RELIGION A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

Jonathan A. Wright

Shapers of the Great American Debates, Number 7 Peter B. Levy, Series Editor

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wright, Jonathan, 1969Shapers of the great debate on the freedom of religion : a biographical dictionary / Jonathan A. Wright. p. cm.—(Shapers of the great American debates, ISSN 1099-2693 ; no. 7) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-313-31889-1 (alk. paper) 1. Freedom of religion—Biography—Dictionaries. 2. Freedom of religion— United States. 3. United States—Religion. 4. United States—Church history. I. Title. II. Series. BL640.W75 2005 323.44 , 2 , 092273—dc22 2005006601 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2005 by Jonathan A. Wright All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005006601 ISBN: 0-313-31889-1 ISSN: 1099-2693 First published in 2005 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10

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CONTENTS SERIES FOREWORD ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi INTRODUCTION: RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS IN AMERICA xiii JOHN COTTON (1584-1652) 1 ANNE HUTCHINSON (1591-1643) 15 ROGER WILLIAMS (c. 1603-1683) 25 PETER STUYVESANT (c. 1610-1672) 37

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WILLIAM PENN (1644-1718) 47 WILLIAM LIVINGSTON (1723-1790) 61 ISAAC BACKUS (1724-1806) 71 THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-1826) 85 JAMES MADISON (1751-1836) 99 LYMAN BEECHER (1775-1863) 113 JOSEPH STORY (1779-1845) 123 JOHN HUGHES (1797-1864) 135 RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882) 149 JOSEPH SMITH (1805-1844) 161 ISAAC MAYER WISE (1819-1900) 171

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JOSEPH FRANKLIN RUTHERFORD (1869-1942) 183 JOHN COLLIER (1884-1968) 193 EARL WARREN (1891-1974) 203 JOHN COURTNEY MURRAY (1904-1967) 213 JERRY FALWELL (1933225 APPENDIX 1: BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES 233 APPENDIX 2: KEY SUPREME COURT CASES 247 INDEX 261

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SERIES FOREWORD American history has been shaped by numerous debates over issues far ranging in content and time. Debates over the right, or lack thereof, to take the land of the Native Americans, and the proper place and role of women, sparked by Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, respectively, marked the earliest years of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Debates over slavery, the nature and size of the federal government, the emergence of big business, and the rights of labor and immigrants were central to the Republic in the nineteenth century and, in some cases, remain alive today. World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War sparked debates that tore at the body politic. Even the Revolution involved a debate over whether America should be America or remain part of Great Britain. And the Civil War, considered by many the central event in American history, was the outgrowth of a long debate that found no peaceful resolution. This series, Shapers of the Great American Debates^ will examine many of these debates—from those between Native Americans and European settlers to those between "natives" and "newcomers." Each volume will focus on a particular issue, concentrating on those men and women who shaped the debates. The authors will pay special attention to fleshing out the life histories of the shapers, considering the relationship between biography or personal history and policy or philosophy. Each volume will begin with an introductory overview, include approximately twenty biographies of ten to fifteen pages, an appendix that briefly describes other key figures, a bibliographical essay, and a subject index. Unlike works that emphasize end results, the books in this series will devote equal attention to both sides, to the "winners" and the "losers." This will lead to a more complete understanding of the richness and complexity of America's past than is afforded by works that examine only the victors. Taken together, the books in this series remind us of the many ways that class, race, ethnicity, gender, and region have divided rather than united the

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inhabitants of the United States of America. Each study reminds us of the frequency and variety of debates in America, a reflection of the diversity of the nation and its democratic credo. One even wonders if a similar series could be developed for many other nations or if the diversity of America and its tradition of free expression have given rise to more debates than elsewhere. Although many Americans have sought to crush the expression of opposing views by invoking the imperative of patriotism, more often than not Americans have respected the rights of others to voice their opinions. Every four years, Americans have voted for a president and peacefully respected the results, demonstrating their faith in the process that institutionalizes political debate. More recently, candidates for the presidency have faced off in televised debates that often mark the climax of their campaigns. Americans not only look forward to these debates, but they would probably punish anyone who sought to avoid them. Put another way, debates are central to America's political culture, especially those that deal with key issues and involve the most prominent members of society. Each volume in the series is written by an expert. While I offered my share of editorial suggestions, overall I relied on the author's expertise when it came to determining the most sensible way to organize and present each work. As a result, some of the volumes follow a chronological structure; others clump their material thematically; still others are separated into two sections, one pro and one con. All of the works are written with the needs of college and advanced high school students in mind. They should prove valuable both as sources for research papers and as supplemental texts in both general and specialized courses. The general public should also find the works an attractive means of learning more about many of the most important figures and equally as many seminal issues in American history. Peter B. Levy Associate Professor Department of History York College

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the general editor of the series, Peter Levy, for his invaluable suggestions and guidance throughout this project. I also owe a great deal (not least for their patience) to the succession of editors at Greenwood (most especially Sarah Colwell) who have shepherded this book through to publication, and to Carla Talmadge at Westchester Book Services. Thanks also to the staffs of the Bodleian Library, the British Library, Durham University Library, Lambeth Palace Library, Newcastle University Library, and the National Library of Scotland. Finally, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Gordon Wright.

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INTRODUCTION: RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS IN AMERICA Keenly aware of the high national purpose of commemorating the bicentennial of the United States Constitution, we who sign this Charter seek to celebrate the Constitution's greatness, and to call for a bold reafflrmation and reappraisal of its vision and guiding principles. In particular, we call for a fresh consideration of religious liberty in our time, and of the place of the First Amendment Religious Liberty clauses in our national life. . . . Today, two hundred years after its signing, the Constitution is not only the world's oldest, still-effective written constitution, but the admired pattern of ordered liberty for countless people in many lands. In spite of its enduring and universal qualities, however, some provisions of the Constitution are now the subject of widespread controversy in the United States. . . . Our commemoration of the Constitution's bicentennial must therefore go beyond celebration to rededication. Unless this is done, an irreplaceable part of national life will be endangered, and a remarkable opportunity for the expansion of liberty will be lost. For we judge that the present controversies over religion in public life pose both a danger and an opportunity. There is evident danger in the fact that certain forms of politically reassertive religion in parts of the world are, in principle, enemies of democratic freedom and a source of deep social antagonism. There is also evident opportunity in the growing philosophical and cultural awareness that all people live by commitments and ideals, that value-neutrality is impossible in the ordering of society, and that we are on the edge of a promising moment for a fresh assessment of pluralism and liberty. It is with an eye to both the promise and the peril that we publish this Charter and pledge ourselves to its principles. We readily acknowledge our continuing differences. Signing this Charter implies no pretence that we believe the same things or that our

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Introduction differences over policy proposals, legal interpretations and philosophical groundings do not ultimately matter. The truth is not even that what unites us is deeper than what divides us, for differences over belief are the deepest and least easily negotiated of all. The Williamsburg Charter, 1988

The religion clauses of the First Amendment seemed to offer a confident summation of the ideal relationship between church and state, and of the necessity of preserving the religious freedoms of the new Republic: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In combination with the constitutional prohibition of religious tests for federal officers, the framing of these words has been seen as marking a radical break with the colonial past. Few developments have been a greater source of pride for successive generations of Americans, but, at the same time, few have caused so much confusion or controversy. The spare eloquence of the religion clauses was one thing, how to interpret and apply those clauses has been quite another, and scholars, jurists, and many others besides continue to disagree about what the founders were hoping to achieve when they settled upon those fabled sixteen words. Did they envisage the banishment, root and branch and forever, of all and any religious establishment? Or were they merely concerned with prohibiting the creation of a national religion? How useful is it to even refer to "the founders" as though a single, unified philosophy of church/state relations existed in the first years of the United States? Should James Madison and Thomas Jefferson really be privileged as the default interpreters of the early Republic's religious freedoms? One of the most profound lessons the debate about religious freedom teaches us is that it is always enormously difficult (assuming it is even desirable or necessary) to accurately interpret the intentions of earlier generations. This is doubly the case when such intentions are enshrined in a written document, the framing of which was preceded by a lengthy, awkward debate, and whose clauses were coined in deliberately unspecific language so that they might, as the nineteenth-century jurist Joseph Story put it, have a chance of surviving a "long lapse of ages." In his concurring opinion in the Supreme Court case of Abington v. Schempp in 1963, Justice William Brennan admitted that "the line which separates the secular from the sectarian in American life is elusive." It was always difficult to define that boundary because of a paradox that was "central to our scheme of liberty." "While our institutions reflect a firm conviction that we are a religious people, those institutions by solemn constitutional injunction may not officially involve religion in such a way as to prefer, discriminate against, or oppress, a particular sect or religion." The business of interpreting that injunction was always destined to be

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complicated, however, and "an awareness of history and an appreciation of the aims of the founding fathers do not always resolve concrete problems." In the specific matter under discussion, "religion in modern public schools," it was impossible to know exactly what Jefferson or Madison would have thought. America was simply not the same place it had been at the end of the eighteenth century. For one thing, "our religious composition makes us a vastly more diverse people than were our forefathers. They knew differences chiefly among Protestant sects. Today the nation is far more heterogeneous religiously, including as it does substantial minorities not only of Catholics and Jews but as well of those who worship according to no version of the Bible and those who worship no God at all." Thus, Brennan suggested, "a too literal quest for the advice of the founding fathers upon the issues of these cases seems to me futile and misdirected." Most importantly, "the historical record is at best ambiguous, and statements can readily be found to support either side of the proposition." It was always wise—and this surely holds true whether or not one concurs with Brennan's overall analysis—to be aware of the "ambiguity of history." Ultimately, Brennan doubted whether "their view, even if perfectly clear one way or the other, would supply a dispositive answer to the question presented by these cases." But none of this meant that present-day generations were entirely cut off from tradition. Far from it. The skill was not to look for specific advice, but to strive to translate "the majestic generalities of the Bill of Rights, conceived as part of the pattern of liberal government in the eighteenth century, into concrete restraints on officials dealing with the problems of the twentieth century." Ultimately, and this is a truism readily demonstrated by the history of Supreme Court decisions over the past sixty years, it will always be impossible to achieve a definitive interpretation of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. And perhaps that is no bad thing. It doubtless leads to frustration, confusion, and contradiction, but it is also the source of much of the vitality that America's debate about religious freedom currently possesses. History, in sum, brings both its burdens and its blessings and that, quite rightly, is a paradox a democratic society with a written constitution is obliged to embrace.

¥ *t ^f The debate over religious freedom has been jolted into life periodically during America's history. The aspirations of minorities in the colonial era and the struggles of Catholics, Jews, African Americans, and Muslims in face of what has justifiably been called a de facto Protestant cultural dominance have obliged America constantly to reevaluate its understanding of religious freedom. The arrival of large immigrant communities (be it the Catholic Irish or Middle-European Jews) and the emergence of new, homegrown religious movements (whether the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses) have brought new tensions and new energies to the debate.

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During the early history of the United States, arguments about religious freedom rarely reached the federal courtroom. Instead, they were largely the province of educationalists, church leaders, polemicists, legislators, and intellectuals. In 1868, however, with the arrival of the Fourteenth Amendment and its insistence that state governments could not ignore the rights their people enjoyed as U.S. citizens, questions of religious freedom and church/ state separation were destined to move to the United States Supreme Court. It did take the best part of a century for this to come to fruition, however, but with the Cantwell free exercise case of 1940, and the Everson establishment case of 1947, the floodgates were opened. In these landmark cases, the Supreme Court incorporated the First Amendment religion clauses into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In subsequent cases, the court has sought to establish a national standard by which issues of religious freedom ought to be interpreted and judged. Latterly, with some politicians and religious leaders bemoaning an irreligious society, with its supposedly naked public squares and prayerless classrooms, the debate about the impact and interpretation of the religion clauses has reached fever pitch. Any number of rival publications, organizations, think tanks, and websites continue to join battle with, and occasionally hurl abuse at, each other, and the tradition of religious freedom in America is, depending upon whom you ask, either under warranted scrutiny or fanatical siege. Tussles over the application of the free exercise clause have raised one of the most profound dilemmas in American political philosophy: how does the state strike a balance between its citizens' rights and the responsibility to maintain order and promote the common good? Can the right to free exercise of religious beliefs be curtailed in the interests of protecting the social fabric, as was suggested in the Reynolds case of 1879 (where the polygamy of Mormonism was held to undermine important values)? Can a government's duty to uphold child labor laws be passed over in the case of a woman including one of her relations in her proselytizing efforts? Can people who want to become U.S. citizens be allowed to opt out of fighting for their new country because of their religious convictions, or does the state's need for military preparedness outrank such qualms? Which is more important: the duty of the government to provide a child with an education, or an Amish parent's desire to keep his children away from school; the need for a merchant to open his store on Sunday because it was closed on the Saturday Sabbath, or the secular need for a uniform day of rest? There has been much wrangling about how to resolve such problems. With the Sherbert decision of 1963, it was suggested that a "compelling state interest" had to be demonstrated before the right to free exercise could be undermined, although fears that this standard was being eroded seemed to prove justified with the 1990 peyote-ingesting case of Employment Division v. Smith, in which the compelling interest test was described as contradicting

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both constitutional tradition and common sense. In response, Congress would pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, but four years later, the Supreme Court would declare that, by so doing, Congress had overreached its legislative powers. Certainly, in recent history, the idea has been in the ascendant that laws that impact upon individual religious freedoms need only be "neutral" and "generally applicable" to remain constitutional. The debate over the application of the establishment clause, meanwhile, has been equally fraught. The conundrum of church/state relations has puzzled America throughout its history, from the Cotton/Williams confrontation of the seventeenth century onward. The burden of judging just how high and impregnable Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state should be has provoked impassioned debate. Indeed, the value of Jefferson's metaphor itself has been seriously interrogated. If allowing mandated prayer or Bible reading in public schools represents a state-sponsoring of religion, what about a time of "silent prayer" before class? Can prayers at the opening of a legislative session be allowed on grounds of historical tradition, and is it reasonable for a Christmas display on government property to include a nativity scene if other, non-Christian, symbols are also displayed? Can public funds be used to bus children to private religious schools or provide them with secular textbooks, as long as such gestures are of benefit to the children in question and not the institution they attend? What if teachers in public schools are asked to provide special needs education in a parochial school? What if a deaf student in such a school needs public funds to provide a sign-language interpreter? Would it not be an act of hostility, rather than of neutrality, toward churches if they did not receive the same tax breaks as other nonprofit organizations? With the so-called Lemon test of 1971 (named for the Lemon v. Kurtzman decision of that year) a standard for resolving such questions seemed to have emerged: if a law was to avoid conflict with the establishment clause, it had to have a secular purpose, its principal effect must not be to advance or hinder religion, and it must not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion. More recently, especially since the Equal Access Act of 1984, an accommodationist position on church/state relations has gained much ground: the deaf child got a signer, rights to hold after-hours religious meetings on public school property have been successfully defended, and, with the decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris in 2002, a school voucher program was deemed constitutional. A stricter separationist position seems to have found itself increasingly out of tune with a large swathe of public opinion, most visibly over the issue of prayer in schools. The establishment debate shows few signs of abating, not so long as the advisability of faith-based initiatives (and the provision of state funds to groups who integrate religious objectives into their work) continues to be discussed, or as long as arguments rage about prayer in the public schools, about whether large monuments to the Ten Commandments ought to be

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allowed on government property, or about the alleged unconstitutionality of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. The only absolutely secure conclusion that can be drawn is that applying the rubrics of the First Amendment is far from easy. For one thing, changes in cultural moods and judicial personnel can result in dramatic shifts in opinion: saluting the national flag was deemed necessary by the Supreme Court in 1940 (with an eight to one majority), but not required in 1943 (with an identical majority). In 1985 sending public school remedial teachers to parochial schools was adjudged as unconstitutional, but this conclusion was overturned twelve years later. Little seems settled, and at the time of writing, it appears that the coming years will see the Supreme Court once more tackling controversial First Amendment cases head-on. In June 2004, the court failed to engage directly with the fraught issue of the constitutionality of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and, in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, it rejected Michael Newdow's case on the standing grounds that he did not have a right to bring suit on behalf of his daughter. However, only a few months later, the court announced its intention to hear cases involving the religious rights of prisoners as well as two cases dealing with the constitutionality of displays of the Ten Commandments in public buildings (McCreary County v. ACLU and Van Orden v. Perry). This issue had managed to divide both lower appeals courts and public opinion, with tensions arising between the need to avoid state endorsement of religion and the apparent validity of displaying a document that, patently, had its influence on molding the nation's legal and political identity. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the cases in 2005, but it is instructive, and sobering, to remember that the chances of its judgments ending the controversy are, at best, meager. Alongside such tussles, arguments will also continue over the constitutionality of the 2000 Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (intended to protect the religious rights of prisoners and of people wanting to use zoned land for religious purposes) and of the desirability of a Workplace Religious Freedom Act. As perhaps never before, an astonishing diversity of religious freedom debates is set to engage public opinion. New religious traditions (sometimes too quickly labeled as "cults") continue to emerge, while the adherents of long-established faiths—Sikh police officers wanting to wear their turbans, Muslim schoolchildren wanting to wear their scarves at public schools, Muslims seeking time to pray during the working day—strive to negotiate the legal framework in which the exercise of their beliefs must operate. The greatest risk in confronting such debates will, as ever, be that of lapsing into exaggeration or oversimplification. It is often argued, for instance, that forbidding sponsored prayer in public schools is simply not the same thing as removing all mention of, or private meditation on, Christianity from the educational system. Nor, it is suggested in a nation that mentions

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God on its coins, whose presidents invariably invoke God in their inaugural addresses, and where legislative sessions are preceded by prayers, is it easy to see how the "religious" component of public life could ever truly be obscured. However, it is also pointed out that the debate about America's religious freedom is not merely a legal tussle; it is also a matter for the court of public opinion. Just how important is it to acknowledge the way that court has spoken in recent years when consulted about issues such as school prayer, charitable choice, and the pledge? * *

*

If that is a snapshot of the current debate on religious freedom, this book hopes to throw light on how America has reached this point. Perhaps, an understanding of past debates can inform (though not dictate) the analysis of present-day conundrums. It is important to stress that, while some of the twenty figures discussed (William Penn, Roger Williams, and John Courtney Murray, for instance) are chosen because they produced lengthy, sophisticated meditations on the nature of religious freedom, others (including Joseph Smith, Lyman Beecher, and Joseph Franklin Rutherford) have been singled out because their actions, as much as their thought, altered forever the way Americans approached the issues of free exercise and church/state separation. The emphasis in the biographies is, I think inevitably, on those people who, in one way or another, believed in religious freedom. It was through their actions that, for the most part, the debate moved forward—although their motives could, of course, range from philosophical commitment, through a perception that such freedoms produced economic advantages, to the notion that, in a country with so many competing sects, advocating religious freedom was a matter of pragmatic political necessity. It is also important to realize that the debate over religious freedom is not the sole preserve of the United States Supreme Court. Nor was it a debate that only began with the framing of the Bill of Rights. As Brennan also explained in his opinion in Abington v. Schempp, the religion clauses of the First Amendment "although distinct in their objectives and their applicability, emerged together from a common panorama of history." It is a history that dates back to the very beginning of the colonial era. There are, moreover, many excellent books that deal, in forensic detail, with the succession of free exercise and establishment cases that have come before the Supreme Court. Moreover, such books are properly written by legal scholars. Consequently, a significant number of the biographies deal with individuals from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That said, it is impossible to deny the importance of the legal actions brought by, and on behalf of, the individuals who have concerned the Supreme Court over the last sixty years. If a list of people who have made a contribution to the debate on religious freedom was to be drawn up, it

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would surely include the likes of Everson and Cantwell (as well as those who judged their cases). And so, though it would be inappropriate to provide fullscale biographies of such individuals, the book does conclude with an appendix which briefly describes some (though by no means all) of the more important free exercise and establishment clause cases of the last halfcentury and more. Hopefully, this also compensates for the fact that—on the principle that historical judgments about the significance of present-day figures belong to future generations—very few contemporary participants in the debate about religious freedom are included in this volume. The book's principal aim, finally, is to demonstrate that, within the long history of America's debate over religious freedom, there are both sustained traditions and striking discontinuities. The role of religion in schools and colleges may, as one example, be a much-debated issue at the dawn of the twenty-first century, but it was also much discussed by Anglicans and their rivals in 1750s New York, and by Catholic and Jewish leaders in the nineteenth-century Republic (most famously in 1840s New York City and Philadelphia and in 1870s Ohio). Care must be taken, however, not to regard a centuries-long debate as a continuum. As entries in this book make clear, what someone like Roger Williams understood by the very phrase "religious freedom" was very different from Thomas Jefferson's (let alone a modern day jurist's) view of the concept. As the diversity of opinion, reflected in the public careers of the individuals discussed in this book, hopefully reveals, there has never been a single, uniform debate about religious freedom. If a single lesson ought to be taken from this book, it is that blithely "recruiting" figures from bygone eras in order to bolster present-day arguments is sometimes a questionable tactic. ^ ^ ^ Each of the twenty biographies that follow offers an overview of an individual's career, but, inevitably, focuses more closely on his or her contribution to the debate about religious freedom. In some cases, the biography includes a short, but significant, account of another figure with whom the principal subject's career and thought can usefully be compared or contrasted: thus the essay on Isaac Backus contains extended mention of John Leland, the essay on Ralph Waldo Emerson spends considerable time discussing Theodore Parker, and the piece on Isaac Mayer Wise offers some account of Isaac Leeser. With some of the essays (those about Joseph Smith, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, and John Collier, for instance), the career of the particular individual is discussed in detail, but the opportunity is also taken to use the biography as a prism through which a broader aspect of the debate can be understood—the role of Mormonism, the significance of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and Native American religious freedom, respectively, in the examples mentioned. Similarly, the essay on Earl Warren is, primarily, taken as an opportunity

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to discuss the importance of the "Warren Court," and the various decisions that, while often unremarkable from the viewpoint of legal history, had so vital an impact on discussion of religious freedom and church/state issues in the wider culture. Warren was perhaps not the greatest legal mind in the Supreme Court he oversaw, and other justices—notably William Brennan and H u g o Black—provided the court with much of its energy and ethos. Nonetheless, as his colleagues invariably revealed, Warren's leadership of the court was pivotal and he remains the obvious focus for an essay that discusses that court's significance. In like fashion, Jerry Falwell's career is used as a convenient backdrop to a discussion of the broader history of the emergence of the new religious right. The essays are arranged in chronological order, and each of them concludes with a short list of suggested reading. An appendix follows the main essays in which other figures in the debate about religious freedom are briefly described.

SUGGESTED READING Robert Alley, School Prayer: The Court, the Congress, and the First Amendment (Buffalo, NY, 1994); Patricia Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America (New York, 1986); Catharine Cookson, ed., Encyclopedia of Religious Freedom (New York, 2003); Thomas Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment (New York, 1986); Terry Eastland, Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court (Washington, DC, 1993); Bette Novit Evans, Interpreting the Free Exercise of Religion: The Constitution and American Pluralism (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997); M. Stanton Evans, The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics and the American Tradition (Washington, DC, 1994); Marvin Frankel, Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America (New York, 1994); Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, The Godless Constitution: The Case against Religious Correctness (New York, 1996); Leonard Levy, The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment (New York, 1986); William Miller, The First Liberty: Religion and the American Republic (New York, 1986); John Noonan, Jr., The Lustre of Our Country: The American Experience of Religious Freedom (Berkeley, CA, 1998); John Patrick and Gerald Long, eds., Constitutional Debates on Freedom of Religion: A Documentary History (Westport, CT, 1998); Martin Sheffer, God versus Caesar: Belief, Worship and Proselytising under the First Amendment (Albany, NY, 1999); and Steven Smith, Foreordained Failure: The Quest for a Constitutional Principle of Religious Freedom (New York, 1995). Those readers eager to learn more about the cut and thrust of the contemporary debate about religious freedom are directed to the following websites, many of which also include useful sections of historical background. These are, in most cases, the websites of partisan organizations. Internet addresses, famously and annoyingly, are apt to change, but all of the following were accurate at the time of publication.

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The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty: www.acton.org American Center for Law and Justice: www.aclj.org American Civil Liberties Union: www.aclu.org Americans United for Separation of Church and State: www.au.org Anti-Defamation League: www.adl.org Baptist Joint Committee: www.bjcpa.org The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty: www.becketfund.org Christian Coalition: www.cc.org The First Amendment Center: www.firstamendmentcenter.org The Freedom Forum: www.freedomforum.org Liberty Counsel: www.lc.org Rutherford Institute: www.rutherford.org

JOHN COTTON (1584-1652) The Interest of Righteousness To understand the seminal, enduring contribution that John Cotton made to America's debate on religious freedom, there is perhaps no better place to begin an investigation than the England into which he was born, on December 4, 1584. It was an England in flux, possessed of a confusing religious landscape made up of some 8,600 parishes and between 3 and 4 million people, many of whom were far from sure what this much-discussed phenomenon called "Reformation" truly entailed. For five decades, under the guidance of four monarchs, competing theologies—ranging from traditionalist Catholicism to radical Protestantism—had battled it out in statute book and pulpit. Debates had raged about the ways people ought to seek salvation, about how they ought to worship their God, about the sorts of access individuals should have to Holy Scripture. Were people irrevocably predestined to reign in heaven or suffer in hell, or could good works truly influence the destination of a person's eternal soul? Was an authentic priesthood to be made up of the community of all believers, or was there still room for a distinct, elevated priestly caste? When the answers to such questions had not pleased them, some people had bravely resisted, even going so far as perishing as martyrs or resigning themselves to a life in exile. Some had responded with contempt, feeding communion wafers to their dogs, denouncing vicars from the pews, or spitting at their religious opponents in the street. Some had been too bewildered by the constantly changing religious fashions to do anything more than temporize, abiding by whatever doctrinal credo happened to hold sway at any particular moment. With the accession of Elizabeth I to the throne in 1558, two and a half decades before Cotton's birth in Derby, it seemed to some observers that a moderate, sustainable religious settlement might finally be achieved. Old

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ecclesiastical structures—organized around bishops and the like—would be retained, but the more palatable lessons of Reformation, about what and how the English people ought to worship, would be heeded. By 1563, England's doctrinal affiliations would be encapsulated in the Thirty-Nine Articles and a cautious journey between traditional and reformed ideas would be embarked upon. Unfortunately, such pragmatic attempts at compromise failed to impress a good many people. England's shrinking but resilient Catholic population was hardly likely to be enamored of the definitive outlawing of the Roman mass or the (albeit cautious) embracing of Calvinistic ideas about grace and predestination. And this was a dissatisfaction that only deepened as antirecusant legislation began to assault the liberties and purses of those Catholics who refused to attend their parish churches. As for those of more extreme Protestant persuasions, they could readily grant that much had changed since Henry VIII's clumsy, self-serving break with Rome in the 1530s— services were now in English, liturgies and rituals had undergone momentous transformations, one would have to search the English countryside in vain for a thriving monastery or nunnery—but was such change sufficient} Had Reformation gone far enough, or was the Elizabethan settlement a fudge, a still-polluted halfway house? It was the struggle to answer such questions that energized the career of John Cotton and of many other disgruntled English Protestants, who took the radical decision to head across the Atlantic Ocean to the fledgling colonies on America's eastern seaboard—in pursuit, so they claimed, of other, better ways of serving their God. The son of Mary (nee Hurlbert) and Roland, a Derby lawyer, John Cotton would enjoy an education and an early career that steadily confirmed his misgivings about the speed and scale of England's Reformation. After studies at Derby Grammar School, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, at thirteen, and secured his BA in 1603. He was elected a fellow of Emmanuel College—a position he would hold until 1612—and gained his MA in 1606. It is often a mistake to talk of a unified, homogenous Puritan "movement" in early-modern England, but if Protestant radicalism was anywhere institutionalized, it was surely at Emmanuel, the college founded in 1584 by Walter Mildmay, and which, over the coming decades, emerged as a veritable hotbed of radical theologizing. This was the place where a disproportionate number of future pilgrims to the Americas received their education. And this was where John Cotton's religious identity would be molded. Over the coming years, as well as garnering a solid reputation as a tutor and a lecturer, Cotton would streamline his theological thinking, help convert John Preston (a future master of the college) to the Puritan cause, and (greatly influenced by Richard Sibbes) begin to develop a plain, compelling preaching style typical of those on his wing of the English Church. After being ordained at Lincoln in 1610, and having

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received his Bachelor of Divinity degree three years later, Cotton seemed destined for a combative, turbulent clerical career. Cotton's concerns about the virtues of the English Church were shared by many within the Puritan fraternity. Was it really appropriate, they wondered, that a supposedly reformed church still boasted so many reminders of the Roman Catholic past—so many "dregs of popery"? Should ministers really still be wearing elaborate vestments, should parishioners still be kneeling at communion or making the sign of the cross? There had been much liturgical progress, but was everything contained within the English Book of Common Prayer truly acceptable to refined Protestant tastes? And, crucially, if there were shortcomings within the Jacobean Church, how long ought right-thinking individuals, desperate for a return to the purity and simplicity of the early church, wait for their rulers and superiors to put things right? Was "tarrying for the magistrate" still a viable strategy? Some decided it was not; they had waited long enough, and total separation from the Church of England was the only alternative left open to them. This was the position of many of the Mayflower pilgrims who headed to Plymouth in 1620—it was also, as another entry in this book makes clear, the position of Roger Williams—but it was never the position of John Cotton. Over the first decade of his clerical career, Cotton can best be understood as struggling to square his conscience (that most demanding of early-modern tribunals) and his professional, salaried duties as an ordained minister in a tarnished, but still redeemable, church. As vicar of St. Botolph's in Boston, Lincolnshire (a position he almost failed to secure owing to his relative youth), Cotton spent the twenty-one years between 1612 and 1633 plowing this difficult furrow. Growing increasingly Calvinistic in his theology, he fed his reformist appetites by conducting informal seminars for recent, sympathetic Cambridge graduates (including Thomas Hill, Samuel Winter, and John Angier) and those exiles from Germany and Holland who routinely enjoyed his hospitality. He counseled local ministers and a still wider circle of correspondents (and Cotton would be a dedicated letter writer throughout his life) on how they might approach the dilemmas and difficulties that resulted from clerical service in the early Stuart world. Like-minded parishioners were extremely pleased with their new minister—an ideal replacement, they believed, for the equally nonconformist Thomas Wooll. But some of his congregation were distressed by Cotton's selective use of the prayer book, his excising of offending passages, his refusal to wear the prescribed surplice, and the way he discouraged parishioners from receiving communion on their knees. Perhaps surprisingly, such pointed disobedience did not bring Cotton into any great trouble during the 1610s and 1620s, not least owing to the support and protection of influential allies such as Bishop John Williams of Lincoln and Thomas Leverett, a Boston alderman. Other than temporary suspensions in 1615 and 1621, Cotton was tolerated. Across in Ipswich, the

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minister Samuel Ward commented, rather resentfully, that "of all men in the world I envy Mr Cotton of Boston m o s t . . . he does nothing in way of conformity and yet has his liberty, and I do everything that way and cannot enjoy mine." But with the arrival of the 1630s, there was to be an alteration in Cotton's fortunes and a growing realization that a sea crossing might be the best way to preserve his religious freedom and identity. It was a realization that, over the course of that decade, many like-minded Englishmen would come to share: one that would contribute to a formative episode in America's encounter with the issue of religious freedom. jf ^ ^

William Laud ascended to the see of Canterbury in 1633, the very year in which John Cotton departed the realm. His appointment was seen by many as the culmination of unwholesome trends that had been emerging ever since Charles I had become king in 1625, and most worryingly summed up by the monarch's abrogation of Parliament in 1629—a gesture that effectively robbed those of Puritan sympathies of a voice and any meaningful chance of redress. It is tempting to assume that men of Laud's stamp turned the Stuart Church—its doctrinal identity, its fixed ideas about ritual and liturgy— upside down. From the late 1620s onward, voices were certainly raised against a new species of "popishly affected" bishops, who openly criticized Calvin's doctrines of predestination and sought to focus their congregations' attentions on the altar and the sacramental majesty of Holy Communion— wresting their attention, so it was alleged, away from the true focal point of any reputable Protestant religious ceremony: the pulpit and the sermon. As the 1630s progressed, as decent Sabbath observance was undermined by the official sanctioning of games and dancing on a Sunday, as movable communion tables gave way to fixed, railed-off altars (a blatant nod to the Catholic past, it was averred), so the opinion was voiced that the English Church had become like "a candle in the snuff, going out in a stench." To some observers it seemed that the warning words of a member of the House of Commons back in 1628 had been alarmingly prescient: "the see of Rome," he had lamented, "doth eat into our religion." It is easy to overplay this historiographical hand. Whatever his critics (and they were legion) might have claimed, William Laud was no kind of papistin-disguise. He did not smash a Calvinist consensus because, outside of certain university and intellectual circles, no such consensus existed. But what the shifts in England's religious identity, from the mid-1620s forward, most certainly did achieve was the further alienation of Protestants like John Cotton, who were already bordering on disenchantment. To abandon one's religious brethren, most especially if one was a minister, was to court the accusation of behaving like the hireling shepherd who deserted his flock. The American exiles would fashion sophisticated, often successful theological rebuttals to such arguments, not least by insisting on

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the necessity of quitting a realm in which, by some calculations, it was only a matter of time before divine punishments (plague, pestilence, and the rest) would begin to descend. The promise of an elect English nation—enshrined most vividly in the pages and propaganda of the martyrologist John Foxe— seemed to be fading, and people began to murmur, then to advertise rather loudly, that it might be sensible to seek out a truly godly commonwealth elsewhere. It fell to Cotton's fellow emigre John Winthrop to articulate this vision, a vision in which pessimism and optimism were strangely combined. In 1629, the future governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony articulated his "reasons for removal." There was certainly a sense of huge potential, of something toward which the pilgrims were moving: "it will be a service to the Church of great consequence to carry the Gospel into those parts of the world . . . to raise a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist which the Jesuits labour to rear up in those parts." But there was also little doubt that Winthrop and his companions were fleeing decline and corruption. The churches of Europe "are brought to desolation, and our sins, for which the Lord begins already to frown upon us, and to cut us short, do threaten evil times to be coming upon us." Perhaps America represented a "refuge for many whom he means to save out of the general calamity." In the Old World the "fountains of learning and religion" were corrupted, and children were "perverted . . . and utterly overthrown" by evil example. It was surely God's influence that encouraged so much interest in the emigration project—some had offered money, others had offered prayers—and it was clear that he had "some great work in hand which he hath revealed to his prophets among us whom he hath stirred up to encourage his servants to this plantation." It is crucial to reiterate that many of these people, John Cotton and John Winthrop included, did not aspire to an abrupt separation from the English Church. For all their fury and misgivings, they stubbornly maintained that it was still a true, savable church, a loving mother, the "Jerusalem at home." Their intention was not to damn the congregations they left behind as anti-Christian, but to offer them, an ocean away, an example, a model, of purity. Cotton's interest in this American experiment had already been evidenced in 1629, when he had participated in a planning meeting for a new colony. A year later he preached the farewell sermon at Southampton (published as God's Promise to His Plantation) for the departure of John Winthrop and the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—the trailblazers of the thousands of English men, women, and children who would emigrate to America over the next decades. It was an interest that was only likely to blossom further as the formerly indulgent ecclesiastical authorities began to turn their attention to this wayward minister. Pressure mounted. By the fall of 1632, Cotton was in hiding, and in early 1633, he was called before the Court of High Commission to explain his dissenting opinions. On May 7, 1633, he resigned his position in Lincolnshire by letter.

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The summons to appear before the High Commission was never served, but Cotton surely realized that his position in England was less tenable than ever before. He had toyed with the idea of finding refuge on the continent, and certain aspects of religious life in the colonies—notably the separatist policies of Plymouth and Salem—had not pleased him, but it was to America that Cotton finally decided to flee. Cotton's first wife, Elizabeth Horrocks (the sister of a Lancashire minister), to whom he had been married in 1613, had died in 1631, and so it was with his second wife, Sarah Hawkredd Story, his spouse since April 1632, that Cotton set sail aboard the Griffin in July 1633. His sailing companions included such future Massachusetts luminaries as Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone, and by the time the party reached Boston, Cotton had acquired a new son, named Seaborn. The family disembarked on September 4, with Cotton eager to contribute to Winthrop's project of building a city on a hill, a beacon for all right-thinking Protestants the world over. In part, he had made this journey to preserve and cultivate his own religious freedom (a concept, it should be stressed, that was understood in very different ways in the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries), to escape a country in which that freedom was increasingly threatened. Much of what English Puritans had dreamed would come to pass in Massachusetts: there would be no church courts or bishops, no tithes or maypoles. The question yet to be answered was whether men like Cotton, who had fashioned themselves as persecuted and oppressed in one place, would become persecutors and oppressors in another. Who deserved religious freedom and why? Such were the questions that Americans continued to debate for the next 400 years. Jf ^L

If

John Cotton would spend twenty years in Massachusetts, preaching, theologizing, and doing as much as any other figure to elucidate the duties and aspirations of New England religion. He would be a prime architect, indeed the very namer, of Massachusetts Congregationalism. Over and above the causes celebres in which he was embroiled—and to which we will soon turn—Cotton's pastoral and scholarly achievements were extensive. He would produce catechisms for children—Milk for Babes: Drawn Out of the Breasts of Both Testaments (1646)—and his translation of the psalms of various New England ministers contributed to the Bay Psalm Book of 1640. His sermonizing, often peppered with millennial and anti-Catholic sentiment, was avidly collected in numerous printed volumes and proved to be highly influential. Millennial outpourings like The Powring Out of the Seven Vials (1642) and An Exposition upon the Thirteenth Chapter of the Revelation (1655) summed up the widespread New England conviction that the last days were truly approaching, making it all the more urgent for New Englanders to mend their ways.

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As for future American debates about religious freedom—debates about tolerance, conscience, and the relationship between church and state—these would be influenced and undergirded by the New England experience. American Protestant identity that, for better or worse, would remain dominant down to the present day was forged by men such as John Cotton. He was rapturously welcomed to the colony, old friendships were rekindled, and, on October 10, 1633, he was appointed teacher at the First Church of Boston. In the following months, his popular preaching attracted many new congregants to the church: in the four months from October, membership rose from 80 to 124, with a further 93 members joining during 1634. An eager advocate of the much-vaunted "New England Way" seemed to have arrived. But, before recounting the more dramatic episodes in Cotton's Massachusetts career, this very notion of a unified New England religious mentality ought to be interrogated. Massachusetts was not a theocracy, where political power resided with religious leaders. In fact, the bicameral political system that developed there was rather more democratic, and extended a wider franchise, than the system back home in England. But it was a place where religion was allpervasive, where modern-day ideas about the total separation of church and state would, at the very least, have been met with derision. When the first public education law in American history was introduced in the colony in 1647, it sought to provide tax-supported Christian educations that were envisaged as one more way to defeat the "chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures." The colony's laws, meanwhile, were derived from biblical commandments; ministers commented upon political events; and their counsel was sought by municipal leaders. Cotton, for instance, would be prevailed upon by Governor Henry Vane to reply to a letter from Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke, and others, in which he answered their concerns about the continuation of a hereditary aristocracy in the colony. As well as commenting on everything from economic policy to the just price to land grants, Cotton would be among those clergymen who attempted (always with an eye to Mosaic ideas and scriptural sanctions) to articulate the colony's legal principles. His "Moses His Judicials" was rejected in October 1636, but it would go on to form the basis of the laws of New Haven. As Uriah Oakes, Cambridge minister and sometime president of Harvard, put it, "the interest of righteousness in the commonwealth and holiness in the churches are inseparable . . . to divide what god hath conjoined . . . is folly." Caution is always necessary before calling anything purely "secular" in such a milieu. There was, to be sure, a kind of state/church separation: ministers were not eligible to serve in secular office, and the magistrate's competence was held only to the extent of governance of the "outer" man—imposing bodily punishment for blasphemy or heresy, for instance. As Cotton explained to John Davenport, it was important to distinguish "between the two administrations

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or polities, ecclesiastical and civil, which men commonly call the church and the commonwealth." The ecclesiastical administration was a "divine order appointed to believers" for the arrangement of "holy things." Civil administrators, by contrast, represented a "human order" intended to preserve "human souls in outward honour, justice and peace." It was imperative that these administrations should not be confounded together by giving, for instance, any spiritual power to civil magistrates. This was a message reiterated in the colony's 1641 "Body of Liberties." Civil authority certainly had power "to deal with any Church member in a way of civil justice" and a duty to "see the peace, ordinances and rules of Christ observed in every church according to his word," provided this was done "in a civil and not in an ecclesiastical way." But the church and civil government were to be envisaged as occupying their own domains, and even when an individual fell foul of ecclesiastical authority—perhaps even being excommunicated—that did not mean his worldly career was brought into jeopardy: "no church censure shall degrade or depose any man from any civil dignity, office, or authority he shall have in the commonwealth." But for all that, Cotton was equally determined to portray the colony as an idealized Christian commonwealth, the result of a sacred covenant between man and God, in which blessings would be exchanged for the people's willingness to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their creator. A society, a special congregation, founded on Christian love and bonds of brotherly affection—just like those of the early church—was to be aimed at, in which a certain kind of soul-searching spirituality, a distinct social ethic (suspicious of frivolity), and a social structure rooted in the town and the godly family would be normative. There was clearly an economic component in the Bay Colony's founding and future. Many of those who crossed the ocean had suffered during bad harvests and famines in the 1620s, and it did not take observers long to recognize the entrepreneurial vibrancy that was emerging in the colony. But even here, in the mundane world of work and profit, much of the citizenry saw an opportunity to serve God, and if adversity raised its head, it only offered a chance to test their faith. Such lofty aspirations—aspirations that, as recent scholarship has rightly stressed, were dented by the dissent and complexities contained within the far-from-homogenous New England Way—naturally required mechanisms and, above all, institutions to underpin them. No institution was more crucial, and none was more avidly supported by John Cotton, than a dominant, domineering religious establishment. Offering a privileged position to one church was commonplace in the American colonies, although such arrangements were settled in different colonies at different times. Just as Congregationalism would hold sway in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, so would Anglicanism come to enjoy special status in Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia,

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and parts of New York. The millennia-old puzzle of how the two spheres, the sacred and the secular, ought to interact was solved in much the same way as Europeans had routinely solved it ever since the rule of Constantine over the Roman Empire. Massachusetts congregations fiercely guarded their autonomy, and the notion of an episcopal hierarchy was wholly dispensed with, but in every parish it was the taxpayer who was expected to support a minister and a meetinghouse. In Cotton's Massachusetts, all citizens were to attend midweek lectures and two services every Sunday, but in order to enjoy full participation in the political life of the colony, a person had to be a member of the Congregational Church. But how to decide who deserved the privilege of church membership? Catholics might have been content with the notion of an Invisible Church, in which every person, assuming they avoided grotesque behavior and excommunication, ought to have access to church services and sacraments: after all, no one was irrevocably destined for salvation or perdition. But Calvinists grew very keen on the idea of the Visible Church, a church here on earth that separated the reprobate from those who looked as if they were among the predestined Elect. John Cotton did much to sort such wheat from such chaff, and largely thanks to him, a process had emerged by the mid-1630s in which would-be church members were examined and were expected to furnish verbal proof of a genuine conversion experience, a regenerative episode, a new birth into sanctification and union with Christ. There was considerable potential for disruption under such a system: what were people who had not enjoyed these kinds of experiences supposed to do? Was there not a risk that, excluded from full participation in local affairs, they would become alienated? Massachusetts would take some steps to soften its earlier decrees—the famed Half Way Covenant of 1662 (a compromise that pleased hardly anyone, though it was one that Cotton's theorizing had anticipated) would at least ensure that the children of non-church members, who were the grandchildren of full members, could still be baptized. But Cotton's role in establishing the first experiential test of church membership ranks among his most significant, though hardly uncontroversial, achievements. Cotton's Massachusetts fully subscribed to the idea of a church establishment, and it assumed that religion would serve as the life-breath of social and civic life. Cotton would emerge as the preeminent apologist for this New England mentality, and in works such as The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (1644), The Way of the Churches of Christ in New England (1645), and The Grounds and Ends of the Baptism of the Children of the Faithful (1647), he would seek to convince an international audience of its vitality and validity, rebutting British critics like Robert Baillie, and insisting that the Congregational system was, in fact, an echo of the structures of the early Apostolic Church. Only one part of the equation, the part that speaks most

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directly to issues of religious freedom, was missing. The edifice had to be defended; dissent had to be squashed. There was an acute awareness of the risks inherent in the congregational system—individual congregations, proud and possessive of their independence, had the potential to take up divergent positions on any number of issues. And there was an almost fanatical belief that preserving unity was vital in a colony that was understood as an actual battleground between God and the Devil. In Massachusetts, the need for action was instantly felt whenever Satan's adherents, whether in the guise of witches or dissenters, showed themselves. There was a wealth of liberty in Puritan Massachusetts—the liberty to do the right thing or face the consequences; the liberty, as Nathaniel Ward put it, to conform or "keep away from us." To most early-modern minds, it must always be remembered, modern-day notions of liberty would look much like license. True liberty consisted in the freedom to follow the paths and commandments of God. John Cotton, soon after his arrival in the colony, would play a major role in dispensing this kind of freedom. He would do much to elucidate the differences between what he called good and bad liberty, between sincere and obstinate conscience. ^ *

^

By the mid-1630s John Cotton was already a star in Boston's clerical firmament, admired as a preacher and a commentator. But a scandal was about to break that would serve to muddle Cotton's reputation—both among contemporaries and future generations. The trials and tribulations of Anne Hutchinson are dealt with in detail in a separate entry in this volume, but at their heart was a debate about the true nature of God's grace and mankind's role in receiving it. Hutchinson, supported within the colony by influential individuals including her brother-in-law John Wheelwright and Governor Henry Vane, would be brought to trial in 1637, accused of acting in ways unbecoming to her sex, of subscribing to antinomian doctrines, and of describing the operation of the divine economy in deeply controversial ways. Many in 1630s Massachusetts held that a baptized person—although he could never have any causal influence on his prospects for salvation or damnation—could at least do things to "prepare" his heart for the moment when God's grace, however undeservedly, flooded in. Cotton was unsure, and suggested that providing a person with even this much of a role in the process of election diluted the idea of the totally arbitrary operation of grace. It ran the risk of providing individuals with unwarranted comfort and security, with the erroneous belief that they could have any substantive role in their salvation. Perhaps it was also folly to suppose that, because a person seemed to be behaving "righteously," this could somehow be taken as a sign that he was among the saved: "Though his mind be enlightened, sometimes to fear, sometimes to joy, to humiliation, to enlargement, to zealous reformation, yet rest in none of these, for these you may have and

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yet want Christ, and life in Him; common graces may and will deceive you." This was a stance with which Anne Hutchinson seemed to agree. Moreover, it was Cotton who had sanctioned the meetings held at Hutchinson's house, where recent sermons were discussed, and Cotton was one of the very few Massachusetts clergymen not condemned by Anne as corrupt and hypocritical. When the minister Thomas Shepard began lambasting the Hutchinsonians from the pulpit, it was Cotton who launched a fierce defense of the integrity of his Bostonian flock. Cotton's own orthodoxy began to be questioned, and he was brought before a synod in Cambridge, where he was asked to clarify his theological positions. As suspicion of Hutchinson gave way to a legal process, Cotton was advised by his clerical colleagues that he was in danger of bearing some responsibility for the scandal, and he adroitly distanced himself from the quarrel. To be fair to Cotton, Hutchinson had extrapolated his position, and she was talking about immediate revelations from God in terms that Cotton was always likely to condemn. Moreover, while Cotton had merely criticized a tendency within the community to use good behavior as a means of gaining assurance of salvation, Hutchinson went much further, explicitly criticizing ministers for preaching a fully fledged covenant of works. Cotton offered no opposition to the banishment of Anne and her followers, although he did continue to correspond with John Wheelwright, urging him to soften his position. But if radical theologizing was one thing, individuals who displayed a "boisterous and arrogant spirit" to such an extent that they disturbed the civic peace were quite another. And it was in just these terms that Cotton would describe Roger Williams, a disruptive presence in New England ever since his arrival in Massachusetts in 1631. Over the coming years, Williams (whose life is described in more detail later in this book) would criticize the colonists for stripping local populations of their lands, for the blasphemous ways in which ungodly men were taking oaths, and for the intrusion of secular powers in the affairs of God. Cotton, for a time, sought to calm the situation, but the "heady unruliness" of Williams's spirit, his repeated, unsubtle attempts to criticize so much of what the colony represented, drove Cotton beyond all patience. It was with some relief that Cotton witnessed the banishment of Roger Williams in 1635, although he did express regret that he had not been given longer to convince the turbulent minister of his errors. When someone had to be chosen to calm the waters in Williams's parish after his forced departure, it was Cotton who was sent to Salem to deliver a sermon, to convince the congregation not to go any further down the road of separation. But the contest between the two men was not at an end. Over the next two decades, a war of books would unravel in which radically different understandings of religious freedom, of the relationship between church and state,

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were set out. First came Williams's Mr Cotton's Letter Lately Printed (1644), responded to by Cotton's A Reply to Mr Williams (1647). Then, in works such as The Bloudy Tenent, Washed and Made White in the Bloud of the Lambe (1647), Cotton sought to undermine Williams's advocacy of complete "soul liberty" by insisting that there were occasions when a dissenter who publicly and repeatedly disagreed with the generally held views of the community ought to be punished. There were moments (and Williams had assuredly provoked one of them) when individual dissent was such a threat to social order that his freedom to express maverick opinions had to be curtailed. Nor, Cotton insisted, was it always the reserve of the church to deal with such individuals: the state could, on occasion, play a part as well. Williams's desire that the two spheres of human society (the religious and the secular) should be entirely separate was, Cotton believed, the consequence of poor theology, of the belief that, in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ, there should be an absolute division between matters of the body and matters of the spirit, between the filthiness of the world and the purity of the soul. Cotton anticipated the Second Coming as well, but he was adamant that, until it manifested itself, such fissures were entirely wrongheaded. For Cotton, a godly commonwealth, in which people fulfilled their duties to both Christ and mankind and to the institutions of civil and ecclesiastical authority, was wholly attainable. ^ ^ ^ In late 1652, Cotton caught a cold while preaching. He offered the Boston faithful his last sermon on November 21 and died a little over a month later. He had been a daring theologian at the heart of the New England clerical establishment, provoking no small measure of discomfort by suggesting that seventeenth-century Protestants ought not to be irrationally frightened of a word like "revelation," by counseling his contemporaries that being secure and confident about their hopes of eternal bliss might just turn out to be an eschatological error of judgment. But if he had tested the limits of New England theological discourse—and this, in and of itself, was very much a part of New England's struggle to define the nature of religious freedom—he had also, not least through his dealings with Roger Williams, done as much as any of his colleagues to impose rigor, order, and, above all, security on the much-buffeted, much-challenged New England Way. He had contributed to and, in partnership with Richard Mather, written the preface for the 1648 Cambridge Platform—a defining document in the history of Massachusetts Congregationalism—and his children, including his daughter Maria, who married into the influential Mather family, would go on to swell the ranks of the colony's social and clerical elite. History has not really known what to make of John Cotton. Isaac Backus, the eighteenth-century Baptist and another of the figures whose lives are chronicled in this volume, doubtless regarded him with precious little

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sympathy. He would later denounce the hypocrisy of the leaders of New England Congregationalism who pretended that "there was this vast difference between their proceedings and the coercive measures which were taken against themselves in England." John Cotton, upon resignation from his Lincolnshire living, had informed his bishop that, in things pertaining to God, a man must live by his faith and not by the opinion of others. Across the seas, it is tempting to conclude, he evolved into someone who was adamant that people such as Roger Williams ought not to be able to live by a very similar credo. Caution is needed here, however. So far as Cotton was concerned, it is not impeachment of church liberty, but an enlargement of its beauty and honour, to be bound by strict law and holy commandments, to observe the pure worship of God, and to be subject unto due punishment for the gross violation of the same. Moreover, whatever Cotton believed about religious freedom, neither he nor Williams understood the debate in modern-sounding terms of natural rights and philosophical ideals. For them, it came down to processes of interpreting scripture that future generations would have struggled to understand. Cotton's career and thought serve to demonstrate that the notion of a unified, unbroken American debate about religious freedom—the notion that men like himself, William Penn, or Thomas Jefferson even meant anything like the same thing by the phrase "religious freedom"—is often not much more than a convenient fiction. SUGGESTED READING Sargent Bush, Jr., ed., The Correspondence of John Cotton (Chapel Hill, NC, 2001); Eugenia DeLamotte, "John Cotton and the Rhetoric of Grace," Early American Literature 21 (1986), 49-74; Michael Jenkins, "John Cotton and the Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Profile of Experiential Individualism in American Puritanism," Scottish Journal of Theology 43 (1990), 321-49; Irwin Polishook, Roger Williams, John Cotton and Religious Freedom (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1967); William Stoever, "Nature, Grace and John Cotton: The Theological Dimension in the New England Antinomian Controversy," Church History 44 (1975), 22-33; and Larzer Ziff, The Career of John Cotton: Puritanism and the American Experience (Princeton, NJ, 1962).

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ANNE HUTCHINSON (1591-1643) A Woman Not Fit for Our Society American Jezebel? An immodest, disruptive blight on the New England landscape, who neglected to abide by the rules that governed the religious deportment of her sex? Or a bold theologian, unimpressed by the hypocrisy and cloying formalism that surrounded her? Americans have been asking these sorts of questions about Anne Hutchinson for four centuries, and the answers they have provided at different times have usually served as reliable indicators of their particular society's assumptions and anxieties about issues of sex and gender. Hutchinson's story and shifting historical reputation provoke the thought that America's debate about religious freedom has not only revolved around the interactions and tensions between Catholics and Protestants, or among Christians, Native Americans, Jews, Muslims, and Atheists, but also between men and women. By 1613, Anne was cutting an unremarkable figure in the middling ranks of London society. She had recently been married to the textile merchant William Hutchinson, with whom she would have fourteen children. But beneath this workaday exterior, a career in religious dissent was already nascent. Born in Alford, Lincolnshire, two decades earlier, daughter of the minister of St. Wilfred's Church, Francis Marbury, and Bridget (nee Dryden), Anne Hutchinson had been steeped in scripture and theology from an early age. And a particular vision of scripture and theology at that. The squabbles and uncertainties that defined English Protestantism at the end of Elizabeth Fs reign were very much felt in the Marbury family. Anne's father would eventually see the wisdom in conforming to the ecclesiastical status quo, but he had earlier suffered censure and imprisonment for criticizing the laxist standards by which the country's clergy were trained and the political maneuvering that often lay behind their ministerial appointments. Less than surprising, then, that Anne and William Hutchinson would be attracted to the Puritan cause, often traveling substantial distances to hear

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the provocative sermons of John Cotton in Boston, Lincolnshire. Also, less than surprising that, in the summer of 1634, they would follow their spiritual mentor to the promising safe haven of Massachusetts. That is almost everything that is known about Anne Hutchinson before she boarded the Griffin in May 1634, which, in its way, is somehow fitting. Although English-born, she was destined to emerge as a uniquely American icon. * ^

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Hutchinson's reluctance to let lackluster or misguided preaching go unchallenged (a characteristic of which we will hear much more) was already evident during the sea crossing to Massachusetts. The onboard sermons of Zachariah Symmes were roundly criticized, and the aggrieved minister took revenge on Hutchinson upon their arrival in Boston by opposing her admission to the ranks of the Congregational Church. Having apologized for her maritime audacity, Anne was welcomed into the community of the Massachusetts faithful in November 1634. It was hardly the most auspicious of starts, but Anne steadily began to redeem herself in the eyes of her community. In a medically underprovisioned colony, her skills as a midwife were much in demand, and her husband served as a deputy to the General Court, a town selectman, and a church deacon. Rather less appreciated were the words and attitudes that seemed to be emerging from the weekly meetings that the Hutchinsons were organizing in their home. With John Cotton's approval, groups of colonists would assemble to talk over the content of recent sermons. The meetings were a great success, and by 1637 as many as sixty or seventy people, including such influential figures as the colony's new governor, Henry Vane, were participating. This might have been regarded as precisely the sort of dutiful, introspective religious activity that a godly commonwealth would welcome. Unfortunately, local authorities—concerned enough to send their own eavesdroppers to the meetings—were deeply unsettled by what Anne and her followers were saying. In what followed—the censuring, trial, and banishment of Anne Hutchinson— a pivotal development in America's history of religious freedom unraveled. The state was obliged to debate the issue of what to do when a rival theological posture arose: a posture, so it was argued, that threatened not just the tranquility of people's consciences but also the stability of the social and political order. This—all the way down to Mormon polygamy, latter-day Lemon tests, and wrangling over the legal construct of a "compelling state interest"— was to be a recurrent theme in America's religious history. What, then, was this theological terrain that Hutchinson had so controversially stumbled into? Ultimately, it was about grace, free will, and mankind's quest for salvation. Rarefied-sounding issues, perhaps, but the fact that their discussion in the mid-1630s was of such moment serves as a reminder that, in the early-modern era, what looks to us like arcane theology had the potential to plummet a society into crisis.

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How were people saved? When and why did saving grace enter their souls? Few questions were more fully discussed or more deeply controversial during the Reformation period. For those of Calvinist persuasion, mankind had conspicuously little to do with the running of the salvific economy. God, with a wholly arbitrary flourish, decided (and had decided long ago) who was to be saved and who was to be damned. People could strain every devotional sinew to make themselves look and feel godly, but their paltry human efforts could not have mattered less. This, potentially, was bleak stuff. What could people do if they had convinced themselves that they were among the reprobate, unable to do anything to reverse the divine decree that destined them for hellfire? Perhaps for psychological as much as theological reasons— perhaps in an effort to stave off excessive anxiety and despair—there was sense in pointing to some glimmer of human agency in the business of salvation. Not a single genuine Calvinist ever suggested that human effort could coerce God, or that a person could cause his or her salvation. Salvation was always, but always, about the arrival of wholly unmerited grace in the souls of undeserving, depraved postlapsarian men. Catholic fixation with human free will was just one more reason to deride indulgent, laxist Catholic theology. But was it not possible for human beings to cooperate with grace, perhaps even to prepare their hearts for grace's arrival? The Congregational Church—including eminent figures such as Thomas Hooker and John Winthrop—answered these questions in the affirmative. They also saw obvious advantage in being able to identify those within the community who had received this gift of grace. Good works, so Calvinists endlessly insisted, did not cause salvation, but if a person did good works, if he or she behaved in a godly fashion, then perhaps this might be taken as a sign that grace had descended upon them. Anne Hutchinson and her followers sought to undermine both of these ideas. The notion of cooperation with grace was pilloried—grace, it was argued, arrived unbidden and of its own volition, and human action, even if limited to a supporting, cooperative role, had no power or potential. Nor was there any covenant of works, only a covenant of grace. To suppose that a person's behavior might hint at their prospects in the afterlife represented the worst kind of human arrogance and vanity. Why, though, were these musings reckoned to present such a risk to the orderly running of Massachusetts society? After all, even as eminent a figure as John Cotton seemed to come close to sharing at least some of Hutchinson's theological opinions. Firstly, it is important to remember that these were difficult years for Massachusetts. The government back home in England was making threatening noises about repealing the colony's charter, and local leaders were especially sensitive to any internal rabble-rousing. It was also a time of strained relations with the indigenous population, and the fact that some of Hutchinson's supporters declined to join in the colony's military engagements with the Pequot Indians did not help their cause. More

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than anything else, however, Hutchinson alarmed the local authorities because of the practical, political consequences of what she was saying; because of the personal nature of some of her attacks; and because the person launching such attacks happened to be a woman. There was all the difference in the Massachusetts world between John Cotton meditating in his study and Anne Hutchinson calling the virtue of local dignitaries into question. There were certain aspects of Hutchinson's theology that immediately aroused local suspicions. What the local authorities liked about their interpretation of the operation of God's grace was that, by making everyday behavior a component in the business of salvation, the passing of detailed laws that governed such behavior became extremely reputable. Additionally, Hutchinson's insistence that those who were truly living under a covenant of grace enjoyed direct revelatory contact with God was wholly unacceptable to orthodox opinion. Revelation, it was routinely explained, had ended with the Bible, and Hutchinson's suggestion that an individual could have direct and immediate knowledge of God's will jeopardized Protestant belief that the Bible was the fundamental source of religious knowledge. Her suggestion that, just like Abraham, her authority to teach came directly from God was no more popular. Hutchinson did more than theorize, however. Her most provocative claim was that those who, like herself, had truly received the gift of grace could tell, almost by divine inspiration, who was of their number and who was playing a wily game of hypocritical subterfuge. By Hutchinson's calculation, there were an awful lot of people in this latter camp, and she did not shy away from revealing that almost every teacher and minister in the colony was a bad theologian and, quite possibly, lacking in sanctifying grace. Apart from John Cotton and John Wheelwright, she explained, it was feasible that every member of the local clergy and local political elite was a worthless hypocrite. (The influential minister John Wilson came in for especially heavy criticism, and on one occasion Hutchinson and some of her friends even walked out of church while he was preaching.) All this had obvious and disturbing repercussions on the social status quo. Massachusetts was supposed to be a godly commonwealth peopled by godfearing souls united by bonds of Christian love, but here was Hutchinson calling the characters of the lynchpins of that commonwealth into doubt. To say that so many colonists were not sanctified was to question the validity of the political order. The local Massachusetts authorities clearly perceived a threat in Hutchinson's growing reputation. After attempts at damage limitation (meeting with Hutchinson in October and December 1636) they turned, as Americans often still turn in such matters, to the courts. ¥ ¥

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In January 1637, there had been efforts to heal the growing rifts within the colony, and a fast day had been ordered by the General Court. Unfortunately, one of Hutchinson's chief allies, her brother-in-law John Wheelwright, took the opportunity to violently denounce his critics during his fast-day sermon, summoning the true children of God to the coming spiritual combat. By March, Wheelwright was being brought before the General Court and convicted of sedition. Wheelwright's sentencing was postponed, ahead of which a petition was raised in his defense. At the court's next meeting, tensions were high. Scheduled elections were held and proved to be a disaster for Hutchinson and her supporters. Henry Vane, their most crucial ally, was replaced as governor by John Winthrop, and he headed home to England. Laws were introduced that prevented any newcomers to Massachusetts from residing in the colony for more than three weeks without seeking special permission—the fear being that supporters of Hutchinson would begin to arrive en masse. The most zealous advocates of a covenant of works, Governor Winthrop and John Wilson, set about stirring up feeling against Hutchinson, and, in August, the synod of the Congregational Church was called into session to condemn no less than ninety of her religious errors. John Cotton, after some efforts to defend Hutchinson's reputation, finally yielded to her denunciation. Next the General Court moved against those who had subscribed to the pro-Wheelwright petition, disburdening them of their weapons and their right to vote. Finally, in November 1637, came an examination of Hutchinson's beliefs. "Mrs. Hutchinson," Winthrop began, "you are called here as one of those that have troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here; you are known to be a woman that has had a great share in the promoting and divulging of those opinions that are causes of this trouble." He continued, You have spoken diverse things, as we have been informed very prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers thereof, and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that has been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex, and notwithstanding . . . you have continued the same. [T]herefore we have thought good to send for you to understand how things are, that if you be in an erroneous way we may reduce you that so you may become a profitable member here among us, otherwise if you be obstinate in your course that then the court may take such course that you may trouble us no further. Winthrop's first plan of attack was to examine Hutchinson's involvement with what he termed the "faction" of John Wheelwright. Had she not consorted with them, signed their petition, and offered them counsel? This

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Hutchinson did not deny, but she made an efficient case that such behavior was a matter of conscience. Winthrop's gambit that to associate with Wheelwright was effectively to dishonor one's parents (the fathers of the Commonwealth) fell rather flat. He moved on, to the meetings Hutchinson had held in her house, "By what warrant do you continue such a course?" Hutchinson reached immediately for scriptural sanction: "I conceive there lies a clear rule in Titus, that the elder women should instruct the younger and then I must have a time wherein I must do it." Winthrop next suggested that the elder woman is really there to teach the younger about their business and about how to honor their husbands, but Hutchinson asked, what if they came to be instructed in the ways of God; was she to turn them away? The court transcript simply records that the two continued to argue about what the rule meant, at the end of which Winthrop concluded that we find such a course as this to be greatly prejudicial to the state . . . those meetings . . . and your opinions being known to be different from the word of God may seduce many simple souls that resort unto you, besides that the occasion which has come of late has come from none but such as have frequented your meetings, so that now they are flown off from magistrates and ministers. . . . And besides that it will not well stand with the commonwealth that families should be neglected for so many neighbors and dames. . . . We see no rule of God for this, we see not that any should have authority to set up any other exercises besides what authority has already set up. Hutchinson's response was bold: "Sir, I do not believe that to be so." Show me some rule in scripture that supports your position, she suggested, and then she would accept what they said. An angry Winthrop reminded Hutchinson that they were her judges, not the other way round. Next into the fray was Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley. He reminded the court of Hutchinson's turbulent past: criticizing preachers during her sea voyage to the colony, seducing men as eminent as John Cotton and Henry Vane with her opinions, openly denouncing almost every minister in Boston. A lengthy, ill-tempered discussion ensued, in which Hutchinson was repeatedly charged with criticizing the covenant of works and those who adhered to it. Clerical witnesses were brought forward to establish exactly what Hutchinson did and did not say, but through a mixture of denials and cautious statements, Hutchinson, not altogether successfully, attempted to shrug off the prosecution's case. The court broke up until the next morning. When the court reconvened, it was clear that Hutchinson was most resented because she had traduced the magistrates and ministers of the community, and because, when earlier quizzed about her opinions, she had gone to such lengths to differentiate between a righteous minister like John Cotton and all those worthless ministers who subscribed to a covenant of works.

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Again, various witnesses were paraded to establish exactly what Hutchinson had said, with John Cotton himself offering an account of events that, while stopping short of actively supporting Hutchinson, attempted to calm an overheated situation. Up to this point—much like the previous day—Hutchinson was doing rather well. But then she made a fatal error of judgment. For some time, Hutchinson explained, she had been able to distinguish between true and false ministry, between the voice of truth and falsity. Dudley then asked the obvious question: how? "By an immediate revelation," Hutchinson replied. And thus a day and a half of skillful, cautious testimony suddenly counted for nought. Such talk of immediate revelation could be nothing but intolerable to a courtroom of seventeenth-century New England Puritans. From now on, the die was cast. "Mrs Hutchinson," Winthrop announced, "the sentence of the c o u r t . . . is that you are banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society." "I desire to know wherefore I am banished," pleaded Hutchinson. "Say no more," Winthrop replied, "the court knows wherefore and is satisfied." ¥ ^

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Hutchinson spent the winter as a prisoner in the home of Joseph Weld. In March 1638, she was brought to trial once more, before the Boston Church, after which she followed her husband to the emerging colony of Rhode Island, where they helped to establish the Aquidneck settlement. There were those in Massachusetts who, even after her banishment, still hoped to destroy Hutchinson's ministry, and her family and followers would endure repeated encounters with agents of the colony in the coming years. After the death of William in 1642, Anne and her children moved to Dutch territory in present-day Westchester County. A year later, with the exception of one daughter, Anne and fifteen members of her family were massacred by local Indians. It is enormously difficult to know whether Anne Hutchinson was trying to be deliberately provocative or whether she was misconstrued by her peers—her male peers. It is important, however, to avoid concluding that the trial and banishment of Anne Hutchinson were all about her being a woman. Undoubtedly, seventeenth-century Protestantism took all those biblical texts concerning the role of womankind extremely seriously. John Winthrop was not averse to saying unkind things about the intellectual capacities of women; John Cotton was very loyal to the Pauline instructions about women remaining silent in church—he always endeavored to hear women's accounts of their conversion experiences in private. To those who judged her, Anne Hutchinson was most certainly the daughter of Eve, and there was simply no forgiving the fact that, as Hugh Peters told her, "you have stepped out of your place, you have rather been a husband than a wife." Crucially, Hutchinson did attract a disproportionate amount of

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support from women—people usually excluded from so many aspects of the colony's religious affairs. But Hutchinson was more than an errant female: much of her supposed crime had little to do with her sex. She was perceived as having undermined the authority and special status of the ordained ministry, as having taken up a ludicrous theological position, bolstered by delusional talk of immediate revelations from God. And all in a period of much more widespread theological, social, and political tensions: tensions (for instance, between the mercantile community and the ruling elite, between the town of Boston and the rest of the colony) that Hutchinson's story very much reflected and symbolized. Those who had opposed the Hutchinsonians secured their reputations, but just as remarkable was the fecund dissenting legacy the antinomian crisis left in its wake. William Coddington, robbed of a political future in the Bay Colony, would head to Rhode Island and become a thorn in Roger Williams's side over the issue of the governorship of Aquidneck Island. John Clarke would travel to Rhode Island too, but he would become one of Williams's greatest allies, playing a major role in securing the colony's legal sovereignty. As for Mary Dyer, the woman who was audacious enough to take her friend's hand as she faced her inquisitors, Massachusetts would take horrible revenge. After John Winthrop ordered the exhumation of the corpse of her stillborn child, wild and disturbing stories began to be circulated about a devil-made abomination, part fish, by some accounts, part beast, by others. Mary herself would go on to become a hero of the Society of Friends, its most cherished, most celebrated martyr. The greatest significance of the crisis, however, was that for one of the first times in American history, rulers had been made to decide between the individual's desire to believe and act as her conscience dictated, and the community's duty to silence or punish that individual when her beliefs and actions represented a threat to the common good. The decision had not gone well for Anne Hutchinson. The antinomian controversy granted the Massachusetts elite a further opportunity to stress the need for uniformity. A man such as John Winthrop, as determined an opponent as Hutchinson had, had been arguing for conformity to a shared vision of the New England experiment ever since he left England. In his "Model of Christian Charity," a sermon composed during his sea crossing in 1630, he had insisted that all "true Christians are of one body with C h r i s t . . . all the parts of this body being thus united are made so contiguous in a special relation as they must needs partake of each others strength and infirmity, joy and sorrow, weal and woe." Bonds of love, which surely implied the bonds of orthodoxy, were to hold this fraternity of the faithful together. In such a way "every man might have need of others, and from thence they might be all knit more neatly together." For the enterprise to succeed:

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We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other's necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labour and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways. There was no greater threat to the social, economic, and moral unity of the colony than religious heterodoxy. Winthrop's was a Utopian vision. There were, as much recent scholarship has stressed, significant fault lines running through the theological landscape of seventeenth-century Massachusetts—fault lines that derived from conflicting devotional traditions back home in England. The career of Anne Hutchinson had exposed some of them, although the New England establishment was entirely unwilling and unable to admit to the fact. In consequence, she would be dismissed, over the coming years, as an unusually insolent individual contemptuous of all authority, as a "dangerous instrument of the devil raised up by Satan amongst us." In his well-documented account of the rise of antinomianism, Winthrop recalled that "after we had escaped the cruel hands of persecuting prelates and the dangers of the sea," the colony's "commonwealth began to be founded and our churches sweetly settled in peace." Not that the God of the seventeenth-century Puritans was ever likely to let his charges rest on their laurels. Instead, "lest we should now grow secure," he "sent a new storm after us": a plague of "unsound and loose opinions" centered on Anne Hutchinson. Before long, her mischievous ideas had "grown to their full ripeness and latitude," and the theological turbulence, Winthrop suggested, was not the worst of it. There was a devastating social cost as well. Ministers were being pilloried, and husbands were turning against wives: "Oh their boldness, pride, insolency, alienations from their old and dearest friends, the disturbances, divisions, contentions they raised among us." Ultimately, though, providence had set matters right, as providence was apt to do. Hutchinson had been banished, had settled in Rhode Island, then had "departed from thence with all her family . . . to live under the Dutch." And perhaps, Winthrop wondered, there was a lesson to be taken from the horrible circumstances of her death—"the last act of her tragedy." "The Indians set upon them and slew her and all her family, her daughter and her daughter's husband and all their children save one that escaped." Indians, Winthrop explained to his readers, had behaved badly before, but this was

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something different. Perhaps, then, "God's hand is the more apparently seen herein, to pick out this woeful w o m a n , to make her and those belonging to her" an "example of their cruelty." Dispensing with the story of Anne Hutchinson in such a way allowed Winthrop to reassert the fundamental covenant that the Bay Colony had with God. God had heard "our groans to heaven, and freed us from this great and sore affliction." In the years that followed, he had "given the Church rest from this disturbance ever since," and now "we k n o w none that lift up his head to disturb our sweet peace in any of the churches of Christ among u s . " This, as propaganda so often has to be, was wishful thinking. SUGGESTED READING Ben Barker-Benfield, "Anne Hutchinson and the Puritan Attitude Towards Women," Feminist Studies 1 (1972), 65-96; Louise Breen, Transgressing the Bounds: Subversive Enterprises among the Puritan Elite in Massachusetts, 1630-1692 (New York, 2001); Charles Cohen, God's Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York, 1986); David Hall, The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History (Durham, NC, 1990); Janice Knight, Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism (Cambridge, MA, 1994); Amy Lang, Prophetic Woman: Anne Hutchinson and the Problem of Dissent in the Literature of New England (Berkeley, CA, 1987); Lad Tobin, "A Radically Different Voice: Gender and Language in the Trials of Anne Hutchinson," Early American Literature 25 (1990), 253-70; and Michael Winship, " 'The Most Glorious Church in the World': The Unity of the Godly in Boston, Massachusetts in the 1630s," Journal of British Studies 39 (2000), 71-98.

ROGER WILLIAMS (c. 1603-1683) Soul Liberty Very little is known about the adolescent conversion experience of Roger Williams, the individual whose name, ahead of those of all his colonial counterparts, is most closely linked in the popular imagination with America's debates about religious freedom. It is certainly possible that Williams's subsequent lurch to the religious left, into the orbit of England's increasingly truculent Puritan community, aggravated his devotedly Anglican parents— James, a merchant tailor, and Alice (nee Pemberton), who had spent the previous decade and more raising their son (their third child) in a spirit of conformity in the London parish of St. Sepulchre's, Newgate. The doctrinal and ecclesiastical squabbles that riddled the Jacobean Church have been summarized in an earlier entry in this book (see pp. 1-5), but by his midteens, Williams can certainly be understood as sympathizing with the more radical, most disgruntled wings of the English Puritan movement. In his youth, Williams was employed by Sir Edward Coke to attend sermons and sit through sessions in Star Chamber (the privy council sitting as a court of equity) and transcribe what he heard. It was through the influence of this revered jurist that Williams secured a scholarship to Charterhouse School in 1621. From there, Williams proceeded to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1623, matriculating the following year and receiving his BA in 1627. However, only eighteen months into his Masters' studies, Williams abruptly left the university—the precise reasons, though most likely connected with his dissenting religious opinions, are unknown. Not that Williams's career suffered unduly. In late 1629, he took up the position of chaplain in the Essex household of Sir William Masham and set about cultivating the acquaintance of leading Puritan families in the area, including the Winthrops and the Cromwells. By this stage Williams's radicalism—a quality, along with unflinching self-assurance, that would never desert him—was well in evidence. In the summer of 1629, en route to

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a religious meeting at Sempringham, he had even mustered the audacity to criticize Thomas Hooker and John Cotton, two men whose reformist credentials were hardly in doubt, for making too many compromises with the religious status quo. The 1630s were a decade during which those of more radical Puritan sympathies felt increasingly threatened and disillusioned. There were growing calls for a more thoroughgoing Reformation, and the policies of William Laud, bishop of London and later archbishop of Canterbury, were damned in some quarters as preserving, even promoting, the dregs of the popish past. It seemed extremely likely that a man with Williams's beliefs would follow in the wake of those fellow-religionists who had headed to America in search of new, purer religious pastures. He had turned down an invitation to New England in 1629, preferring to stay in Essex and court Jane Whalley, the niece of Lady Barrington. This courtship quickly collapsed after it was suggested to Williams that he really ought to pursue romance at his own social level, and so it was Mary Barnard, a maid in the Masham household, whom Williams took to be his wife in December 1629. They would have six children together, but ahead of that, in 1630, they departed from Bristol harbor headed for Massachusetts. It was here, and in the Rhode Island Colony that he would later found, that Williams's place in the history of American religion would be secured—not least through his tussles with that godly man he had censured on the road to Sempringham, John Cotton. ¥ ¥

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Arriving at Nantasket on board the Lyon on February 5, 1631, Williams was welcomed by Governor John Winthrop as a "godly minister"—meaning, broadly, that he was possessed of a good education and reputation—and immediately offered a position at Boston's First Church. But here the troubles began. Williams declined the offer because the parishioners to whom he would be expected to minister were still an "unseparated people," still bearing an allegiance to, even a filial affection for, the corrupt Church of England. Williams was entirely opposed to this "middle walking," and had not traveled all the way across the Atlantic Ocean in order to consort, on a spiritual level, with those of questionable doctrinal and moral purity. And therein resided the irony: the man who would forever be lauded—and not incorrectly—as a herald and champion of religious freedom was perfectly capable of loathing and belittling the religious beliefs of those people with whom he disagreed. He was, and would always remain, a religious snob. A position as assistant minister at Salem (a town of more independent traditions) was scuppered when the authorities back in Boston advised their colleagues not to employ Williams, and so it was to the separatist haven of Plymouth, forty miles to the south, that Williams headed. He spent two years serving as assistant to the pastor Ralph Smith—suggesting that all spiritual contact with the Bay Colony should be brought to an end—and busying

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himself with the business of trade and agriculture. It was here that Williams had his first encounters with local Indian tribes, beginning a study of their culture that would result in his ethnographic work, A Key into the Language of America, first published in 1643. Even in Plymouth, Williams found opportunities to scold his flock for not always embracing separatism with full enthusiasm: he was less than impressed when some members of the colony, during a trip home to England, joined in Anglican services. By the summer of 1632, relations with his Plymouth flock had soured, not least because Williams had begun to exhibit what William Bradford, author of History of Plymouth Plantation, described as "some strange opinions . . . which caused some controversy between the church and him." By 1633, however, his career prospects at Salem were resurrected and he took on the role of assistant to the minister Samuel Skelton. From his new pulpit, Williams continued his withering critique of everything that he found offensive in the New England religious experiment. He fumed against the granting of royal land patents—patents to territories that had been snatched, not purchased, from the indigenous population. He fumed against the notion that Christian kings somehow inherited a right to dispose of lands that did not even belong to them. This was a none-too-subtle assault on the very charter of the Bay Company, and the colony's leaders recognized it as such. The General Court invited Williams to pledge his obedience to the king, and to assure the commonwealth that he had intended no disrespect. Williams submitted, but his criticism of what he regarded as "land grabbing" continued to irk the colony's ruling elite. Williams also entered the debate over whether women should wear veils in church (he thought they should), and about the rectitude of secular flags using a religious emblem such as a cross. When Salem residents vandalized flags, many suspected that Williams was behind the outrage. In April 1635, Williams also expressed misgivings about unregenerate individuals taking oaths of submission to the colony (as all men above the age of sixteen were expected to). The name of God, he argued, should really not be heard on the lips of people still basking in sin. Still more provocatively, and here the nub of Williams's tolerationist philosophy began to emerge, he asked (not for the first time) what possible right secular magistrates had to punish breaches of the first four Mosaic commandments. The state had no business intervening in the affairs of the church. The church—or any true church, at least—was built on the foundation of God's love. The authority of the state, by contrast (and quite properly so), was always underpinned by the threat of force. How could the two spheres ever profitably intermingle? As Williams, always capable of coining the telling phrase, put it, forced worship stank in the nostrils of God. The colony's General Court tried to silence Williams on a number of occasions, and it is interesting to wonder which part of his provocative platform they disliked the most. In July 1635, Williams's opinions were denounced as "erroneous and very dangerous." The court could not remove

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Williams from his clerical position in Salem, but it could certainly apply political pressure on the town, holding up decisions about requested land grants and even preventing deputies from Salem from taking up their seats in the court. Salem was outraged at such treatment and protested accordingly, with Williams urging the town to separate entirely from the colony, a suggestion that was far too radical for almost everyone. Finally, in October 1635, the court voted to banish him, accusing him of spreading sedition and heresy. Many in Salem were pleased to see the end of a ministry that had threatened to bring down unpalatable and economic consequences on the town. Much to the annoyance of the colony's leaders, Williams continued to voice unwelcome opinions in private, but enforcement of the banishment order was postponed owing to Williams's wintertime illness. In January 1636, an officer was dispatched to arrest him and place him on a ship bound for England. John Winthrop, still a close friend (who would sustain a correspondence with Williams over the coming years), had other ideas, however, and sent word that it might be an excellent idea if Williams headed to the south. Williams spent the next months experiencing the adversity that he would come to resent (dwelling on it in his future writing) and welcome (as a sign of God's interest and as a means to test his faith) in roughly equal measure. In the spring of 1636, his family and some of his supporters joined him, and, on the eastern bank of the Seekonk River, a few makeshift shelters were erected. Word quickly reached them, however, that the leaders of the nearby Plymouth Colony wanted them to move on, and there was a risk that they might be extradited. Sensibly enough, Williams and his associates crossed to the other side of the Seekonk and entered Narragansett territory. On lands bought from the local leaders Miantonomo and Canonicus, the exiled community began to establish a new home that would later take the name of Providence. *£ ¥

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The remainder of Roger Williams's life was largely taken up by two intimately related tasks: firstly, the establishment of a colony in which his controversial views on religious freedom and church/state relations could come to fruition, and secondly, the struggle, in speech and print, to defend those views against the criticism of men as eloquent and determined as John Cotton. The first of these enterprises began well, with a legislative flourish. The 1638 social compact adopted by Williams's new community asserted a bold principle: individuals were obliged to abide by all public orders intended to sustain the public good, but only in civil matters. What they thought and how they worshiped were their own business. There was to be "soul liberty" for every individual: there was to be no linkage between church and state, no "enforced uniformity," and "no man should be molested for his conscience."

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Williams was always the reluctant political leader, but his commitment to these fundamental principles would be unflinching. Although he briefly flirted with the Baptist faith, helping to found its first American church in 1639, Williams would quickly conclude that he could not offer allegiance to any organized religion. Each man or woman, by Williams's account, really ought to be his or her own church, relying on the guide and tribunal of his or her own conscience. But those who did not share this insight were still to be welcomed into the territories that would soon be united as the new colony of Rhode Island. Not just Anne Hutchinson and her followers, but also Quakers and Jews would all seek sanctuary in this haven for the religiously persecuted. Of course, politics proved to be a messier business than philosophizing. By 1643, several colonies had been established around Narragansett Bay, on some of the best land in New England. Not unsurprisingly, the Massachusetts authorities were reluctant to relinquish their claims to such territories, and Williams would spend much of the next two decades embroiled in legal actions. He was dispatched to England to defend the sovereignty of the new territories and, with the help of Henry Vane (another exile from Massachusetts) and other allies he had been sure to cultivate, he gained a parliamentary patent that united the settlements into the colony of Providence Plantations. While in London, Williams also became embroiled in the debates of the Westminster Assembly, a body charged with reforming and codifying the country's religious settlement. In his Queries of Highest Consideration, Williams spoke out against any attempt to impose an enforced conformity in religious matters: such efforts, he declared, represented a spiritual rape. The ideal of a national church and national covenant was wrongheaded, he insisted. Some people were making the mistake of supposing that the standards of the Old Testament (whereby religious laws had indeed been made for entire nations) were applicable to the present day, which was the era of Christ, not Moses. Though his outburst had little influence on the decisions of the assembly, it offered Williams an opportunity to try out themes that he would reiterate in all of his future meditations on the issue of religious liberty: that religious persecution was an assault on the Christian spirit, that religious warfare was the greatest threat to civil peace, and that to make the individual participate in worship that offended his conscience was an indefensible violation of the soul. It is important to remember that, in many of his future published works, Williams would address not only his critics in the American colonies but also the reading public back in England. In September 1644, he returned to the colony where he would serve for the next three years as chief officer. Internal dissension continued, not least courtesy of William Coddington. Williams returned to England in 1651 and, as well as meeting with Oliver Cromwell and John Milton, succeeded in nullifying Coddington's claims to governance of Aquidneck Island. Less

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happily, he was unable to get his own patent reaffirmed, and upon his return to America, he was obliged to leave John Clarke behind in London to pursue this matter through the corridors of English bureaucracy. It was becoming increasingly clear to Williams that license and factionalism were beginning to blight the social and political life of his colony. The residents of Rhode Island had to be made aware that, while their right to freedom of religious worship remained inviolate, they had other duties and responsibilities that could not be shirked: the catalyst for Williams's outburst was the growing controversy over whether Rhode Island's leaders could impose compulsory militia training on the citizenry. In a letter penned in January 1655, Williams explained that pursuit of the common good sometimes had to override the needs and desires of individuals. Think of the captain of a ship, Williams told his audience. He has no authority over his passengers' beliefs, but so that he might keep his ship on course (which was patently in everyone's best interests) he has to be vested with some authority to supervise their actions and to punish their transgressions. The commander of this ship ought to command the ship's course, yea, and also command that justice, peace and sobriety, be kept and practiced, both among the seamen and all the passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to perform their services, or passengers to pay their freight; if any refuse to help, in person or purse, towards the common charges or defence; if any refuse to obey the common laws and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace or preservation; if any shall mutiny and rise up against their commanders and officers; if any should preach or write that there ought to be no commanders or officers, because all are equal in C h r i s t . . . in such cases, whatever is pretended, the commander or commanders may judge, resist, compel and punish such transgressors, according to their deserts and merits. Ships, so to say, had brigs. Like William Penn later in the century, Williams seems to have grown increasingly disenchanted with the way his colonial experiment developed: one senses that both men resented the ingratitude of the people they had sought to serve. And assuredly, bold words hardly stopped the chaos, which was only enhanced during these years by land-grabbing initiatives, the blight of increased cattle-rustling and horse-thieving, and confused border disputes. Williams sought to improve relations between Rhode Island and the Bay Colony. He won voluble enemies such as William Harris, and was obliged to involve himself in legal proceedings as unseemly as the pursuit of Pawtuxet resident Richard Chasmore, accused of committing buggery with a cow. In the elections of 1657, Williams stood for no political office, and in the coming years, he seems to have gained more satisfaction raising livestock and trading with local Indians than from his waning involvement in the

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colony's political life. There was a moment of celebration in 1663 when, largely through the efforts of John Clarke, Charles II finally granted a charter for Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations in which it was declared that "a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained . . . with a full liberty in religious concernments." Given the time and place, this was surely one of the most remarkable statements of the seventeenth century. Crucially, it was now part of the fundamental law of the colony; it could never be repealed. During the following decade, Williams withdrew more and more from political life, only holding minor offices, though he did play a significant role in dealing with ongoing land disputes and in trying to formalize the border with neighboring Connecticut. It was also a period that saw relations with local Indian tribes deteriorate to such a pitch that, by March 1676, Narragansett Indians were attacking Providence and burning Williams's house. After a lifetime of respectful, peaceful interaction with the local population, Williams was now reduced to joining a defensive militia company and rounding up and selling Indian captives. Only slightly less irritating was the steady advance of the Quaker movement within the colony. Williams was anything but enamored of the Society of Friends. He regarded them as a threat to public morality and was scandalized by their claims to be above the authority of scripture—the wellspring of every theological thought Roger Williams ever entertained. When George Fox, the movement's founder, visited the colony in 1672, Williams traveled for thirty miles in order to debate with the great man, only to find that Fox had already left. Having debated with some of the less renowned Quakers still in the vicinity, Williams had to make do with savaging Quaker illuminism and promoting his own strict interpretation of biblical authority in George Fox Digged Out of His Burrows, published in 1676. It is crucial to stress, however, that as chaotic as Williams found Quaker theologizing, he never for a moment disputed their right to be wrong. Throughout these years, Williams was also fighting another battle— another war of words with the clerical elite of Massachusetts, most notably John Cotton, in which Williams sought to prove that the colony to the north practiced a version of religious intolerance that prevented individuals from acting and worshiping according to the dictates of their own consciences. *f ¥

*

The Williams/Cotton debates had begun at the time of Williams's banishment, with an exchange of letters between the two men. Familiar issues were revisited—oath-taking, the seizure of Indian land, and the separation of the godly from the ungodly. Cotton's conclusion was that Williams's banishment had been self-inflicted or, at best, the fruit of being deluded by the devil. Williams, Cotton suggested, had overheated himself. Williams's arguments were further elucidated in a series of bullish tracts beginning with his Queries

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of Highest Consideration (discussed above) and The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (a response to an earlier work of Cotton and to the previously unpublished Salem "Model of Church and Civil Power" of 1635), both composed while he was in England in 1644, and continued with The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody in 1652. According to Williams, his critics were making a host of theological and ecclesiastical mistakes—and they were errors that, tragically and tellingly, had been replicated throughout the long history of Christianity. Civil authority, he explained, was an extraordinarily important component of human society, but it was (or should be) limited. There was the duty of "making, publishing, and establishing of wholesome civil laws"—not only those that concerned civil justice, but also those that facilitated the "free passage of true religion." Outward civil peace, after all, was a great help to people who wanted to go about their worshiping as they saw fit. Secular government was also assigned the task of electing and appointing the officers who were to devise and enforce such laws, and it had a duty to punish those who transgressed them. Similarly, when the civil peace was seriously threatened either from without or within, those wielding secular authority were to order and supervise the taking up of arms. But the competence of civil authority stretched exactly this far and no further. Most especially, "all civil states with their officers of justice in their respective constitutions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship." For one thing, religious belief had nothing whatsoever to do with coercion, so how could civil authority—always underpinned, though the underpinning sometimes remained latent, by the threat of force—have anything to do with convincing individuals to subscribe to the dogmas of this or that sect? And besides, imposing uniformity of belief—battering down idolatry, false worship, heresy, and schism—by means of threats and punishments was simply impossible anyway. "Weapons which are used by persecutors," all the stocks, whips, prisons, swords, gibbets, stakes, and the rest, were of no use whatsoever against the spiritual strongholds in the souls of men. Only "spiritual artillery and weapons" were appropriate, and these were in the hands of the God. Nor was it appropriate to fall back, as Cotton habitually did, on some distinction between dealing with people who sincerely held their beliefs and those of obstinate conscience. This was the persecutor's oldest and most cunning trick and had, down the generations, allowed "the meek and peaceable of the earth" to be denounced as rebels. As soon as states became involved in defining and enforcing religious truth, the consequences were doleful. Jesus Christ, Williams insisted, had never asked that "the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and Papists, [be] spilled in the wars of present and former ages," for their respective consciences. Nor had he ever asked for "a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity

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(sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls." For reasons theological and practical, it was simply better that "magistrates, as magistrates, have no power of setting up the form of church government, electing church officers, punishing with church censures." Ultimately, the magistrate, "whether he receive Christianity before he be set in office, or whether he receive Christianity after . . . receives no more power of magistracy than a magistrate that has received no Christianity." And "on the other side," while the church could certainly help to "cast a blush of civility and morality" on the people, it was equally desirable that the churches as churches, have no power . . . of erecting or altering forms of civil government, electing of civil officers, inflicting civil punishments . . . as by deposing magistrates from their civil authority, or withdrawing the hearts of the people against them, to their laws, no more than to discharge wives, or children, or servants, from due obedience to their husbands, parents, or masters. As Williams insisted in The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody, European and American rulers ought to realize that alternatives were available. Just look to the Dutch, Williams suggested: by creating a tolerationist society, they had managed to transform Amsterdam from a "poor fishing village" into one of the cultural, economic, and intellectual capitals of the world. Williams would never lack critics, Samuel Gorton among them. But Williams's most significant adversary was undoubtedly his old acquaintance John Cotton: it has even been suggested that Cotton's memory of being criticized by Williams back in England accounted for some of the heat generated by their long-lasting controversy. In his 1647 tract, The Bloudy Tenent Washed and Made White in the Bloude of the Lambe, Cotton would mount a vigorous defense of the religious and civil settlements in Massachusetts. The Williams/Cotton confrontation was to be the first truly great, perhaps still the greatest, American debate on religious freedom. It is very important, however, to remember the roots of that confrontation. Williams and Cotton were not debating about "rights" to toleration or religious freedom in the sense that we do today. Their different positions emerged from differing techniques of scriptural analysis, from divergent understandings of the nature of Christ's Incarnation, and from clashing accounts of how best to prepare for Christ's Second Coming. It is true that Williams spoke of the many routes to God, and the importance of individuals being allowed to seek out such routes. His reflections on missionary activity among local Indians demonstrated an absolute, and exceptional, conviction that forced conversion was a foolish, ineffective evangelical strategy: the "monstrous and most inhumane conversions" that had

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been imposed on indigenous populations in North and South America were not for him. So far as the eighteenth-century Baptist Isaac Backus was concerned, Williams could justly claim "the honour of having been the first legislator in the world in its latter ages that fully and effectually provided for and established a free, full and absolute liberty of conscience." But at root there was perhaps very little that was optimistic in Williams's arguments in favor of religious freedom. It has been suggested that he opposed the entanglement of church and state because he believed that things of the spirit ought to be kept entirely separate from the vile, corrupt institutions of the world of flesh. He criticized magistrates for trying to make individuals believe in this or that sect, not primarily out of a reverence for mankind's right to make its own decisions but because, as a stalwart Calvinist, he was certain that people simply did not possess the free will to accept or deny what such magistrates were trying to tell them. Williams once wrote about guarding against any "gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the Church and the wilderness of the world." Inevitably, this brings to mind a later, more famous image of the wall of separation between church and state invoked by Thomas Jefferson. But Williams and Jefferson, had they been allowed to meet, would surely have disagreed violently about almost every aspect of the debate over religious freedom: they were of different ages, in which the meaning of religious freedom, and the reasons why religious freedom was sought out, were entirely different. Williams (steeped in scriptural exegesis and millennial expectancy) sometimes seemed to hold the world in contempt, whereas Jefferson assuredly did not, and to portray Williams as some proto-Jeffersonian advocate of latterday tolerationism is perhaps a mistake. That said, Williams—along with other key seventeenth-century figures—did help to smash a centuries-old Christian conviction that coercion had a part to play in the arena of religious faith. As such, his place in the history of modern tolerationism is secure. Jf ^

^

Only a year before his death, in 1683, Roger Williams was still berating the inhabitants of the colony he had founded. Would they never learn, he asked, to cool their "heats and hatreds"? Williams was a religious radical, always most at home in the world of biblical exegesis, who was obliged to soil his hands in the less pristine world of colonial politics. That he cherished religious freedom (as understood in a seventeenth-century sense) is beyond doubt. This did not mean that he was incapable of moments of intolerance. When Samuel Gorton arrived in Providence in 1641, preaching his radical theories about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the faithful, Williams wrote to his old friend John Winthrop to complain that "having foully abused high and low at Aquidneck," Gorton was now "bewitching and bemadding Providence," ignoring each and every rule of church discipline and civil authority. Providence was left in little doubt that either

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Gorton or Williams would have to leave the town, and it was Gorton who accordingly moved to lands to the south. But when assaults were made on the right of individuals to abide by the dictates of their conscience, Williams rarely remained silent. John Clarke, the man who did so much to gain Rhode Island its charters, had been born in Suffolk in 1609. He traveled to Boston in 1637 and allied himself with Anne Hutchinson in the antinomian controversy (see pp. 17-19). Having helped to establish the settlement of Newport, he took up duties as the principal teacher at the town's church—an institution that had taken on a Baptist identity by the early 1640s. In 1651, Clarke traveled with two companions (Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall) to Massachusetts, a place where Baptists were not to be tolerated. Arriving at Lynn after a three-day walk, the men set about preaching, baptizing, and serving communion. They were duly arrested and offered the alternative of paying fines for their illegal, albeit private, preaching, or being whipped for their pains. Clarke's friends managed to raise sufficient funds, but one of his traveling companions, Obadiah Holmes, proved more obstinate and refused to pay. Accordingly, after a further period in prison, he was tied to a post and whipped in Boston's marketplace. John Clarke, in response, would compose his III News from New England, published in 1652, but Roger Williams also took the time to write to the colony's governor, John Endecott. In a withering attack, Williams accused his old friend of recklessly opening the gates of persecution that, once opened, could never be closed—one act of cruelty always led to many more, "like stones once rolling down the Alps." Rhode Island would become home, not only to dissenters of Williams's stripe, but also to Anglicans, Quakers, and Congregationalists. Williams even relished the prospect that Jews might find a home there and enjoy "their free and peaceable habitation amongst us." The most radical thing about Williams, however, was his enduring belief that, ultimately, it was impossible for the true church of Jesus Christ to be established, not until Christ himself returned and ushered in the millennial age. All churches were corrupt, all ministers were hirelings, and Williams wanted nothing much to do with either. This was a kind of religious freedom that offered huge potential to, but also placed heavy responsibilities upon, the individual conscience. SUGGESTED READING Wallace Coyle, Roger Williams: A Reference Guide (Boston, 1977); Derek Davis, "The Enduring Legacy of Roger Williams: Consulting America's First Separationist in Today's Pressing Church-State Controversies," Journal of Church and State 41 (1999), 201-12; Edwin S. Gaustad, Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America (Grand Rapids, MI, 1991); Sydney James, Colonial Rhode Island: A History (New York, 1975); idem., John Clarke and His Legacies: Religion

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and Law in Colonial Rhode Island, 1638-1750 (University Park, PA, 1999); Glenn LaFantasie, ed., The Correspondence of Roger Williams, 2 vols. (Providence, RI, 1988); and Edmund S. Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and the State (New York, 1967).

PETER STUYVESANT (c. 1610-1672) From God and the Company Advocates of religious freedom—Roger Williams, William Penn, and James Madison among them—would point to the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic as a shining example of the benefits that ensued from respecting liberty of conscience. To be sure, the society that emerged out of a prolonged, messy struggle with Catholic Spain did provide unprecedented levels of toleration. It was also a place that enjoyed a vibrant artistic, intellectual, and economic life. Those who sought to advertise the wider social benefits of religious tolerance were quick to suggest that this was no coincidence. Ultimately, there was a paradox at the heart of the Dutch religious settlement. A strict, judgmental Calvinist faith, institutionalized in the Dutch Reformed Church, formed the core of the nation's religious life. And yet, thanks to provisions in the 1579 Union of Utrecht, there was a commitment to sustaining freedom of conscience and avoiding persecution for, and inquisition of, religious convictions. In truth, and especially by modern standards, the liberality of the Dutch Republic can be overstated. It was true that membership of the Reformed Church was only ever voluntary and, by the 1630s, Amsterdam even allowed Jews and Lutherans to erect public places of worship, but it was also true that those of dissenting faiths were largely excluded from political life. Moreover, the Dutch were advocates of toleration and that was never the same thing as believing in religious freedom. Catholics were undoubtedly granted more respite from persecution in Holland than in any other Protestant country, for instance, but that did not mean that they entirely avoided extortion and harassment. For all that, Holland was perceived as a beacon and a refuge. It was also assumed that the nation's outlook would be transferred to the burgeoning overseas empire that, by the beginning of the seventeenth century, was emerging as a serious rival to the older Iberian colonial enterprises. In one

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corner of the Dutch world, however, an energetic colonial administrator worked very hard at proving that assumption wrong. ¥ * *£ Peter Stuyvesant was born in Weststellingwerf in Friesland, the son of Margaretta Hardenstein and Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1630 Peter enrolled at the University of Franeker, although, perhaps as a result of seducing his landlord's daughter, he was expelled before completing his degree. Since 1621 the Dutch West India Company had been overseeing the nation's colonial expansion across the Atlantic and it was with this vibrant new organization that Stuyvesant decided to pursue a career. By 1642 he was acting as director general in Curasao—the major Dutch naval base in the Caribbean—and leading offensives against Spanish territories. One such expedition, aimed at the Spanish fort of St. Martin, ended in disaster. Early in the siege, Stuyvesant was struck by a cannonball and surgeons had no choice but to amputate his right leg beneath the knee. The tropical climate did not aid his recuperation, and so Stuyvesant returned home to Holland where he was equipped with a wooden leg. This setback, however, did not mark the end of Stuyvesant's overseas career. At the time, one of the most troubled Dutch overseas possessions was New Netherland, centered on the town of New Amsterdam, present-day New York City. Henry Hudson had been hired by the Dutch East India Company in 1609 to find a northeast passage to Asia. After a spell in Scandinavian waters, Hudson headed across the Atlantic and soon found himself in the estuary of what would become known as the Hudson River. Dutch families began arriving in the mid-1620s; Manhattan Island was purchased, on famously advantageous terms, from the local population; and trading posts and military outposts (including Fort Orange on the site of present-day Albany) were established. The first decades of New Netherland history were marked by ineffective, sometimes disastrous, leadership. Stuyvesant's predecessor as director general, William Kieft, spent his nine years in office allowing political factionalism to develop and seeing relations with local Indian tribes deteriorate. In May 1645, the company offered Stuyvesant the position of director general of New Netherland, Curasao, Bonaire, Aruba, and associated islands. The appointment was approved by the States General and Stuyvesant took the oath of office in July 1646. In the company of his new wife, Judith Bayard (with whom he would have two sons), Stuyvesant set sail from Holland and arrived in New Amsterdam in May 1647. Given the recent years of lackluster leadership, the colony had high hopes of its new director general, and Stuyvesant received a generous welcome—although even at this early stage, eyebrows were raised at the levels of pomp to which Stuyvesant seemed so attached: he would come to be known locally as "the peacock."

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Throughout his period in office, Stuyvesant would be criticized for his overauthoritarian style of leadership—even after municipal government was introduced in 1653. Until 1649, the inhabitants of the territory had shown little interest in acquiring powers that were distinct from those of the authorities back in Amsterdam. In that year, however, the States General was sent a petition (along with a remonstrance against Stuyvesant) asking for suitable reforms and a measure of municipal government. This was, after a fashion and after some delays, introduced, but Stuyvesant's rule retained an aggressive, domineering aspect. As early as 1651, one colonist had lamented the fact that Stuyvesant "proceeds no longer by words or writings, but by arrests and stripes." Nor were the director general's frequent outbursts likely to appease his critics—"we derive our authority from God and the company," he bellowed in 1653, "not from a few ignorant subjects." Stuyvesant would, beyond doubt, be a controversial director general. But this should not distract from the fact that he made many important and long-overdue reforms. He was ever keen to check rival sources of authority and influence in New Netherland. Famously, when the Rensselaerswyck patroonship became overly self-assertive, challenging control of the fur trade in the Fort Orange area, Stuyvesant led a military expedition and seized the town of Fuyck for the company, renaming it Beverwyck—Beavertown. When settlers in New Sweden began to occupy Dutch-owned lands on the Delaware River, Stuyvesant embarked on another expedition in 1655 and captured Fort Casimir and Fort Christiana. In his relations with New England, Stuyvesant, after some delay, managed to reach an agreement with John Winthrop of Massachusetts, which, by giving up some lands, finally helped to secure fixed boundaries between the two territories. Even in his relations with various Indian tribes (who were prevented from buying liquor or firearms), Stuyvesant managed, by employing a mixture of diplomacy, lenience, and occasional punitive force, to achieve some limited success. In New Amsterdam itself, he did much to improve civic life. He engaged surveyors to lay out streets and establish workable property lines, he took many measures to secure the town against the ravages of fire, he revised fencing laws to reduce the number of domestic animals roaming the town's streets, and he built Manhattan's first pier. There was a parallel campaign to maintain public order, and, along with ordinances against many varieties of antisocial behavior, Stuyvesant introduced the "Rattle Watch" in 1658—a fledgling police force with the right to "pursue, attack and capture . . . pirates and vagabonds," and to arrest "robbers or others who would wish to inflict injury and damage." He also sought to oversee economic life more closely and, as well as cracking down on smuggling, established a weekly municipal market and an annual cattle fair, and introduced measures intended to regulate the brewing and baking industries. Less happily, there was, in a territory that so prized its economic freedoms, considerable grumbling at such tactics,

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and, back home in Amsterdam, the authorities warned that "it is better to proceed in this matter with modesty . . . that commerce . . . may not be discouraged and people disgusted with it, which apparently would cause a depopulation of the country and deprive us of the means to bring emigrants over there." It was in the area of religious life, however, that Stuyvesant was especially keen to sustain order and orthodoxy. Stuyvesant was a staunch and moralistic Calvinist, unflinchingly intolerant of other faiths. He took measures to assault vice and instill virtue: under his rule, for instance, it was impossible to (legally) buy alcohol after nine o'clock at night. He sought to remove what he regarded as the dregs of popery and superstition—attacking plays, carnivals, and maypoles, and outlawing Shrove Tuesday festivities—in 1654. In a campaign to restore righteousness, Stuyvesant made it all but obligatory for employees of the West India Company to regularly attend church services, the number of which he also sought to increase. There was to be a day of fasting and prayer on the first Wednesday of every month. Most important of all, Stuyvesant was determined to counter what he regarded as the offensive plurality of New Netherland's religious life. This, inevitably, impacted upon the religious freedoms of some sections of the territory's diverse population. ¥ *

*

In theory, only the Dutch Reformed Church was entitled to public worship in New Netherland: "no other religion shall be publicly admitted . . . except the Reformed." It was quickly realized, however, that enforcing uniformity of religion too strictly might have disastrous economic consequences. Those of other faiths, capable of bringing skills, capital, and vitality to the territory, would be alienated. And so, although the Reformed Church maintained its privileged position, a policy emerged in which the beliefs of dissenters were broadly tolerated. This appalled Stuyvesant as well as leading representatives of the Reformed Church in New Netherland such as Johannes Megapolensis—a man who had converted from Catholicism at the age of twenty-three and had been disinherited by his family as a result. The ruling body of the church, the Classis of Amsterdam, also hoped to rein in the liberality of New Netherland, and in 1656 declared, "Let us then—we here in this country and you there—employ all diligence to frustrate all such plans, that the wolves may be warded off from the tender lambs of Christ." Stuyvesant thus represented an influential body of opinion that regarded religious uniformity as eminently desirable, for social as well as theological reasons. Indeed, Stuyvesant's religious intolerance was an aspect of a wider suspicion of any variety of political or ethnic diversity. As he informed his superiors in 1660, the English and the French had the good sense to establish colonies that were "continued and populated by their own nation and countrymen and consequently bound together more firmly and united, while your

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honours' colonies in New Netherland are only gradually and slowly peopled by the scrapings of all sorts of nationalities . . . who consequently have the least interest in the welfare and maintenance of the commonweal." Various dissenters, including the Baptist William Wickenden (banished after performing adult baptisms in Long Island), incurred Stuyvesant's displeasure. Lutherans in the colony had long been appealing for a right to worship publicly. These hopes had been quashed, but there was a growing tendency for members of the faith to hold private services in their homes. Stuyvesant sought to eradicate this practice, issuing an ordinance in 1656 and placing some church leaders in jail. After protests, the authorities in Amsterdam ordered Stuyvesant to change his policy, but, in the coming years, the director general continued to seek out ways to harass the Lutheran community and, in 1657, quickly deported a Lutheran minister when he arrived in New Netherland from Amsterdam. The Quakers also suffered considerable hardship at Stuyvesant's hands. Robert Hodgson, for instance, would be hauled to Manhattan in a cart and, after a spell in jail, be sentenced to hard labor. When he refused to submit, he was punished and deported to Rhode Island. In 1657, appalled by so many stories of Quakers setting up private religious meetings, Stuyvesant issued an edict that introduced hefty fines for anyone found to be sheltering a Quaker in their home. It also ruled that any ship that had brought a Quaker into the colony would be confiscated. The ordinance caused outrage in Flushing, a town with a venerable dissenting history. The town clerk, Edward Hart, composed a remonstrance in December 1657, and it was delivered to Stuyvesant by Tobias Feake. It has been touted as one of the earliest and most significant expressions of American commitment to religious toleration. "You have been pleased to send up unto us," the remonstrance began, "a certain prohibition or command that we should not receive or entertain any of those people called Quakers because they are supposed to be by some seducers of the people." The people of Flushing did not concur. "For our part we cannot condemn them in this case, neither can we stretch out our hands against them, to punish, banish or persecute them." To do so would be to risk divine displeasure. They sought, therefore, "not to judge lest we be judged, neither to condemn lest we be condemned, but rather let every man stand and fall to his own master." There was an overriding duty to do "good unto all men, especially to those of the household of faith." It might seem that they were flouting the authority of the law and the lawgiver by producing the remonstrance, but there was a "case of conscience betwixt God and our own souls" before them, which called for decisions beyond the competence of "the powers of this world." Besides, the residents of Flushing did not quite see why the Quakers were such a threat to public order. The "jealousies and suspicions which some have of them, that they are destructive unto magistracy and ministry,"

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were surely exaggerated. The magistrate had his sword, just as Moses had his, and the church had its sword, just as Christ did. These institutions had been raised up by God against "all the enemies both of flesh and spirit," and those things that were of God would prevail and those things that were "of man will come to nothing." Stuyvesant was being overly alarmist. One only had to look to the policy of the home country for instruction. "The law of love, peace and liberty in the states [extends] to Jews, Turks, and Egyptians, as they are considered the sons of Adam." This was "the glory of the outward state of Holland," where love, peace, and liberty had supplanted hatred, war, and bondage. Flushing had no intention of persecuting anyone who claimed to belong to Christ: "our desire is not to offend one of his little ones, in whatsoever form, name or title he appears in, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or Quaker." They were happy to "see anything of God" that was in any of them, and to "do unto all men as we desire all men should do unto us." Therefore, "if any of these said persons come in love unto us, we cannot in conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free egress and regress unto our town, and houses, as God shall persuade our consciences. And in this we are true subjects both of church and state, for we are bound by the law of God and man to do good unto all men and evil to no man." Stuyvesant was furious at the audacity of the remonstrance, and by early January 1658, various officials from Flushing had been arrested. There was also an opportunity, in March of that year, for Stuyvesant to rebut the suggestion that Quakers were harmless citizens, and in a proclamation for a day of prayer on March 13, he eagerly blamed the Society of Friends for the parlous state of the commonwealth. Notwithstanding the good and all merciful God has favoured and blessed this newly rising province in general, and its inhabitants in particular, with many and innumerable mercies and benefits; amongst others with health, peace and prosperity, abundance, and remarkable increase of population and trade, and what is to be valued above all, with the free and public exercise of the pure worship of God. Yet, we, either enjoying the same thanklessly, or abusing them unworthily, have by the ungrateful use of bodily, or the unworthy abuse of spiritual benefits, provoked God's rigorous justice, exciting his Divine Majesty— never sufficiently honored—to righteous anger, of which he hath shown us not only palpable signs, but has caused us also to witness evident proofs; He hath visited near and remote places, towns and hamlets with hot fevers and dangerous diseases, as a chastisement if not punishment of the thankless use of temporal blessings, permitting and allowing the spirit of error to scatter its injurious passion amongst us, in spiritual matters here and there, rising up and propagating a new unheard of, abominable heresy, called Quakers.

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New Netherland was thus instructed, and here was a typical example of Stuyvesant's effort to enforce righteousness, to take measures to ward off God's displeasure, and to "obtain God's favours, benefits and blessings for us as well in temporal as in spiritual matters." Stuyvesant had "deemed it good and needful to prescribe and publish a day of general fast and thanksgiving to be observed on the second Wednesday of the month of March, being the thirteenth of [the] said month." There was to be a proud demonstration of orthodoxy. All citizens, in the "afternoon of the aforesaid day," were to attend church and, after hearing God's word declaimed, "to praise and thank the all good and merciful God, for the favors, blessings and benefits, which his Divine Majesty hath been pleased to confer on us during the last year, yea, in the whole course of our lives, and further to supplicate, pray and implore his holy name, with humble and contrite hearts, that his Divine Majesty would be pleased to continue the same to us, the ensuing year, to the honour of his name, to the furtherance and propagation of the gospel, and the prosperity and salvation of us all." It was vital that such devotions were performed with absolute unity, so, "on the said day of prayer and thanksgiving, all exercises and amusements, tennis, ball playing, hunting, fishing, sailing; also all unlawful plays such as gaming, dice playing, drunkenness and such like," were to be prohibited "on pain of arbitrary punishment and correction." In such a way, Stuyvesant reasoned, the blight of Quakerism might be repelled. Not that the Quaker "problem" went away, and when reports reached Stuyvesant about the evangelizing activities of John Bowne a few years later, the director general acted with his usual zeal. Once more, however, the authorities back in Amsterdam questioned the wisdom of Stuyvesant's approach to religious diversity. In a letter of 1663, the directors of the company offered this advice: Your last letter informed us that you had banished from the province and sent thither by ship a certain Quaker, John Bowne by name. Although we heartily desire that these and other sectarians remained away from there, yet as they do not, we doubt very much whether we can proceed against them rigorously without diminishing the population and stopping immigration, which must be favoured at so tender a stage of the country's existence. It was pragmatism, therefore, and not a philosophical commitment to toleration that informed the company's policy. They advised Stuyvesant to "shut your eyes" and "not force people's consciences but allow everyone to have his own belief, as long as he behaves quietly and legally" and "gives no offence to his neighbours and does not oppose the government." It was precisely this politique approach to religious pluralism that influenced the

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company's response to Stuyvesant's other great encounter with those of other faiths—the Jews who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1654, many of them refugees from former Dutch possessions in Brazil. Stuyvesant's ally, Johannes Megapolensis, was outraged by the Jews' arrival. He informed the Amsterdam Classis that there were already "papists, Mennonites and Lutherans" in the colony, as well as "many Puritans . . . and many Atheists and various other servants of Baal . . . who conceal themselves under the name of Christians." But it would "create a still greater confusion if the obstinate and immovable Jews came to settle here." Stuyvesant was in complete agreement. He had recently written a strongly worded letter to the directors of the West India Company: The Jews who have arrived would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians) were very repugnant to the inferior magistrates, as also to the people having the most affection for you . . . we have, for the benefit of this weak and newly developing place and the land in general, deemed it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart, praying also most seriously in this connection, for ourselves as also for the general community of your worships, that the deceitful race—such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ—be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony to the detraction of your worships and the dissatisfaction of your worships' most affectionate subjects. Not that the Jewish refugees were willing to endure such treatment without raising a protest. There were, after all, influential Jewish shareholders of the West India Company, and that company clearly believed that a measure of religious toleration was a wise economic policy. In a letter of protest, the Jews of New Amsterdam made their case to the company's directors. Stuyvesant's policy, they suggested, worked to the "great disadvantage of the Jewish nation." Where were they supposed to go if banished from New Netherland? Into the hands of the inquisition in Spain and Portugal? Besides, the Jewish community had always been loyal in Dutch-controlled Brazil and had "always striven their best for the Company and many of their nation have lost immense and great capital" on its behalf. The plea worked, and in April 1655, Stuyvesant was instructed to reverse his strategy. Of course, the company explained, "we would have liked to effectuate and fulfil your wishes and request that the new territories should no more be allowed to be infected by people of the Jewish nation, for we foresee therefrom the same difficulties which you fear." But after "having further weighed and considered the matter, we observe that this would be somewhat unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the considerable loss sustained by this nation, with others, in the taking of Brazil, as also because of the large

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amount of capital which they still have invested in the shares of this company." After much debate, they had decided to respond favorably to "a certain petition presented by [the] said Portuguese Jews that these people may travel and trade to and in New Netherland and live and remain there, provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their own nation." It was made clear in a further instruction, however, that "the consent given to the Jews to go to New Netherland and there to enjoy the same liberty that is granted them in this country was extended with respect to civil and political liberties, without the said Jews becoming thereby entitled to a license to exercise and carry on their religion in synagogues or gatherings." The ruling from the company did not bring an end to Stuyvesant's harassment of the colony's Jewish residents, however, and the next years witnessed an ongoing struggle by New Netherland's Jews to maintain, and in some cases extend, the rights and freedoms they had supposedly been granted. In 1655, an ordinance was passed that prevented Jews from offering military service to the commonwealth on the grounds that they were not full citizens of the colony—an ordinance challenged by two Jews, Asser Levy and Jacob Barsimon. In the same year, complaints were made against the limitations being imposed on freedom of movement in the colony, and about Jews being denied the right to own property in New Amsterdam. By June 1656, the company was once more obliged to rebuke Stuyvesant for his policy toward the Jewish community. Jews were to be allowed total freedom of travel in New Netherland, he was informed, and, while they were still prevented from owning retail shops, they could still "quietly and peacefully carry on their business as heretofore, and exercise in all quietness their religion within their houses." The Jewish struggle would continue in New Netherland and, later, in New York. Jews, within Stuyvesant's term of office, would be granted the right to citizenship, and, a few years later, Asser Levy would be allowed to set up a slaughterhouse with a non-Jewish partner. ¥ *

¥

Stuyvesant was, by most accounts, the ablest governor that New Netherland had. It was unfortunate, therefore, that he took up the reins of command at a time when the East India Company seemed to be losing interest in the small colony on the banks of the Hudson. It was coming to be seen, primarily, as a source of foodstuffs for Brazil and the Caribbean Islands. This shift in attitude made the company eager to increase the colony's levels of cultivation. The easiest way to push this policy forward was to increase New Netherland's role in the slave trade. Stuyvesant's term of office came to an ignominious end. In early 1664, the English king, Charles II, gave his brother James rights to an area that included parts of Maine, Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, along with the Hudson River "and all the land from the west side of the Connecticut River

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to the east side of the Delaware Bay." Dutch claims to any of these lands were simply ignored. Richard Nicolls duly set off across the Atlantic with a fleet of four warships, and by August 26, 1664, he had arrived at Gravesend Bay. Stuyvesant was brusquely informed in a letter from Nicolls, "In his majesty's name I do demand the town situated upon the island commonly known by the name of Manhattan with all the forts thereto belonging." Stuyvesant sent a reply in which he reasserted Dutch territorial claims. Nicolls ignored it. It seems likely that Stuyvesant would have liked to have made a show of resistance. Unfortunately, the city's defenses were not at peak capacity and the director general was urged to accept the British terms of surrender. He did so, and upon his return to Amsterdam came in for considerable (largely unfair) criticism, although no proceedings were begun against him. He returned to Manhattan, where he worked his farm until his death in 1672. SUGGESTED READING Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York, 1999); R. Po-chia Hsia and Henk van Nierop, eds., Calvinism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age (New York, 2002); Michael Kammen, Colonial New York: A History (New York, 1975); Henry H. Kessler and Eugene Rachlis, Peter Stuyvesant and His New York (New York, 1959); and Oliver Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York (Ithaca, NY, 1996).

WILLIAM PENN (1644-1718) A Holy Experiment All the early signs pointed toward William Penn enjoying a comfortable career at the heart of the English political establishment. He was the son of William Penn—future admiral and conqueror of Jamaica—and Margaret, daughter of the Rotterdam merchant John Jasper, once described, rather unflatteringly, by the diarist Samuel Pepys as a short, fat Dutch woman who had at least been handsome in her youth. The aspirational couple were married in January 1644—a year in which the brewing calamity of Civil War was the talking point of choice—and the younger William was born ten months later, on October 14. He went on to a predictable though decent education at Chigwell Free Grammar School in Essex. Aged sixteen, he proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1660—as ever, a bastion of the great and the good—and then the problems began: problems that would continue to infuriate his family for years to come. His relationship with his father would include moments of strain and, upon occasion, outright estrangement. By the spring of 1662, Penn had been sent down from Oxford, charged with criticizing the policies of the Church of England, of refusing to frequent chapel services, and of associating with known religious dissidents such as John Owen. A disappointed father decided, as a certain class of seventeenth-century disappointed fathers regularly did, to send his son on an extended tour of the continent: perhaps he could be distracted from his seditious opinions. Though little is known of the details of this trip (on which Penn was accompanied by Robert Spencer), Penn's father's plan seems to have worked to a degree. The pleasures of Italy and the French court appear to have drawn Penn's mind away from theological controversy, although he did spend time at the Huguenot Academy at Saumur in the Loire Valley, where he imbibed the tolerationist teaching of scholars such as Mo'ise Amyraut, and where the groundwork for his future theological outpourings was laid.

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Admittedly, not too much of the religious radical was obviously visible in Penn upon his return to England in 1664. The ever-observant Samuel Pepys complained that William had returned with something of "the vanity of the French garb" and an "affected manner of speech and gait." These were troubled years for Restoration England. Naval wars with the Dutch continued (a conflict in which, by carrying dispatches between the flagship Royal Charles and the king, William would briefly be involved); in 1665 the plague struck London, with the devastation of the city's Great Fire descending in the following year. Nonetheless, Penn's career moved on apace. As befitted a young man of his station and prospects, he took up a position at Lincoln's Inn (a partial legal training that would pay dividends in his campaigns for religious freedom later in life); continued to assist his father with legal, military, and business matters at court; and set about making influential friends including James, Duke of York, the future James II. A trip to Ireland followed in 1666, during which he dealt with some business involving his father's lands in Cork. Penn visited the court of the Irish viceroy, the Duke of Ormonde, and even helped quell a mutiny at the Carrickfergus garrison in the company of the duke's son, the Earl of Arran. But if there were any thoughts that the nascent religious radical within William Penn had fallen into abeyance, these were soon scotched. The epochal encounter between Penn and the Quaker movement had begun. Having been arrested for attendance at one Quaker meeting, Penn made one of his earliest pleas for religious toleration in a letter to the Earl of Orrery, an old friend of his father. His lordship was surely aware, Penn began, that "diversities of faith and worship contribute not to the disturbance of any place." The treatment that Penn and his fellow Quakers were receiving was a "malicious and injurious" practice, injurious to "innocent Englishmen" that should not receive "any countenance or encouragement" whatsoever. His release was secured, and by the time he returned to England, Penn had emerged as an enthusiastic member of the Society of Friends. He would spend the rest of his life promoting its interests and protecting its freedoms. ¥ ¥

*

What, then, was this Society of Friends that had managed to seduce William Penn's imagination? It fell to George Fox to inaugurate a radical new chapter in the history of Western Christianity. By 1647, Fox was traveling around the north of England, letting audiences know that they could encounter Christ directly without recourse to the cumbersome apparatus of official churches. In a vision in 1652, supposedly received at the top of Pendie Hill near Clitheroe in Lancashire, Jesus berated the profusion of competing Christian sects and introduced Fox to the notion of the inner light: the belief that each individual could experience the immediate presence of God, the only source of religious truth, through his own inner spirit. Rather than gathering in parish churches and involving themselves with sermons,

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salaried ministers, or sacraments, Fox's brethren were encouraged to assemble at silent meetings and wait patiently for Christ's voice to speak from within. Crucially, this Quaker route to salvation was available to all: no one was inevitably destined for eternal perdition; no one was so irrevocably scarred by original sin (a concept rejected by most Quakers as a convenient excuse for bad behavior) as to be without hope, value, and potential. Such ideas appalled many contemporaries. There seemed to be enormous audacity in individuals claiming direct access to the Almighty, and there was surely room for alarm when the pillars of traditional Christian faith and worship were being thrown out. What was more, the social teachings of the Society of Friends seemed just as disruptive. Quakers were to be pacifists, they were to oppose tithes and the taking of oaths, and they were to strive for unprecedented levels of social equality and rebel against accepted social conventions such as the doffing of hats to superiors. The fact that the Society sought to spread these radical ideas with such obvious missionary zeal was still further cause for concern. The Quakers, who refused to obey laws that called for their attendance at Anglican services and whose own "conventicles" were fully outlawed, suffered under Cromwell and they suffered even more under the Restoration. By 1680, in addition to a litany of sequestrations and deportations, 10,000 of their number had endured spells in prisons—243 had died there—although, as Penn would repeatedly declare, to suffer in the here and now was an entirely suitable preparation for an afterlife of eternal glory in heaven. From the late 1660s onward, Penn would defend the tenets of Quakerism against a growing chorus of disapproval. In The Sandy Foundation Shaken, published in 1668 without a license from the bishop of London, Penn first denied the doctrine of the Trinity. This was, in some regard, perhaps the most radical of Quaker departures. The triune mystery—God, Christ, and Holy Spirit as one—had been normative within the Christian tradition since the fourth century, and Penn's rebuttal of such a revered article of faith inevitably brought him into trouble: an eight-month sojourn in the Tower of London. As he took pains to explain in his Innocency with Her Open Face (1669), written in prison, Penn was not denying the divinity of Christ but simply questioning what he regarded as the unsupportable aspects of Trinitarian theology: "I have not dethroned a divinity, subverted faith, made void obedience, nor frustrated the hope of eternal recompense." For all that, the deliberate assault on a fundamental tenet of orthodox Christianity helped to harden the image of Quakers as scurrilous heretics in the popular imagination. It was also becoming clear that the Quaker movement was, in fundamental ways, out of step with aspects of mainstream culture. This was a message that Penn dwelled upon in another publication written during this prison term: No Cross, No Crown. Written "in defence of the poor despised Quakers," the book was also an assault on what Penn perceived as a frivolous, vain society. It called on individuals to abandon their worldliness and

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sinfulness and to embrace the pure religion of Christ. It also served as a digest of the main aspects of Quaker social behavior—the famous rejection of hat honor, the use of "thee" and "thou" as pointless vanities. True honor, Penn argued, was rather older than either hats or titles. Penn was back in Ireland during the winter of 1669-1670, and it was here that he began work on perhaps his most treasured tract, The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (refined during a spell in Newgate prison in 1671). Penn demanded the "possession of those freedoms to which we are entitled by English birthright." He accepted that it was as much misunderstanding as malice that led to the persecution of Quakers, but this did not excuse the "unspeakable pressure of nasty prisons," the confiscation of goods, or the ruin of entire families under which Quakers had to labor. A crucial point was hammered home: "By liberty of conscience we understand not only a mere liberty of the mind, in believing . . . this or that principle or doctrine, but the exercise of ourselves in a visible way of worship." A person had to be allowed to act out what his beliefs demanded, and persecution was to be defined as any "let or hindrance" to this process. What was more, those doing the persecuting were showing themselves to be poor theologians. There was no point in forcing people to worship in a particular way because, owing to the nature of religious sentiment, coercion had never—not once in the long history of humanity—managed to make anyone truly believe anything. At best it only served to produce hypocrites—people who, out of fear, dutifully attended church services they actually detested. Only God could influence the consciences of men, and "we say that the restraint and persecution for matters relating to conscience directly invade the divine right, and rob the Almighty of that which belongs to none but himself." Penn would continue to produce tracts pleading the case for religious toleration, for a return to the verities of the "good old admirable laws of England." He would rebuke Protestants for behaving with all the cruelty usually associated with Catholics, for failing to see the difference between fundamental, inalterable laws, and temporary laws, always subject to the whims of fashion, under which he and his fellow Quakers were being persecuted. In works such as England's Present Interest Discovered (1675), Continued Cry of the Oppressed for Justice (1675), A Brief Examination and State of Liberty Spiritual (1681), A Persuasive to Moderation to Church Dissenters (1686), and others, he would refute the idea that diversity of opinion inevitably led to discord, or that uniformity of religion was a positive good. Throughout, he would skillfully interweave political, religious, and economic arguments in favor of toleration. Not that Penn was merely a theorizer. While in Ireland, he had managed to secure the release of many imprisoned Quakers. Upon his return to England, where the harsh rubrics of the Conventicle Act (which forbade the religious assembly of more than five people outside the auspices of the Church of England) had recently begun to be enforced with renewed zeal, it soon became

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clear that Penn's own prison career had not quite run its course. In August 1670, shortly before the death of his father, Penn was arrested along with William Meade for speaking at an illegal meeting in Gracechurch Street, London. Bizarrely, he was charged with promoting a riot and this necessitated the calling of a jury trial. It turned out to be a landmark case. The judge made it abundantly clear that he expected the two men to be convicted but, led by their foreman Edward Bushel, the jury chose to ignore his counsel. The legal principle of a jury's right to reach a verdict in opposition to a judge's advice was thus established (although Penn and Meade were still convicted of keeping their hats on in court). This was a triumph of sorts, although jail followed once again in 1671— the fruits of illegal preaching and a refusal to swear the oath of supremacy— and from this time forward, Penn (although he would spend three further periods in prison, between 1673 and 1678) decided to devote much of his energies to missionary tours. In 1672, he toured southern England; and in 1671 and 1677, he traveled to Holland and Germany (on the latter occasion with George Fox). One important contact made during these trips was Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate. Many future emigrants to Pennsylvania would enjoy their first exposure to Quaker ideas during these trips, and powerful allies would be won over. By this stage, Penn was widely recognized as being among the most influential Quaker leaders. He had helped George and Margaret Fox instill a much-needed culture of discipline within the movement, and no one could deny that his high social standing had done the Society numerous favors. He was rich, and was richer still following his father's death in 1670 and his marriage in 1672 to the well-dowried Gulielma Springett, with whom he would go on to have seven children (four of whom died in infancy). He was legally trained, and helped with the drafting of numerous letters and petitions (at both local and national levels) requesting the release of incarcerated fellow-religionists. He had important contacts within the English political establishment (notably Robert Spencer, second Earl of Sunderland, and Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester), and in 1678, he managed to arrange meetings with king, council, and parliament to lobby for an end to the religious persecution of Quakers. He quickly realized during his career as an apologist and evangelist for his faith that, by stressing the areas of common ground that the Society shared with other Christian churches, and by drawing attention away from more controversial ideas, there might be an increased chance of Quakers being treated with something other than distaste. Penn would be criticized for being rather too politicized (epitomized by his public support for Algernon Sydney's electoral campaigns in the late 1670s), and his decidedly acerbic attacks on some of the Quakers' opponents (including Richard Baxter and John Faldo) were frowned upon in some quarters, but his contributions to the Quaker cause were plain for all to see. Although suspicious of what he termed "human learning" and "head

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knowledge," Penn would do as much as anyone to defend the Quaker project. Highlights in this campaign to justify Quakerism included A Serious Apology for the Principles and Practices of the People Called Quakers, written with George Whitehead in 1671. Published as a refutation of the criticisms of Thomas Jenner and Timothy Taylor, the book defended Quaker refusal to pay tithes and roundly denied accusations that Quakers, with their belief in direct revelation, undermined the value of scripture. Perhaps the most important war of words in which Penn engaged was with the aforementioned Presbyterian minister John Faldo, who launched no less than six attacks on Penn and the Quaker movement. Penn would insist that Quakerism was not merely one more antinomian sect in the crowded religious world of Restoration England, but the true fulfillment of the Protestant Reformation, a timely return to the simplicity of the early church that even offered the opportunity for a reformation of contemporary social mores and manners. And, of course, he spoke as eloquently as any of his fellow Quakers in defense of an individual's right to believe and worship according to the dictates of his conscience. Penn was adamant that his belief in religious freedom ought to be seen as a continuation of an ancient English tradition, dating at least as far back as Magna Carta, that cherished the nation's rights and liberties. In any society, Penn suggested, there were many secondary, superficial laws, and it was entirely appropriate that a body such as Parliament should codify them. But there were also fundamental laws, originating from the direct authority of the people, and any Parliament that became entangled with them was surely in error. Religion, for instance, was something with which Parliament should never meddle; there should be no established, statesponsored religion. It was entirely inappropriate that every subject should be compelled to attend the services of a particular sect, or to financially support that sect through the payment of tithes. If nothing else, an established church, with the fines it imposed on Nonconformists, sometimes threatened an Englishman's most precious privilege—to hold property. But as traditionally English as William Penn's philosophizing undoubtedly was, it would achieve its most spectacular (if much flawed) triumphs across the Atlantic in a brand new American colony named, at the king's insistence, for William's father: Pennsylvania. Jf * *

America had not been kind to the Quakers. Back in 1656, when Mary Fisher and Ann Austin arrived in Boston harbor, they were searched for witchcraft paraphernalia, many of their goods were confiscated, and, five weeks later, the two women were sent back to Barbados. The local authorities had been unable to avail themselves of any existing legislation with which to prosecute the two women, but it was a legal lacuna that was soon

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attended to. Later that year, the colony's General Court made it illegal for Quakers to set foot in Massachusetts. Anyone breaching this new ordinance was to be arrested, imprisoned, whipped, and deported. Helping Quakers to travel to the colony, or assisting them once they had arrived, could now incur hefty legal fines. By 1658, any Quaker foolish enough to return to the colony after previously being exiled could look forward to the death penalty. Such was the fate, in 1659 and 1661,.of William Robinson, William Leddra, Marmaduke Stephenson, and, perhaps most famously, Mary Dyer. But in spite of such inauspicious beginnings, much happier times awaited the Society of Friends elsewhere on America's eastern seaboard. Penn's interests in the colonies were stirred as early as 1675 when he served as mediator in a land dispute in west New Jersey. A deal was struck between Edward Byllynge and John Fenwick (both Quakers), with Penn emerging as one of New Jersey's trustees. Penn would help compose west New Jersey's foundational documents, which gave extensive powers to a popularly elected assembly ruling over a polity in which, at long last, Quakers could go about their religious devotions without fear of molestation. As one article in this charter had it: [N]o men, nor number of men upon earth, has power or authority to rule over men's consciences in religious matters, therefore it is consented, agreed and ordained, that no person or persons whatsoever within the said province, at any time or times hereafter, shall be any ways upon any presence whatsoever, called in question, or in the least punished or hurt, either in person, estate, or privilege, for the sake of his opinion, judgement, faith or worship towards God in matters of religion. But that all and every such person, and persons may from time to time, and at all times, freely and fully have, and enjoy his and their judgements, and the exercises of their consciences in matters of religious worship throughout all the said province. During the 1680s, more lands along the Delaware were incorporated by this community, but another, grander Quaker experiment was in the offing. William Penn had two fundamental objectives in mind. He dreamed of establishing a society in which extensive religious freedoms might be enshrined, and he was keen to raise additional income to clear debts that had steadily built up through elegant living and the bailing out of friends. There is no sense in neglecting this mercenary aspect to Penn's "Holy Experiment." The founding of Pennsylvania was part of an ambitious business plan. This does not, in the least, detract from what Pennsylvania came to symbolize in the debate about religious freedom. As Penn put it, "though I desire to extend religious freedom, yet I want some recompense for my trouble." Most of Penn's fiscal troubles could have been resolved at a stroke if the English king, Charles II, had settled a £16,000 debt owed to Penn's father.

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This he was unable or unwilling to do, but, as compensation, in March 1681 he granted Penn a charter for lands to the north of Maryland "favouring the petition and good purpose of William Penn, and having regard to the memory and merits of his late father." In the next few years, the new colony of Pennsylvania would be extended by land purchases (decidedly evenhanded for the period) from the Delaware Indians. Not that the battle at home in England was to be neglected. As recently as 1680, Penn had composed a sober account of the sufferings endured by his religious brethren. The document, presented to the king and parliament, explained that some 243 Quakers had died in prison or had been "knocked down at their peaceable meetings and died of their wounds," 276 Quakers were presently imprisoned "for the testimony of a good conscience," 9,347 had earlier endured custodial sentences for refusing to swear oaths, and 624 for refusing to attend church services. Evidence enough, perhaps, that the seeking out of a haven free of persecution was as urgent as ever. Penn arrived in the fall of 1682 on board the Welcome, and spent the next year and ten months devising plans for the new city of Philadelphia and beginning work on his country mansion at Pennsbury in Bucks County. At this early stage, Penn seems to have brimmed with confidence. He would write to the Marquis of Halifax in February 1684 that "I have led the greatest colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings . . . are to be found among us." There were problems too, of course. Early in the colony's history, border disputes were already emerging with Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore, of Maryland, which threatened the territorial integrity of southern Pennsylvania, including free access to the Delaware. In 1684, both Calvert and Penn returned to England to try and resolve the issue (although the dispute would rumble on until the surveying efforts of Mason and Dixon in 1767), but as he departed, Penn would be consoled by the fact that immigrants had begun to flood into his new colony. There was room for optimism, but also a need to remain vigilant. As he declared in a farewell address, And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, named before you were born, what love, what care, what service, and what travail has there been to bring you forth, and preserve you from such as would abuse and defile you. Oh that you may be kept from the evil that would overwhelm you. . . . My soul prays to God for you, that you may stand in the day of trial, that your children may be blessed of the Lord, and your people saved by his power. Some had been attracted to the new colony by extremely advantageous land prices—a feature that Penn hardly neglected to mention in his advertising campaign for the new colony (witness his propagandist Some Account of the Province of Pennsylvania of 1681)—and some were drawn by the promise of

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unparalleled religious freedoms (although Penn did share a concern that the promise of America would result in all of the most devoted English Quakers abandoning their countrymen). Not just Quakers, but also Mennonites, Moravians and Schwenkfelders, Dutch Calvinists, and German Pietists would soon seize upon the promise of toleration. As the colony's "Frame of Government" explained in 1682, [A] 11 persons living in this province, who confess and acknowledge the one almighty and eternal God, to be the creator, upholder and ruler of the world; and that hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall, in no ways, be molested or prejudiced for their religious persuasion, or practice, in matters of faith and worship, nor shall they be compelled, at any time, to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place or ministry whatever. By 1685, 8,000 people had settled in the colony, and Philadelphia, the city at the junction of the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers, was already home to 357 households. Pennsylvania was not a liberal, shackle-smashing paradise. The authority vested in the colony's governor was extensive. Total loyalty to the English crown and total abidance by English trade laws were expected. The constitution that emerged in 1682 had grown increasingly conservative during the draft stage and was far less liberal than the settlement Penn had helped to mold in west Jersey a few years earlier. Pennsylvania's Frame of Government allowed for a popularly elected bicameral legislature—a provincial council, with which the governor would introduce legislation, and a general assembly, which had the power to approve or oppose new laws but which (at least until the revised "Charter of Privileges" of 1701) could not introduce legislation of its own. While only murder and treason could carry the death penalty, the legal obstacles to activities such as card and dice playing, theatergoing, and cockfighting were considerable. But for all that, the fabled Frame of Government did enshrine Penn's wider political philosophy as eloquently as any document. The duty of government was "to terrify evil-doers" and to "cherish those that do well." This gave government "a life beyond corruption, and makes it as durable in the world as good men shall be." In politics, as in theology, Penn's ability to coin a memorable phrase was always in evidence. "Governments," the Frame of Government's preface explained, "like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too." jf tf }f

Although the accession of James II brought some fleeting respite to the Quaker movement in England, over the next two decades, Penn's career on

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both sides of the Atlantic would move from crisis to crisis. As early as 1684, Penn was growing increasingly disheartened. He feared that his dreams of an ideal society might be dashed, and that the financial side of his venture was turning out to be a disaster. Profits were slim if they materialized at all (many colonists were refusing to pay their rents and taxes), and Penn grew increasingly dependent on the efforts and advice provided by his unscrupulous steward, Philip Ford. Later, when he refused to pay off some of the debts claimed by Ford's heirs, Penn voluntarily spent nine months in the Fleet prison, only being released after raising £6,800—moneys once again borrowed from wealthy acquaintances. Alongside personal tragedy—none more dreadful than the death of his wife in 1694—Penn would also endure the spectacle of his authority being ignored or challenged by colonists (most notably George Keith) and by his masters in England. The reign of James II had marked the high point of Penn's political influence. He was trusted with a diplomatic mission to the Hague in 1686 to sound out William and Mary's view of James's tolerationist policies, and in 1687 he was involved in the drafting of a declaration of indulgence intended to articulate James's commitment to religious toleration. Penn, in fact, became one of James's most trusted allies, arguing the king's causes and doing his business in a number of arenas. In the spring of 1687, rumors even circulated that Penn would be named secretary of state. But having been so conspicuous an ally of James II, the revolution of 1688 was destined to usher in difficult years for Penn, during which he would be treated with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. Enemies such as Robert Sawyer pursued Penn with a vengeance, and, in the coming years, he faced endless charges of having conspired against the nation's best interests. In 1692, William III removed Penn's control over the colony for two years (although his ownership was never in jeopardy). Penn returned to Pennsylvania in 1699, by which time there were some 18,000 inhabitants. His fiscal troubles had grown so serious that he began negotiations to give up governance of the colony, and he ultimately agreed to hand over control of the colony in exchange for a payment of £12,000. Shortly afterward, however, he suffered a stroke and was unable to conclude negotiations (only one payment of £1,000 was ever made). In his later years, Penn undoubtedly grew bitter about the way his "Holy Experiment" had developed. The two years he spent in America from 1699 had, on the whole, been enjoyable ones for Penn. He had found a new, trusted ally in James Logan, who would do much to protect the proprietor's interests in the coming years, and he had worked hard to direct the course of the colony's legislation. By 1710, however, he was addressing his "old friends" in Pennsylvania in less than sanguine terms. "I had reason to expect a solid comfort from the services done to many hundreds of people," he declared, "and I cannot but think it hard measure, that while that has proved a land of freedom . . . it should be come to me, by whose means it was principally made a country, the cause of grief, trouble and poverty."

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There was ingratitude aplenty from a place that he had provided with charters and laws and judges: "I cannot but mourn the unhappiness of my portion dealt to me from those of whom I had reason to expect much better and different things." Beyond a doubt, animosities in Pennsylvania, not least between the Quaker and the non-Quaker portions of the population, were a cause for concern, and Penn warned the colony that "the eyes of many are upon you." Nations that could only aspire to the blessings and liberties enjoyed by Pennsylvania stood amazed at the use the colony was making of its privileges. Likewise, although the Toleration Act of 1689 had been a blessing for the Quaker movement, Penn was still acutely aware that his fellowreligionists continued to be prosecuted for their refusal to pay tithes. In his declining years, such disappointments surely haunted Penn. Laid low by illness, it fell to his second wife, Hannah Callowhill, to look after his affairs until his death, at Ruscombe, Berkshire, in July 1718. ^ ^

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So far as history was concerned, it was the religious legacy of the Pennsylvania experiment that always seemed most epochal. All believers in one God were entitled to freedom of worship: the kind of legislation that had prevented Quakers from establishing meetings back in England was not to be visited on the new colony's population. There were limits, of course—if you happened to be a polytheist, you would have to seek out some other oasis of religious freedom, and if you wanted to vote or hold public office in the colony, you still had to be a Christian. At no time did Penn seek to eliminate government's role in promoting Christian morality, and the "Great Law of Pennsylvania" of 1682, as well as repeating the guarantees of religious freedom enshrined in the Frame of Government of the same year, also spent several sentences rehearsing the value of seemly Sabbath observance: "every first day of the week, called the Lord's Day, people shall abstain from their common toil and labor, that whether masters, parents, children, or servants, they may the better dispose themselves to read the Scriptures of truth at home, or to frequent such meetings of religious worship abroad as may best suit their respective persuasions." In the decades after Penn's death, his colony, and the city of Philadelphia most of all, would only enhance its reputation as a religious haven, most especially among the dissenting populations of England, Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia. There was a dazzling array of competing sects and theologies, from Mennonites to Seventh-Day Baptists, from Rosicrucians to Amish, and by 1750, Quakers would represent only a quarter of the population. Philadelphia would be the place where the Protestant Episcopal Church was constituted, and the city in which the African Methodist Episcopal Church had its origins. William Penn's Holy Experiment is all too easily romanticized. Penn himself was hardly incapable of moments of intolerance, and the political motives

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behind his colony's foundation (part of Charles IPs efforts to negotiate the Restoration crisis) must be remembered. Anyone who came to settle in Pennsylvania, at least during the colony's first decades, entered a commonwealth where Quaker ideas and ideals permeated society, creating at least the hint of an unofficial Quaker establishment. Nor should it be forgotten that, very early in Pennsylvania's history, George Keith had learned that his religious and civil freedoms were far from absolute in Penn's colony. Having voiced his opposition to Penn, along with the printer William Bradford, he would be accused of sedition. Attempts at his trial to plead liberty of conscience would be to little or no avail. Nor did Penn often miss an opportunity to warn against the corrupting influence of Catholicism, and faced with the unusual religious ideas of Lodowick Muggleton and his Muggletonian movement, he did not blanch from condemning what he perceived as a ragbag of "whimsies, blasphemies and heresies." But a crucial component in America's debates about religious freedom has always been the location of symbolic moments, places, and personalities, and William Penn's Pennsylvania has served this purpose very well. There is no doubt that Pennsylvania was, the world over, regarded as a haven from persecution, as the story of Francis Daniel Pastorius makes clear. Pastorius was born in Bavaria in 1651. He grew attached to the Pietist movement and was impressed with Penn's tales of his new colony when he met him on a trip to England in the early 1680s. On his return to Germany, Pastorius grew convinced that religious Nonconformists in his homeland would never be granted the right to worship as their consciences demanded. In 1683, by which time he had become a Quaker, he was leading a party of the Frankfurt Land Company in their effort to establish a presence in Pennsylvania: at a settlement that would come to be known as Germantown. In the coming decades, Pastorius would emerge as one of Penn's most trusted allies, a devoted public servant, and the author of a book that helped persuade hundreds of individuals to settle in the new colony—A Particular Geographical Description of the Lately Discovered Province of Pennsylvania (1700). Pastorius's odyssey ably summed up the potential and the international reach of Penn's Holy Experiment. Of course, not every observer was delighted with the religious pluralism to be found there. Thomas Barton had moved to Pennsylvania in 1751 and married the sister of David Rittenhouse, the celebrated scientist. He returned to England in 1754, took Episcopal orders, and came back to the colony as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. As part of his duties, he toured Pennsylvania and was appalled at the "swarm of sects" he encountered. In Lancaster County, for instance, there were only 500 Anglicans among a population of 40,000. The rest were "German Lutherans, Calvinists, Mennonites, Moravians, New Born, Dunkers, Presbyterians, Seceders, New Lights, Covenanters, Mountain Men, Brownists, Independents, Papists, Quakers, Jews, and so forth!" It was surely a mistake,

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Barton suggested, for the government to tolerate and indulge such diversity. Others were more adoring, however. Pennsylvania, so Thomas Jefferson put it, had been an experiment that was new and doubtful when they made it, but it had "answered beyond conception." As one of the iconic heroes of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, declared, Penn might very well boast of having brought down upon the earth a golden age. SUGGESTED READING Hugh Barbour, ed., William Penn on Religion and Ethics (Lewiston, NY, 1991); Mary Dunn, William Penn: Politics and Conscience (Princeton, NJ, 1967); William Frost, A Perfect Freedom: Religious Liberty in Pennsylvania (New York, 1990); idem., The Keithian Controversy in Early Pennsylvania (Norwood, PA, 1980); Kenneth Morris, "Theological Sources of William Penn's Concept of Religious Toleration," Journal of Church and State 35 (1993), 83-111; Andrew Murphy, ed., The Political Writings of William Penn (Indianapolis, IN, 2002); and Sally Schwarz, "A Mixed Multitude": The Struggle for Toleration in Colonial Pennsylvania (New York, 1987).

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WILLIAM LIVINGSTON (1723-1790) The American Whig William Livingston was born in Albany, New York, on November 30, 1723. He was the son of Catherine Van Brugh and Philip Livingston, second lord of the Livingston Manor, a large landed estate of 160,000 acres that enjoyed the right to send a representative to the colonial assembly. Members of the extended Livingston family would play a major role in the colonial politics of New York. A highlight of William's adolescence was the period, aged fourteen, during which he lived among the Iroquois of the Mohawk Valley in the company of a missionary. Having attended Yale between 1737 and 1741, William traveled to New York City and studied law under the apprentice system with leading attorneys James Alexander and William Smith, Sr. Livingston enjoyed a successful early legal career, arguing both civil and criminal cases and calling for increased professionalization within the legal establishment, working for a raising of standards for admission to the bar and for an end to the disreputable antics of pettifoggers. He came to be associated with two of his contemporaries from Yale, William Smith, Jr., and John Morin Scott, and together they became known as "the triumvirate." In March 1747, the year before his admission to the bar, William had married Susannah French, with whom he had thirteen children. Livingston was always more skilled as a writer than as a public speaker. He enjoyed some success with his poem "Philosophic Solitude, or, The Choice of a Rural Life," a work, derivative of those of Alexander Pope, that went through thirteen editions. Of greater significance, however, was Livingston's contribution to the Independent Reflector, begun by the triumvirate in 1752. At first, the journal was reminiscent of the English periodicals the Tattler and the Spectator, but it soon took on a more radical political complexion, not dissimilar to that of the English Whig journals Cato's Letters and the Independent Whig, with their advocacy of a contract theory of government, limitations on the power of monarchs, and a stress on the liberties of

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the people. As such, Livingston was in the vanguard of progressive thinking that would be so vital to American leaders in the contest for independence from Great Britain that lay ahead. One early controversy with which the Reflector, and Livingston in particular, became embroiled was the plan to establish King's College in New York City. The college indeed secured a charter from George II on October 31, 1754: a notable victory for Livingston's adversary James DeLancey, the acting governor of New York, and for the Anglican establishment as a whole. King's (the future Columbia University) was the fifth of nine colleges established in colonial America, preceded by Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, and Princeton. Ahead of its founding, however, Livingston had fought a bold battle against the notion of a sectarian, Anglican-run educational institution. In the process, he had succeeded in mobilizing public opinion, caused huge amounts of ink to be spilled, and made one of the most significant American contributions to the continuing debate over the troubled relationship between education and issues of religious freedom. ¥ *

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Ever since 1664, when the English took over governance of New York (previously New Netherland) from the Dutch, the Anglican Church had endeavored to establish itself as the colony's dominant religious power. This had been part of the broader effort to "anglicanize" the colony, which also manifested itself in the introduction of the English Common Law, English legal institutions, and English educational standards. In 1693, despite resistance from the colonial assembly, the Ministry Act had arrived, and funds raised from provincial taxes were directed toward the support of Anglican clergy in New York, Richmond, Queens, and Winchester Counties. Two years later, the colonial governor had approved the granting of lands for an Anglican church, which materialized as Trinity Church in 1697 with William Vesey as its first rector. For the next five decades, Vesey would epitomize Anglican dominance in the colony, jealously guarding the church's privileges and resisting the incursions of rival sects, most notably through his efforts to prevent the revivalist preacher George Whitefield from preaching in New York. Another crucial development arrived in 1710, when William Bradford printed the Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, the very first American edition of the Church of England's prayer book. Perhaps the most virulent gubernatorial opponent of dissenting religious groups had been Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury. Cornbury insisted on regarding the Anglican Church as fully established. Keen to harass those of other faiths, he even trained his sights on members of Reformed Dutch Congregations, groups that had received specific promises of toleration as part of the transfer of governance from Holland to England. Anglican ministers were appointed in Dutch churches, and ministers arriving from Holland

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were refused preaching licenses. Protests were met with the response that previous toleration had merely been a courtesy granted by the English, not a matter of right. Cornbury also came into conflict with the Presbyterian Church, most famously when Francis Makemie was arrested for preaching in the colony without a license. Makemie claimed protection under the English Declaration of Religious Toleration of 1689, but Cornbury simply claimed that this document was inapplicable in New York. When, after Makemie had spent forty-six days in jail, the matter came to trial, Cornbury reiterated that, in general, laws passed in England were operative in the colonies, but that this was not the case in this particular instance. The judge directed the jury to find against Makemie but, very unusually, the jurors ignored his advice and acquitted the defendant (although he was still forced to pay the costs of his trial and imprisonment). By 1708, Cornbury had been recalled to England, dogged by rumors of his alleged transvestitism. There were always rival sources of religious influence in New York, not least the Dutch Reformed Church, which endured, despite Cornbury's best efforts, and despite sometimes being cut off from its masters back in Holland. There were also notable pockets of dissent, perhaps most famously Jamaica parish in Queens County, which, with its largely Presbyterian population, stood out against Anglican domination, refusing on many occasions to pay the salary of an Anglican minister and even resorting to rioting in 1704. There were also divisions within the Anglican community itself, between those of more and less tolerationist leanings. It was nonetheless clear, by the time of the King's College controversy, that the Anglican establishment, bolstered by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (established in the colony in 1709), was determined to sustain its dominance in New York. An Anglican-run college was an ideal way to pursue this objective, not least because a model for such a venture already existed further south (William and Mary), and also because religious rivals had proven alarmingly efficient at setting up influential educational institutions of their own (Yale and Princeton). In October 1746, the General Assembly authorized a public lottery to raise £2,250 "for the advancement of learning and toward the founding of a college." It is important to stress, however, that at this early stage it was not inevitable that a new college would be dominated by the Anglican Church. There was no mention of this in the assembly's proceedings. Livingston himself had no objection, in principle, to New York setting up a new educational institution (indeed, he would later propose a radical scheme for establishing a system of grammar schools across the colony to be paid for out of public funds). On the contrary, in 1749, by which time interest in the college had begun to flag, he went so far as to publish his "Some Serious Thoughts on Erecting a College in New York" to rouse public enthusiasm for the project. In 1751, when a ten-member lottery committee was instituted, Livingston

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was appointed, along with seven Anglicans and two members of the Dutch Reformed Church. Even when, a year later, Trinity Church put five acres of its Queens Farm property at the disposal of the new college, Livingston did not assume that a sectarian college was a foregone conclusion. For all that, it seems certain, behind the scenes, that the Anglican establishment, both in New York and back in England, had been conspiring to secure leadership over the proposed college. This became abundantly clear when William Smith, recently arrived from England, published his Some Thoughts on Education: With Reasons for Erecting a College in This Province, in which he proposed that the college be Anglican-controlled, adding a short time later that the ideal candidate for the post of president was the eminent Anglican cleric Samuel Johnson. Livingston's attitude toward the project shifted dramatically. In six issues of the Reflector from March 1753 onward, he mounted an assault on the notion of an Anglican-dominated college. Was there really a place for such an institution, supported at least in part by publicly raised funds, in a religiously mixed city, where Anglicans only represented something like 15 percent of the population (a smaller share of the population, Livingston explained, than the Presbyterians), and which included Lutherans, Quakers, Anabaptists, and Moravians, among many others? In the first of his published broadsides in the Reflector, Livingston stressed his passionate belief in the necessity of properly educating the city's youth. "Erecting a college in this province is a matter of such grand and general importance," he explained, "that I have frequently made it the topic of my serious meditation." It was a "subject of universal concernment" and of the greatest "importance to the happiness and well-being of our posterity." Everyone had agreed that a college should certainly be within, or very close to, the city, but so much time had been spent mulling over the precise location that the issues of the college's governance and constitution had been all but neglected. No one doubted the chief end of such an institution. Students were to be sent there to "improve their hearts and understandings, to infuse a public spirit and love of their country." They were to be inspired with "the principles of honour and probity; with a fervent zeal for liberty, and a diffusive benevolence for mankind." In this way, they would be made "the more extensively serviceable to the commonwealth." But this made it all the more important that such a college be set up on the most equitable and progressive basis possible. Things that were taught there could not be untaught. Youth offered its opportunities, it was like the ductile wax, and "whatever principles are imbibed at a college, will run through a man's whole future conduct, and affect the society of which he is a member." Who could therefore doubt "the necessity and importance of constituting our college upon a basis the most catholic, generous and free"? It was crucial to "admit persons of all Protestant denominations, upon a perfect parity as to privileges," otherwise "it will itself be greatly prejudiced, and prove a

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nursery of animosity, dissention and disorder." It was an unavoidable truism that every person thinks his own sect to be the purer and strives to strengthen his own church at the expense of others. Given this, if "our college . . . unhappily through our own bad policy, fall[s] into the hands of any one religious sect in the province," then that sect would certainly "establish its religion in the college, show favour to its votaries, and cast contempt upon others." Just as inevitably, "Christians of all other denominations amongst us, instead of encouraging its prosperity, will, from the same principles, rather conspire to oppose and oppress it." What could have been a wellspring of prosperity for the entire community would become a force for division and animosity. Whichever sect had "the sole government of the college, will kindle the jealousy of the rest, not only against the persuasion so preferred, but the college itself," and this could only contribute to a "general discontent and tumult; which, affecting all ranks of people, will naturally tend to disturb the tranquility and peace of the province." Moreover, the fundamental educational objective of the college would be lost. It was likely that only the children of Anglicans would be sent there and, instead of receiving a good liberal education, they would be drowned in theological "quibbles and trifles." As for the rest of the population, those blessed with good incomes would look elsewhere—doubtless outside the colony, which was a wasteful way of proceeding—but the rest would simply keep their children at home. Livingston was not opposed to religious worship playing a role at the proposed college: on the contrary, that it "should be constantly maintained there, I am so far from opposing, that I strongly recommend it, and do not believe any such kind of society can be kept under a regular and due discipline without it." But the real danger lay with unthinking sectarian instruction. This carried terrible risks because children, "receiving impressions blindly on authority," would have their understandings corrupted; it would "fetter them with prejudices which may everlastingly prevent a judicious freedom of thought, and infect them all their lives." If the college was dominated by a single sect, which obviously had its own interests at heart, "would not all possible care be bestowed in tincturing the minds of the students with the doctrines and sentiments of that sect?" Still more alarmingly, the children educated in such a sectarian environment, precisely because they were the only students receiving a certain level of education, would doubtless take all the most important jobs and offices in the community, which, in turn, would only foster further resentment. A fundamental issue was at stake. It was public money that would help set up the college, and "when the community is taxed, it ought to be for the defence, or emolument of the whole. . . . Can it, therefore, be supposed, that all shall contribute for the uses, the ignominious uses, of a few?" A true public academy is "or ought to be a mere civil institution, and cannot with any

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tolerable propriety be monopolized by any religious sect." Livingston thus wholly opposed the notion of a chartered school with authority vested in a board of sectarian trustees. The inevitable consequence was that "the civil and religious principles of the trustees, will become universally established, liberty and happiness be driven without our borders, and in their room erected the banners of spiritual and temporal bondage." Rather, if "we expect to fill our public posts with persons of wisdom and understanding, worthy of their offices," then the college should be established, not by a charter, but by an act of assembly. It should be open to public inspection and scrutiny, allowing the community to "counterplot every scheme that can possibly be concerted, for the advancement of any particular sect above the rest." There was to be no room for any "religious profession in particular [to] be established in the college; but that both officers and scholars be at perfect liberty to attend any Protestant Church at their pleasure respectively." The ruling body of the school was to "be absolutely inhibited" from the "making of any by-laws relating to religion, except such as compel them to attend divine service at some church or other, every Sabbath." There was, therefore, to be a Protestant ethos: Christian morality was to pervade the institution and there were to be public prayers and services, but such as all Protestants could attend. But, beyond that, divinity was to "be no part of the public exercises of the college," and degrees in divinity were not to be offered, not least because of the "disgust which will necessarily be given to all parties" that differed in their beliefs from any particular professor. There was to be free access to books about divinity, and it was to be freely discussed, but any public disputations on particular matters of faith were to be forbidden. Livingston was conscious that his views might be seen as unreasonably alarmist: all that was up for discussion, after all, was the founding of a single college. But he urged his readers not to assume that he was "warping your judgment by the illusion of oratory, or the fascination of eloquence." Fundamental principles were at stake, freedoms were under threat, and this, so far as Livingston was concerned, justified the occasional rhetorical flourish: Arise, therefore, and baffle the machinations of your and their country's foes. Every man of virtue, every man of honour, will join you in defeating so iniquitous a design. To overthrow it, nothing is wanting but your own resolution. For great is the authority, exalted the dignity, and powerful the majesty of the people. And shall you the avowed enemies of usurpation and tyranny—shall you, the descendants of Britain, born in a land of light, and reared in the bosom of liberty— shall you commence cowards at a time when reason calls so loud for your magnanimity? I know you scorn such an injurious aspersion. I know you disdain the thoughts of so opprobrious a servility; and what

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is more, I am confident the moment you exert a becoming fortitude, they will be shamed out of their insolence. They will blush at a crime they cannot accomplish, and desist from measures they find unsuccessful. Some of you, perhaps, imagine all opposition unavailable. Banish so groundless a fear. Truth is omnipotent, and reason must be finally victorious. Up and try. Be men, and make the experiment. This is your duty, your bounden, your indispensable duty. Ages remote, and mortals yet unborn, will bless your generous efforts. Skillfully, Livingston ended his appeal by challenging each of New York's non-Anglican groups to remember their own heritage. The Dutch, he suggested, ought to reflect upon the "zeal of your ancestors," and the Presbyterians were surely obliged to "remember with a sacred jealousy, the countless sufferings of your pious predecessors, for liberty of conscience, and the right of private judgment." What afflictions "did they not endure, what fiery trials did they not encounter," before they had found, in America, "that sanctuary and requiem which their native soil inhumanly denied them?" As for the Quakers, they had "always approved [them]selves lovers of civil and religious liberty," and although they had been "misrepresented as averse to human learning," Livingston remained confident that they would "generously contribute to the support of a college founded on a free and catholic bottom." It had become clear that the proposed college was destined to be set up on principles with which Livingston could not agree. His cause was further hindered when, in the aftermath of the suicide of Governor Sir Danvers Osborne in October 1753, Livingston's long-standing enemy James DeLancey was appointed as his acting replacement. DeLancey brought financial pressure to bear and the Reflector was forced into closure. Livingston still had influence on the lottery commission, however. He reluctantly accepted that Samuel Johnson was destined to be approached to fill the position of college president. With some cunning, Livingston nominated Johnson for the job in November 1753, but at the same time put forward Chauncy Whittelsey for the role of "first tutor." Livingston saw Whittelsey, a non-Anglican and one of his old Yale tutors, as a useful counterbalance to Johnson's influence. The plan crumbled, however, when Johnson accepted the appointment but Whittelsey declined. Worse yet, largely in response to Livingston's attacks in the press, the vestrymen of Trinity Church applied two conditions to their offer of lands for the college. In May 1754, they demanded that the college's president should always be an Anglican and that services in the college should always be conducted according to the rites of the Church of England. Livingston made a final stand against the project. Firstly, he argued, in New York, "all his majesty's Protestant subjects inhabiting the same are with respect to the enjoyment of their religion, on a perfect equality; and therefore the said establishment will be partial, a manifest encroachment on the rights and privileges

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of all different denominations of Christians residing in the province." Secondly, there was a gross injustice in the fact that "all the inhabitants of the province will be obliged to contribute to its support," as "a vast majority of the province are Protestants dissenting from the Church of England." Thirdly, it was surely unjust that the charter "excludes from the office of president all persons whatsoever who are not of the Church of England": this "not only tends to raise animosities among the good people of this colony, by introducing a discrimination of privileges, and establishing a superiority among the different sects of Christians hitherto unknown among us, but is also likely to prove prejudicial to the education of the youth to be brought up" in the college. It was a battle that went to the heart of factional divisions within New York's political elite, and it was a battle that Livingston lost (although a protest that Livingston lodged with the assembly did succeed in temporarily withholding some funds from the college). The vestrymen's conditions were accepted and the first students arrived in July 1754. In the long term, however, King's College developed along lines rather different to those intended by its founders. Ultimately, all New Yorkers would be eligible to attend and, by the time of the Revolution, its Anglican identity was all but a dead letter. Just as importantly, Livingston had launched a powerful assault that had portrayed the Anglican establishment—an establishment that was perhaps rather too unflinchingly loyal to Britain—as a likely enemy of American freedoms. As relations soured between London and the colonies in the coming years, this was a theme to which Livingston would return with gusto. * ¥

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The King's College controversy was not to be Livingston's last tussle with the Anglican establishment. It had long been argued in some quarters that the colonies were in desperate need of their own bishop. In 1767, Thomas Bradbury Chandler produced his Appeal to the Public, in which he outlined several arguments for sending a bishop across the Atlantic. Most importantly, he suggested, it was plainly impossible for the church to carry out its duties and fulfill its responsibilities without an episcopal presence—not least in the business of ordaining new clerics. He argued that preventing the church from having its own bishop was, in fact, a denial of its religious freedoms, and he sought to reassure his critics by promising that a bishop would neither indulge in persecutory behavior nor necessarily be an unwelcome drain on public funds. Such proposals caused considerable alarm, not least because this was a time when Anglicanism was so closely linked in the public imagination with the increasingly unpopular rule of the British monarchy. Livingston was one of many to write in protest against the notion of the introduction of an Anglican bishop. Indeed, it was during these years that Livingston emerged as one of the most passionate critics of the colonial policies issuing from London—policies

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that, very often, were supported by the very Anglican clergy with whom Livingston quarreled. For all that, Livingston seems to have grown increasingly weary of his public life in New York and, having built a country estate at Liberty Hall, he went into premature retirement in New Jersey. His new home garnered a reputation as a showcase of modern agricultural science. There were troubled years ahead, however, and a man of Livingston's gifts and instincts was unlikely to disappear from the crucible of postrevolutionary politics. He would serve as delegate from New Jersey at the first and second Continental Congresses and as a leading member of the colony's militia, and in 1776 he would be appointed as the state's first governor. Inordinately popular, he would be reelected every year until his death in 1790. The state's constitution severely limited his powers in this office, and he met with considerable resistance from other branches of government. But he made enormous efforts (once more through his talents as a writer) to mobilize the state's support for George Washington's military adventuring, urging the population to provide money, manpower, and provisions: New Jersey, owing to its location, was blighted with repeated invasions and military struggles during these years. Livingston also played a part at the constitutional convention in 1787 and implored New Jersey to ratify the document that finally emerged. Livingston's gubernatorial career also witnessed significant improvements in the quality of New Jersey's militia. It is important to see Livingston's involvement with the King's College debate and his support for the revolutionary cause as two parts of the same political agenda—a determination to oppose the abuses of dominant and privileged institutions. In 1774, he gave full vent to this overarching political vision. "In every case of opposition by a people to their rulers, or of one state to another," he began, "duty to Almighty God, the creator of all, requires that a true and impartial judgment be formed of the measures leading to such opposition, and of the causes by which it has been provoked." Livingston set about doing just that. In recent years "there commenced a memorable change in the treatment of these colonies." Unjust taxes and policies had begun to issue forth from London. What made "this conduct. . . appear equally astonishing and unjustifiable" was how inappropriate it was. "From their first settlement, their bitterest enemies never fixed on any of [the colonies] any charge of disloyalty to their sovereign or disaffection to their mother country. In the wars she has carried on they have exerted themselves, whenever required, in giving her assistance, and have rendered her services which she has publicly acknowledged to be extremely important." Britian's rule had become "injurious and irritating to this devoted country. Under pretense of governing them, so many new institutions, uniformly rigid and dangerous, have been introduced, as could only be expected from incensed masters for collecting the tribute, or, rather, the plunder, of conquered provinces." It was at such moments, Livingston believed, that radical action was called for.

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Livingston's was a turbulent career—for many years in N e w Jersey he was the subject of various kidnap and assassination plots—but one that had been defined by an unflinching commitment to a very particular vision of how the American nation ought to develop. There was much about Livingston—his animosity toward Catholicism, his tendency to reach for the overzealous phrase—that was unpalatable, but he sustained a loyalty to his country when it was most needed, and a commitment to a philosophy that would come to be privileged in the United States: "the consciences of men," he wrote in the New Jersey Gazette in February 1778, "are not the object of human legislation." SUGGESTED READING Patricia Bonomi, A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York (New York, 1971); Donald Gerardi, "The King's College Controversy, 1753-56 and the Ideological Roots of Toryism in New York," Perspectives in American History 11 (1977-1978), 145-96; David Humphrey, From Kings College to Columbia, 1754-1800 (New York, 1975); Milton M. Klein, The American Whig: William Liv ingston of New York (New York, 1990); idem., ed., The Independent Reflector (Cambridge, MA, 1963); Richard McCormick, Experiment in Independence: New Jersey in the Critical Period 1781-1789 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1950); and John A. Neuenschwander, The Middle Colonies and the Coming of the American Revolution (Port Washington, NY, 1973).

ISAAC BACKUS (1724-1806) An Equal Claim Isaac Backus was born on January 9, 1724, in Norwich, Connecticut, one of the eleven children of Samuel Backus and Elizabeth Tracy. The family was wealthy, and its income, centered on a farm, sawmill, gristmill, ironworks, and landholdings in the Delaware and Susquehanna purchases, would grow over the coming decades. Backus did not attend college, enjoying only seven years' worth of rudimentary education crammed into the winter months. Throughout his life he would prove to be a less-than-gifted speller and grammarian. By the age of sixteen his father had died (he was the third richest man in Norwich at the time), and Isaac's attentions had perforce turned to the upkeep of the family's agricultural interests. As things fell out, however, he was not destined for a tranquil rural life. The religious ferment of the time would intervene. ¥ ¥

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By the early eighteenth century, the established churches of the American colonies had achieved what, presumably, established churches were intended to achieve: a comfortable measure of unity, orthodoxy, and security. What worried some commentators, however, was that this very security was liable to give way to complacency, to breed up a lackluster devotional culture. To some eyes, habit and formalism had replaced genuine religious enthusiasm: people were not spending nearly enough time thinking about sin and salvation, they were partaking of sacraments without fully appreciating the awesome majesty that such rituals entailed, and they were talking about issues of grace and predestination in worryingly laxist terms. The Great Awakening can broadly be understood as a concerted effort to right these spiritual wrongs. Enterprises such as the religious revivals of the 1730s and 1740s, the biting critique of spiritual malaise by the Northampton minister Jonathan Edwards, and the theologizing and itinerant preaching

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of George Whitefield, Gilbert and William Tennent, James Davenport, and Eleazar Wheelock would transform America's religious landscape. It was a movement that cut across social classes, from the slave communities that were touched by a personal religiosity as never before, to the studies of New England, where theological trends emerged that would culminate in the Unitarian controversy of the nineteenth century. The Awakening represented a pivotal moment when America—America understood not only as a cluster of British colonies but also as a potentially unique political and social undertaking— acknowledged a shared religious heritage and began to wonder, more urgently than ever before, how that heritage ought to be carried forward. The champions of conservatism did not hide their distaste for many aspects of this outpouring of enthusiastic, spontaneous religious sentiment. They complained that the frenzies being whipped up by zealous evangelists posed a threat to public order and common decency, and made ordinary parishioners question their leaders and the assumptions of tradition. Legislators such as Jonathan Law, governor of Connecticut, sought to hinder evangelical efforts by the strict enforcement of laws against itinerant preaching. Religious leaders like the Boston minister Charles Chauncy offered harsh rebuttals of enthusiastic revivalism, regaling America with stories of unseemly revivalist meetings characterized by people "swooning away and falling to the ground . . . bitter shriekings and screaming; convulsion-like tremblings and agitations, strugglings and tremblings." Traditional Puritan conversion experiences, he explained, were about the gradual descent into despair (as the individual's full awareness of his sinfulness manifested itself) followed by a spiritual recovery and a sense of joy and renewal. Revivalism, with its talk of trances and visions and the appearance of devils ready to drag sinners off to hell, was, at best, a sham. It was mistaking overactive imaginations for the workings of the divine. It had little to do with the spirit of God, and more to do with physical illness and mental instability. The Great Awakening was also a profoundly important moment for the Baptist movement. Today, Baptists make up the largest Protestant denomination in the United States: the culmination of a colorful, often troubled, history. They were immediately treated with suspicion in the colonies of New England as a result of their refusal to countenance infant baptism and their desire to remain unencumbered by civil authority, although Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware did provide welcome refuges from prosecution. For Baptists, and many others, the Great Awakening would have a huge effect on debates over religious freedom—both in terms of the privileges enjoyed by established churches and the meaning and importance of free exercise. The Awakening split congregations. It represented a challenge to existing church establishments. Revivalist "New Lights" expressed disdain for, and a determination to separate from, conservative "Old Lights." In Virginia, the Presbyterian Samuel Davies would fight a lengthy legal campaign to allow

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his fellow-religionists to organize their own churches apart from the Anglican establishment. In New England, more than 100 groups, many of them eventually adopting a Baptist identity, broke away from the Congregational Church and sought, over time, to assert their religious rights. This brings us back to one of the most important heirs of the Great Awakening's impact on American religious life. The Baptist Isaac Backus would spend much of his long life debating and promoting the ideas of religious freedom that the Great Awakening had provoked. ¥ ¥

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In fact, the Backus family could already lay claim to a colorful religious past. Isaac's grandfather Joseph had been expelled from the colonial legislature for his opposition to the Say brook Platform of 1708—a document that reorganized Connecticut's churches according to semi-Presbyterian principles and that offended those with stricter Congregational opinions. When Norwich subscribed to the Platform in 1714, Joseph and his allies established their own service. Indications that Isaac had inherited a passion for contemporary religious squabbles began to emerge in 1741. The preaching of Jedidiah Mills, Eleazar Wheelock, Benjamin Pomeroy, and James Davenport—zealous exponents of Great Awakening ideas—seem to have effected some kind of conversion in Backus. "As I was mowing alone in a field, August 24, 1741," he later recounted, "all my past life was open plainly before me, and I saw clearly that it had been filled up with sin." A spell of heart-searching, prayer, and meditation allowed the divine light to reveal "the freeness and richness of grace." "My heavy burden was gone, tormenting fears were fled, and my joy was unspeakable." Backus joined the ranks of the Standing Church in July 1742, but he soon grew dissatisfied with what he found there. There was doubt about how reputable it was to worship alongside those non-Saints who had failed to experience an explicit moment of sanctification and conversion. This, along with the fact that his local minister, Benjamin Lord, was suspicious of New Light evangelism and was a supporter of the Saybrook Platform, made Backus and some of his fellow parishioners decide to organize meetings in their own homes. In July 1746, they set up a separatist congregation of their own—the Bean Hill Separate Church, with Jedidiah Hide as their minister. Backus had definitively allied himself with the New Lights faction, and, tellingly, the church soon underwent the kind of discriminatory treatment that would aggravate Backus throughout his career. Members of the new congregation were still expected to pay the religious tax levied in support of the established church. Some of them, including Backus's mother and one of his brothers, refused to pay and endured a spell in prison for their troubles. Isaac had already witnessed the wondrous effect of effective evangelism. When his father died, his mother had lapsed into a debilitating depression,

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but the preaching of Mills and Wheelock that had provoked Isaac's own spiritual renewal also did much to lift his mother's spirits. As Backus the avid diary-keeper tells us, on September 27, 1746, he in turn answered the call to take up a preaching ministry. The belief that unordained individuals who lacked college degrees were entirely fitted for such duties was a hallmark Baptist belief. After two years of itinerant sermonizing, he learned of an opening in Titicut, part of the towns of Middleborough and Bridgewater, Massachusetts. By April 1748, Backus was being ordained as elder to the separatist Titicut faithful. Significantly, while he was happy to undergo examination by his future congregation, he refused to accept the principle that the approval of nearby ministers was a prerequisite for his appointment. There was a great deal to report after Backus's first year at the head of the Titicut Congregation. He had found a wife, Susanna Mason, with whom he would have nine children before her death in 1800. Together they began to cultivate a farm in Middleborough, and the livestock, corn, rye, wheat, and apples it produced would help to supplement the income Backus derived from his activities as a bookseller and an agent of his brother's ironworks back in Norwich. It was a hallmark of many separatist congregations that they refused to pay their ministers: like many of his colleagues, Backus was made to fall back on donations and the profits he could raise from his Middleborough farm. Backus had already signaled a lifetime's commitment to long-range evangelism, making eight preaching tours and covering 800 miles before the year was out. But there were problems on the horizon, too. For the next decade, Backus would struggle in deed and conscience over the fraught issue of adult baptism: it was an issue that divided the New Light movement. Was submerging children, welcoming them into the community of the faithful, an acceptable way of proceeding? Or was it not far preferable to wait until individuals had reached adulthood and gained fuller mastery of their rational faculties? A key theological issue was at stake. The Church of England, as one example, had held that, while on earth, it was simply impossible to tell who was destined for salvation and who for eternal damnation. As such, all those not guilty of scandalous behavior ought to be admitted to the church. They should be baptized as infants and confirmed as full members (and thus able to communicate) in their early teens. Those of Calvinist persuasion found this untenable. From the beginning of the New England religious experiment, efforts were made to set up more rigorous standards of church membership—individuals had to convince the minister that they had genuinely undergone a regenerative episode and received God's grace. Thus were the "gathered" churches, populated by "visible saints," brought into being. The New England churches did not abandon infant baptism, however. It was suggested that the children of visible saints would, at the very least, be likely to "inherit" grace, and there was a likelihood that grace would descend

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upon them: as such, it seemed appropriate to bring them into the care and covenant of the church from the outset. It quickly became clear, however, that people were growing to adulthood but failing to receive the expected moment of grace-giving conversion. This posed problems: firstly, it brought anxiety down upon the individual, secondly, because they were not entitled to become full church members, their own children could not be baptized. Thus was born the "Half-Way Covenant," whereby the grandchildren of visible saints could be baptized. This, especially to the leaders of the Great Awakening like Jonathan Edwards, smacked of compromise. Still worse were the notions of Stoddardeanism, named for a Massachusetts minister, which offered church membership to anyone who professed adherence to the covenant of the local church. Purity, it seemed, was at risk. Once again, New Light ministers began to insist on detailed, convincing professions of conversion experiences before admitting anyone to church membership. The practice of baptizing the children of (properly admitted) church members continued, but this was unacceptable to more radical New Lights. Some of them began to insist that only those adults who could give full accounts of their conversions ought to be admitted to the ranks of the faithful. Young children were simply not eligible. Backus spent two years thinking about such issues. He then preached in favor of adult baptism (a controversial move), backed away from the issue, then preached once again that infant baptism enjoyed no scriptural sanction. Most telling of all, he and his wife went through the ceremony of adult baptism themselves in August 1751: he had decided that his own infant baptism was no longer valid. Backus endeavored to maintain an open communion at Titicut—serving the spiritual needs of both the proponents and critics of his position on adult baptism— but by 1756, he felt obliged to enact a schism, establishing the First Baptist Church of Middleborough. Backus would serve at this bastion of evangelical Calvinism until his death, fifty years later. From now to the end of his life—however deeply his efforts reverberated through the whole of American Protestantism—it was for the Baptist Church that Backus would expend the greater part of his energies. He aspired to a united front among his fellow-religionists, witnessed by his continuing campaign to urge churches to join the Warren Baptist Association, founded in 1767 to defend the position of the Baptist community against the skepticism and hostility of the New England authorities. In the eleven years after 1756 alone, Backus would travel some 15,000 miles on Baptist business. When especially vitriolic anti-Baptist sentiment was voiced—as in the case of Joseph Smith, minister at Stonington, Connecticut, in 1768—it fell to Backus to provide a written reply. But perhaps no issue was more precious to him than the campaign to assert Baptists' rights to free exercise of their religious faith, and to be freed from the conscience-biting requirement to support officially instituted churches, whose doctrines they flatly rejected.

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The established churches of New England were supported by taxation, and originally this had been collected from every member of the community—not just from those who happened to subscribe to the tenets of the official church. The tax contributions of some people were thus spent on the salaries of ministers they had no intention of ever listening to and on the maintenance of churches or meetinghouses into which they would never set foot. To refuse such demands was to risk imprisonment or the confiscation of property. This system had seen some amelioration in the years before Backus's arrival on the national religious scene. From 1731, Baptists, Quakers, and Anglicans in Massachusetts, provided they were bona fide members of these communities, could be exempted from religious taxes, although to enjoy this dispensation, individuals had to provide certificates testifying that they regularly attended religious meetings of their own and contributed financially to the upkeep of their own meetinghouses. From the 1730s, there had been much campaigning for an improvement in such laws: suggestions, for instance, that such legislation should become a permanent fixture in the statute book rather than a temporary law renewed every five years. But really troubling for many minority groups was the fact that, especially in the wake of the Great Awakening, the Congregational establishment proved extremely reluctant to consider many groups as genuine dissenters. It was often unclear to the Massachusetts authorities whether separatist Baptists, such as those who adopted an antipaedobaptist position, were deserving of inclusion in tax-exemption measures or were unscrupulous taxdodgers. It became a common policy to exclude separatist Baptists from the tax-exemption laws. At this stage of his career, Backus was not seeking alliance with other dissenters, or mounting some principled argument for religious toleration or the separation of church and state. He was interested in asserting the rights of separatist Baptists like himself. The tax issue raised its head time and again during these decades. In 1747, Baptists had complained about their inclusion in a general tax levied at Titicut to provide funds for a new Congregational meetinghouse. Two years later, Backus was writing to Baptists throughout Massachusetts, urging them to sign a petition that demanded the granting of the exemptions already enjoyed by Quakers and Anglicans: had not the colony's 1691 charter promised toleration to all Christians, only Roman Catholics excepted? In 1765, Backus would petition once more in favor of the rights of Baptists in Ashfield to be exempted from religious taxation. Through his position on the grievance committee of the Warren Association, he would devote considerable time throughout his career to exposing the abuses of local tax collectors, counseling those Baptists who were embroiled in legal battles, and even visiting them in jail when such battles were lost. By the early 1770s, however, Backus's thought on the issue of taxation

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had moved on in two crucial ways. Firstly, he was beginning, in very cautious ways, to take on board some of the concepts of natural rights theory. Secondly, he began to insist that the compromise of granting tax exemptions provided that people furnished certificates that proved their dissenter status was an unacceptable assault on consciences in and of itself. In 1773, Backus composed his An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty. "God has appointed two kinds of government in this world," he explained, "which are distinct in their nature, and ought never to be confounded together; one of which is called civil, the other ecclesiastical government." Christian ministers derived every ounce of their authority from Christ, and they were making a huge mistake if they looked to the state to legitimize or support them: Can any man in the light of truth maintain his character as a minister of Christ, if he is not contented with all that Christ's name and influence will procure for him, but will have recourse to the kings of the earth, to force money from the people to support him under the name of an ambassador of the God of heaven? Christ and his first followers, it was well to remember, "made no use of secular force in the first setting up of the gospel church, when it might seem to be peculiarly needful if ever." Obedience to civil authority, in matters truly under its jurisdiction, was a vital Christian duty—"we view it to be our incumbent duty to render unto Caesar the things that are his"—but it was of as much importance not to render unto him anything that belongs only to God, who is to be obeyed rather than man. And as it is evident to us that God always claimed it as his sole prerogative to determine, by his own laws, what his worship shall be, who shall minister in it, and how they shall be supported; so it is evident that his prerogative has been, and still is, encroached upon in our land. The magistrates of Massachusetts, by forcing each township to support a minister possessed of particular beliefs, and even possessed of particular educational qualifications, were betraying the authentic Christian tradition. In the same year, and for the selfsame reasons, Backus lent his support to a campaign of Baptist civil disobedience, urging that his coreligionists refuse to submit exemption certificates. What right did the civil authorities have to demand such documents? What right did civil power have to raise one sect above the other and force the citizenry to support it? Civil power had no ecclesiastical power, no right to interfere in the affairs of Christ. For the secular branch of government to raise religious taxes was abhorrent, but so, within that abhorrent system, was the audacious process of deciding who deserved exemptions and requiring them to provide written proof of their

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religious allegiance. Of course there had been progress since the days, back in the 1650s, when Baptists like Obadiah Holmes had been whipped through Boston's streets, but such progress was not enough. The next year, 1774, Backus had access to two important platforms on which he could articulate this position still further. In September, "the elders and brethren of twenty Baptist churches met in association at Medfield" sent Backus as their representative to the First Continental Congress, sitting at Philadelphia, and the delegates were offered an earnest plea: We would beg leave to say that, as a distinct denomination of Protestants, we conceive that we have an equal claim to charter-rights with the rest of our fellow-subjects; and yet have long been denied the free and full enjoyment of those rights, as to the support of religious worship. . . . What is the liberty desired? The answer is: as the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, and religion is a concern between God and the soul, with which no human authority can intermeddle, consistently with the principles of Christianity, and according to the dictates of Protestantism, we claim and expect the liberty of worshipping God according to our consciences, not being obliged to support a ministry we cannot attend. The response was less than encouraging. Samuel Adams admitted that there was an ecclesiastical establishment, but only "a very slender one, hardly to be called an establishment." Another delegate suggested that what the Baptists were complaining about was not really a matter of conscience but merely a "contending about paying a little money," and this provoked the bluntest of responses from Backus: "it is absolutely a point of conscience with me; for I cannot give in the certificate they require without implicitly acknowledging that power in man which I believe belongs only to God." At the end of a lengthy discussion, John Adams's conclusion was that "we might as well expect a change in the solar system as to expect they would give up their establishment." In December 1774, it was the turn of the Massachusetts legislature to hear Backus out, and not for the last time. The masterstroke on this occasion was to invoke the aspirations and rhetoric of the revolution in which America was now embroiled. It seems that the two main rights which all Americans are contending for at this day are: not to be taxed where they are not represented; and to have their causes tried by unbiased judges. And the Baptist churches in this province as heartily unite with their countrymen in this cause, as any denomination in the land; and are as ready to exert all their abilities to defend it. Yet only because they have thought it to be their duty to claim an equal title to these rights with their neighbors, they have

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repeatedly been accused of evil attempts against the general welfare of the colony; therefore, we have thought it expedient to lay a brief statement of the case before this assembly . . . to impose religious taxes is as much out of [the legislature's] jurisdiction as it can be for Britain to tax America; yet how much of this has been done in this province. . . . Must we be blamed for not lying still, and thus let our countrymen trample upon our rights, and deny us that very liberty that they are ready to take up arms to defend for themselves? You profess to exempt us from taxes to your worship, and yet tax us every year. Great complaints have been made about a tax which the British Parliament laid upon paper; but you require a paper tax of us annually. That which has made the greatest noise is a tax of three pence a pound upon tea; but your law of last June laid a tax of the same sum every year upon the Baptists in each parish. . . . All America are alarmed at the tea tax; though, if they please, they can avoid it by not buying the tea; but we have no such liberty. . . . But these lines are to let you know, that we are determined not to pay either of them; not only upon your principle of not being taxed where we are not represented, but also because we dare not render that homage to any earthly power, which I and many of my brethren are fully convinced belongs only to God. Here, therefore, we claim charter rights, liberty of conscience. It was a battle that Backus would never entirely win. At the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in 1779, he lobbied for an end to all religious taxation, but the state's new constitution provided a rather different settlement— what John Adams described as the combination of one established religion with the freedom of many private religions. The state was still to compel each town to support (through their taxes) a Protestant minister. Those who regularly attended alternative religious services would see their tax dollars going toward the support of their own churches, but everyone else would be expected to help make "suitable provision" for the public minister. "No subordination of any one sect or denomination shall ever be established by law," and religious pluralism was to exist alongside a mild, slender establishment. Adams reckoned this to be an elegant solution. Preferred forms of Christian piety would enjoy privileges, but individuals who subscribed to a religious belief that did not threaten morality would bask in the liberty of their consciences. Thanks to this settlement, "it can no longer be called into question [that] . . . authority in magistrates and obedience of citizens can be grounded on reason, morality and the Christian religion without. . . the monkery of priests or the knavery of politicians." But even this, so far as Backus was concerned, was an unholy sort of compromise. Civil government was still embroiled in religious affairs: imposing a dozen different sorts of religious tax was no better than imposing just one. Churches ought to be supported by voluntary contributions or not at all.

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It was not until 1833, twenty-seven years after Backus's death, that the Congregational Church was fully disestablished in Massachusetts. Religious freedom and church/state debates would continue to occupy Backus during the rest of his life. The Massachusetts legal principle that no religious congregation could enjoy legal recognition (and hence tax privileges) until it had been officially incorporated caused Backus especial concern. There was a growing trend for Baptist communities to secure legal incorporation from the legislature. By doing this, Baptists could make entirely certain that the taxes they paid would be given to their chosen ministers. If incorporation was not secured, then Baptists who refused to pay religious taxes would face the risks of imprisonment or distraint of property. What was more, incorporation also ensured that ministers would receive a regular, dependable salary rather than having to rely on intermittent voluntary contributions. Such a trend appalled Backus and many other Baptists— it was yet another example of the state exercising unwarranted authority (the gift of incorporation) in religious matters—and a serious fault line developed within the movement. In 1790, Backus's counsel was sought by three Baptists in New Gloucester. They had a part-time minister and the rest of the town regarded this as insufficient grounds for granting them tax exemptions. The suggestion from the town was that they should seek incorporation from the General Court or face the consequences. Backus was adamant and told them not to seek incorporation and to suffer whatever punishments might result from their refusal to pay the town's religious taxes. ¥ *

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It is very important to explain exactly what Isaac Backus understood by the notion of religious freedom, and what sort of culture he hoped it might help create. It is crucial to stress the theological roots of his understanding of liberty. Backus cautioned against pursuing boundless freedom or license. True liberty, he insisted, resided in fulfilling one's role in God's order: "to know, obey and enjoy [the] Creator, and to do all the good unto, and enjoy all the happiness with and in his fellow creatures that he is capable of." In such a scheme, government was not the enemy of liberty, but its advocate. He most certainly did not object to religion playing a role in public life: it was "as necessary for the well being of human society as salt is to preserve putrefaction." Backus wanted the state to disentangle itself from the governance of religion because he thought that was precisely the best way to allow religion to thrive. Of course, while the state had no legitimate role in making explicitly religious laws, it did have a duty to try and sustain a pious devotional climate, especially where this concerned aspects of human devotional behavior that were dictated by the demands of natural religion. Backus petitioned Congress in 1791 in favor of a federal commission to license all publication of bibles. He saw a place for religion in public schools, and had no

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qualms about state laws against blasphemy. Nor was he nearly so convinced that religion should stay out of politics as he was that politics should stay out of religion. Backus was undoubtedly one of the architects of the modern debate about religious freedom, but he was no believer in a strict Jeffersonian wall of separation. Nor was he addicted to unflinching notions of religious tolerance. He fumed, during his career, about Universalists, Shakers, and Arminian tendencies within the Protestant fraternity, and it should not be forgotten that if America had evolved into an exclusively Baptist nation, he would surely have been delighted. He wrote his lengthy history of the Baptist Church, as well as thirty-seven tracts in its defense, and saw the number of Baptist churches in New England increase from thirty-one in 1740 to 325 in 1795. He sat on the board of trustees of its vibrant new educational institution (Rhode Island College, renamed Brown University in 1805) and between 1748 and 1802 made 918 trips and traveled 68,600 miles on its behalf. It was above all for that church that he sought religious freedom. Backus died in 1806, and as an inscription on a monument in Middleborough still reads, As a Christian and minister the character of this man was truly conspicuous. As pastor of a church in this town, for fifty-eight years he was eminently useful and beloved. His domestic and relative duties, as a husband and parent, were discharged with fidelity, tenderness and affection. His zeal and persevering industry in the cause of civil and religious liberty, through a long laborious life, is still manifest in his writings as an historian of the Baptist denomination, and defender of the truths of the doctrine of Christ. Perhaps the most enduring Baptist contribution to America's debate about religious freedom is that they were among the most articulate defenders of toleration at a key moment of transformation: when the colonial past gave way, albeit gradually, to the republican future. Backus's celebrated Baptist colleague, John Leland, was acutely aware of the responsibilities that this accident of history carried with it. A veteran of many struggles in the cause of religious freedom—the enactment of Jefferson's Virginia bill for religious freedom, the ratifying of the Constitution in Massachusetts—Leland proved to be one of the most passionate advocates of state/church separation during the 1790s. His theorizing is a useful place to end this essay because he posited a view of church/state relations and religious freedom that, in many ways, was even more radical and progressive than Isaac Backus's. ¥ *

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John Leland was born in Grafton, Massachusetts, in 1754, the son of James Leland and Lucy (nee Warren). In his eighteenth year, he claimed to have heard a scolding voice direct from heaven urging him to put away the diversions of

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the world. Accordingly, Leland was baptized in June 1774 and secured a preaching license from the Bellingham Baptist Church a few months later. After extensive preaching tours, Leland settled in Orange County, Virginia, in 1778 with his wife, Sally Divine. Leland would make a decisive contribution to the Virginian campaign to establish religious freedom in 1786, and a persistent rumor talks of James Madison visiting Leland after returning from the Constitutional Convention to calm Baptist fears about the lack of protection of religious liberty in the Constitution. Whether or not such a meeting took place, Leland's support was helpful in securing Madison the position as Orange County's delegate to the Virginia ratifying convention. When Madison was elected to Congress in 1789, Leland was sure, alongside offering hearty congratulations, to stress the need for further constitutional guarantees of religious liberty—as such, his was one of the voices that helped convert Madison to the need for a Bill of Rights. Leland moved north in 1791, returning to his native Massachusetts—a place in which an established Congregational church remained entrenched. He would spend much of the next decades seeking, in print and pulpit, to overturn the ecclesiastical status quo in both Massachusetts and Connecticut, perhaps most energetically in his writings in The Yankee Spy. He engaged with specific issues of church/state separation, arguing, for instance, against the payment of chaplains from public funds and for the right of the United States Post Office to remain open on Sundays. From his base in Conway, Leland also emerged as a keen supporter of the Jeffersonian party, exerting considerable influence over successive elections and famously organizing the dispatch of an enormous cheese to Jefferson to congratulate the new president on his election in 1801. Crucially, Leland rooted his advocacy of religious liberty not only in a philosophical allegiance to John Locke, but also in a keen awareness of history. He was careful to recount, in great detail, the troubled story of the Baptist faith during Virginia's colonial period—this was the instructive lesson he believed the United States ought not to forget. "Soon after the Baptist ministers began to preach in Virginia," he recounted at the start of the 1790s, "the novelty of their doctrine, the rarity of mechanics and planters preaching such strange things; and the wonderful effect that their preaching had on the people, called out multitudes to hear them." But such popularity "made them many enemies." Inevitably, the "usual alarm of the church and state being in danger, was echoed through the colony." The clerics and supporters of the established churches began to cry, "like the silver-smith of old . . . 'our craft is in danger of being set at naught.'" Decades of prejudice and persecution were the unhappy result. It came as no surprise, then, that the conviction "that civil rulers have nothing to do with religion, in their official capacities, is . . . interwoven in

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the Baptist plan." But this was not just a matter of self-preservation: a principle was at stake. "The legitimate powers of government," Leland insisted, "extend only to punish men for working ill to their neighbors, and no ways effect the rights of conscience." It mattered not a jot that "the nation of Israel received their civil and religious laws from Jehovah, which were binding on them, and no other." With the "extirpation of that nation," such a compact was abolished. For the United States of America, a modern Christian commonwealth, to establish itself on "the same claim" would be presumptuous. So far as Leland was aware, it had not received "the same charter from heaven." What was legitimate in the age of Moses was not necessarily legitimate in the 1790s: this was the vision of the future that Leland was eager to instill in the minds of his countrymen. Religious establishments turned people into either fools or hypocrites; they bred violence, and banished virtue. Only error needed the help of government to support it. In its "purest ages," religion "made its way in the world, not only without the aid of law, but against all the laws of haughty monarchs, and all the maxims of the schools." So long as abuse was outlawed, "government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely." Echoing Madison, Leland revealed that the "liberty I contend for, is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable, it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest, to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians." There should be no test oaths, no general tax assessments in support of religion: such an assessment made preachers into ministers of state, and it turned "the gospel into merchandise, and sinks religion upon a level with other things." It was not even legitimate for civil government "to establish fixed holy days for divine worship." Leland was "not an enemy to holy days," but he merely believed that appointing them was "no part of human legislation." Nor should civil and military chaplains be paid for "out of the public treasury." "If legislatures choose to have a chaplain, for heaven's sake let them pay him by contributions, and not out of the public chest." Likewise, for "chaplains to go into the army, is about as good economy as it was for Israel to carry the ark of God to battle . . . instead of reclaiming the people, they generally are corrupted themselves, as the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines." The crucial point was that ministers might start to say, "if you will pay me well for preaching and praying, I will do them, otherwise I will not." Such "golden sermons and silver prayers," Leland suggested, "are of no great value." Here was an epochal moment: a profoundly religious man arguing for a separation of church and state as complete as any that had come before. In Connecticut in 1818, and in Massachusetts in 1833, Leland saw his dreams fulfilled, with the disestablishment of the Congregational Church.

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SUGGESTED READING Lyman H. Butterfield, "Elder John Leland, Jeffersonian Itinerant,"Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 62 (1952), 155-242; Stanley Grenz, "Isaac Backus: Eighteenth Century Light on the Contemporary School Prayer Issue," Perspectives in Religious Studies 13 (1986), 35-45; idem., Isaac Backus: Puritan and Baptist (Macon, GA, 1983); William G. McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition (Boston, 1967); idem., Soul Liberty: The Baptists' Struggle in New England, 1630-1833 (Hanover, NH, 1991); idem., ed., The Diary of Isaacc Backus, 3 vols. (Providence, RI, 1979); Peter Richards, " 'A Clear and Steady Channel': Isaac Backus and the Limits of Liberty," Journal of Church and State 43 (2001), 447-82; and Albert Wardin, "Contrasting Views of Church and State: A Study of John Leland and Isaac Backus," Baptist History and Heritage 33 (1998), 12-20.

THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743-1826) A Matter between Man and His God Modern-day pundits in America's debate over religious freedom are apt to focus on questions that, depending upon whom you ask, are pivotal, hackneyed, or wholly irrelevant. What role did the nation's founding fathers want religion to play in public life? Precisely what was the intention behind foundational documents such as the religion clauses of the First Amendment (a document whose precise wording was much discussed before a final draft was settled upon)? Can such questions be definitively answered and, even if they can, are they really that important more than 200 years after the event? When such issues are combined with assessments of the career of Thomas Jefferson—easily one of the most controversial, debated figures in America's history—the mix can be explosive. As is the case with his great friend James Madison (the subject of our next biographical essay), it is impossible to take up a position in the debate about America's religious freedom without taking up a position on Thomas Jefferson—just what did he want, did his wants develop over the course of long public career, and ought we to care about what he wanted? Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Virginia, on April 13, 1743. He was the son of Jane (nee Randolph) and Peter Jefferson, a surveyor, mapmaker, and farmer in Virginia's western Piedmont region. Peter, most famous for producing a definitive map of the colony, was a significant figure in local Virginian politics, serving as justice of the peace, as a militia officer, and in the House of Burgesses between 1754 and 1755. He died in 1757 and bequeathed a prosperous, slave-owning, 5,000-acre estate to his son. For all his manifold achievements, Jefferson would sustain a lifelong interest in, even a devotion to, the soil. A decent early education—courtesy of the Reverends William Douglas and James Maury—led, in 1760, to matriculation at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. For the rest of his life, Jefferson would acknowledge a

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lasting debt to teachers such as the mathematician William Small ("a man profound in most of the useful branches of science"), George Wythe (a celebrated legal mind), and the royal governor Francis Faquier (the epitome of taste and sensibility by Jefferson's account). After college, Jefferson's career proceeded along paths familiar to Virginia gentlemen of his station. He was elevated to the bar in 1767 (subsequently enjoying seven years of successful legal practice), and a public career began to take shape with his roles as justice of the peace and lieutenant in the county militia, and his election as Albemarle's representative in the House of Burgesses in 1769 (a position he held for seven years). Marriage to Martha Wayles Skelton in 1772 would produce six children and, only a year later, upon the death of Martha's father, Jefferson doubled his landholdings—although the debts associated with some of these estates would plague Jefferson for the rest of his life. tf ^

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These were hardly ordinary years in Virginian public life, with debates brewing about the colony's relationship with its rulers back in London, and Jefferson, excelling as a thinker and a writer rather than as an orator, quickly sided with the more radical politics of men such as Patrick Henry. In 1774—when the "whole colony was like a shock of electricity"—the instructions he drafted for Virginia's delegates to the first Continental Congress declared that the English parliament lacked any authority to raise taxes or introduce legislation in the colonies. Without Jefferson's permission, a version of his opinions was published in 1774, both in Philadelphia and London, as A Summary View of the Rights of British America. Jefferson's status as a leading figure in the struggle for independence—one who utilized sophisticated natural law theory to suggest that Americans should govern themselves—was beginning to emerge. By 1775, Jefferson was sitting in the second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. More skilled as a writer than as an orator (he played only a minor role in the Congress's debates), Jefferson was involved with the drafting of a number of important documents, including the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, in July 1775. In the following year, he was heading the five-man committee entrusted with drafting the Declaration of Independence, assuming a dominant role even over such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Jefferson's draft was discussed for two and a half days and, although his preamble went unscathed, some major alterations were made later in the text—notably the removal of his rather strident indictment of the English king, George III. "The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with," Jefferson complained, "still haunted the minds of many." Jefferson was far from pleased with these editorial decisions, but the text that finally emerged should certainly be regarded as one of Jefferson's major contributions to the history of political philosophy, enshrining, as it did, a commitment to the

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principles of popular sovereignty and inalienable human rights. In a phrase that still resounds, it was declared that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." If we only had time to enjoy something of a whistle-stop tour through Jefferson's early, and momentous, political career, this is because our main purpose—his contribution to debates on religious freedom—is best served by concentrating on the years following America's epochal break with its former English masters. It was back home in Virginia and, later in his career, as third incumbent of the office of president of the United States, that this aspect of Jefferson's legacy would come into sharper focus. It should not be forgotten, however, that Jefferson's political and philosophical formation in the years up to 1776—his developing interpretation of the intellectual legacy of classical theory, English legal tradition, ideas of natural law, and the nostrums of Enlightenment—would continue to influence his thinking throughout the rest of his life. Returning to Virginia as a member of the House of Delegates in 1776, Jefferson immediately began his campaign to revise and reinvigorate the colony's laws. Old aristocratic abuses and feudal land tenures had not been done away with, the old political elite had lost barely an ounce of influence, and, what pained him most of all, the colony's Anglican religious establishment remained firmly entrenched. Jefferson would never succeed in fully overturning this constitution, and his dream of an idealized Virginian republic, in which refurbished legal, educational, and political systems might hold sway, would never be fully realized (he was especially dejected at the failure of his bill for universal education). Instead, Jefferson contented himself with limited, piecemeal revision of the colony's legal settlement—launching assaults, for instance, on what he regarded as decrepit feudal remnants such as entail and primogeniture—and with promoting a Statute of Religious Freedom (first drafted back in 1777). This legislation would not be enacted until 1786—largely through the efforts of James Madison—but along with Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, it has been adopted as one of the foundational texts of the advocates of expansive American religious freedom. It serves very well to elucidate Jefferson's views on free exercise and establishment. ¥ *

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Jefferson begins by making the simple point that God has created people with free minds, into which evidence pours and out of which opinions and beliefs arise. For human authorities to try and restrain or coerce such minds—through various threats and burdens—is the worst kind of folly. The only likely outcome will be hypocrisy—people pretending to believe what

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they actually despise. God, being God, could have applied any amount of force to make men hold this or that opinion, but he did not, and human society ought to follow his example. For "legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical" to dictate other people's faith, to suppose that their beliefs were the only true beliefs, and to impose them on others was presumptuous in the extreme—they are only fallible human beings, after all. One need only consult history (always Jefferson's most favored source material) to see how many false religions had been set up by following this pattern of behavior. A particular invidious symptom of such an approach to religious affairs, Jefferson continues, is to make a person contribute money to support beliefs he or she abhors. Even forcing people to financially support a specific minister who teaches a religious system of which they actually approve is an assault against liberty: perhaps they would rather see their taxes going toward the maintenance of some other individual "whose powers [they feel] most persuasive to righteousness." And there are even bigger issues at stake. However widely it might have been assumed during America's colonial past, Jefferson suggests, there is no justification for holding that civil rights, the right to hold public office, for instance, are dependent on subscribing to particular religious opinions. One might as well only let people with particular views on physics or geometry serve the public weal. Such a linkage between religion and politics tarnishes both spheres. It encourages people to conform to this or that belief system by bribing them with the promise of temporal rewards. The surest way around all of these pitfalls is to assert, and here was a momentous, resounding phrase, "that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction." It was wrong, simply wrong, for the civil magistrate "to intrude his powers into the field of opinion," or to hinder the propagation of opinions on the assumption that they were dangerous. It follows as a matter of logic, Jefferson insists, that the magistrate has his own particular beliefs, and he uses these beliefs to judge all others, so of course any opinions that do not square with his own will likely be condemned. There is precious little scope for religious freedom under such a system. Truth, Jefferson insists, has a habit of prevailing if left to its own devices, and the best way for false opinions to be discredited is to let them reveal their inherent falsity in the public domain. Only when the propagation of an opinion threatens to lead to "overt acts against peace and good order" should civil government interfere: a rule of thumb, as things would turn out, that future generations would mostly seek to follow. Virginia, as Jefferson's proposed statute envisaged it, was to be a place where no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious 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

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free to profess, and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. ¥ ¥

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The disappointment of having such bold, heartfelt sentiments rejected— temporarily at least—weighed heavily on Jefferson, and the upsets and uncertainties of the next few years were unlikely to brighten his political mood. In June of 1779, he was elevated to the governorship of Virginia only to suffer a miserable term of office. The state became a battleground, with Benedict Arnold invading in 1781, forcing the government to flee from Richmond. Jefferson was even obliged to abandon his home and, although it never came to fruition, there were mumblings about an inquiry into his decidedly unsuccessful gubernatorial term. For himself, Jefferson had grown rather disillusioned with public life, and he decided to focus on cultivating his standing as a progressive country gentleman and developing his beloved building projects at Monticello. The death of his wife in September 1782, after giving birth to her sixth child, Elizabeth, took a deal of the pleasure out of this voluntary retirement— he confessed to lapsing into a deadening stupor of mind immediately after her passing—although it was also during this period that Jefferson did much of the work that resulted in his much-lauded Notes on the State of Virginia, published at Paris in 1785. The work had its origins in a series of queries put by Francois Marbois, the secretary of the French delegation at Philadelphia. It much enhanced Jefferson's reputation as a scientist, and sought to counter assertions that America's natural environment was somehow corrupt in comparison with the old-world purity of Europe. In the work, Jefferson also launched an attack on the institution of slavery, and on Virginia's political apparatus, not least the excessive powers vested in the colony's legislature. It also found space to explode the notion that Virginia could be proud of its religious history: the despicable treatment of dissenting groups such as the Baptists, Jefferson suggested, was hardly something to boast about. There was also time to make an early, witty remark about the intervention of civil authority in the affairs of the soul: "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty Gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." It was always unlikely that a man of Jefferson's talents and reputation would be allowed to back away entirely from the political crucible of the new Republic. And, sure enough, he was back in Congress between November 1783 and May 1784, arguing for a decimal-based coinage and helping to devise plans of government for the new trans-Appalachian lands. In July 1784, Jefferson set sail for Paris, where, after a period involved in commercial diplomacy, he took up his duties as American minister to France.

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Though sometimes offended by what he saw as the country's addiction to excessive luxury and debauchery, Jefferson was undoubtedly an ardent Francophile, regarding France as an ideal economic partner on whom America's agricultural surplus could be profitably unloaded. He delighted in his five years in the French capital, enjoying the literary, theatrical, culinary, and artistic scenes; making tours of France, England, Italy, and Germany; and even indulging in a little illicit lovemaking with Maria Cosway. It was also in this period that Jefferson probably began a relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings. When Jefferson returned home in 1789—the year of a French Revolution with which he would strive to keep faith—it was only on leave, but his plans were to dramatically change upon his appointment (reluctantly accepted) as secretary of state in George Washington's administration. Much important work would be done in the early years of this famous presidency, not least the production of a Bill of Rights: an objective whose virtues Jefferson helped to impress upon James Madison. But it soon became clear that, once the common cause of inaugurating the American experiment had been achieved, worrying cracks were destined to appear in the country's political establishment, cracks that would help define American politics for the next two decades and more. There were several areas of contention between the ranks lined up behind Thomas Jefferson and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson favored closer economic and political ties with France. In his 1790 "Report on the Public Credit," Hamilton had voiced his determination to service extensive war debts. This required an improved revenue system which, in turn, relied on an expansion of Anglo-American trading links. It also seemed to Jefferson and his allies that Hamilton and his supporters—keen, for instance, on the possibility of a repeatedly reelected president—were trying to create some sort of American monarch, in betrayal of the cause for which the nation had sacrificed so much. There were complex political tussles over, among much else, the establishment of a national bank (not legitimate, by Jefferson's reckoning, under a strict interpretation of the Constitution), and subsidies for new kinds of manufacturing industries. These blended with an overarching political schism, and a discernible split within America's political elite, between Jefferson and Hamilton, between Federalist and Republican factions, emerged. Sides were taken—especially when war between Britain and France broke out—and Jefferson's concern that a conservative, Anglican, monarchical political ethos was swamping American politics grew with every passing crisis. These were uncomfortable years for Jefferson, and it was with some relief that, his duty done, he retired once again to Monticello, where he farmed and, so he boasted, never read a single newspaper. * ¥

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But many of Jefferson's grandest political achievements were still to come. Having narrowly lost (by three electoral votes) to Adams in the presidential election of 1796, he took up the office of vice president: it was to be a troubled term of office, not least owing to a sharp deterioration in FrancoAmerican relations. Jefferson emerged as a leading opponent of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Ostensibly devised as measures to protect the national interest in a period of troubled international relations, some saw the acts as a bold attack on Jefferson and his allies. As well as extending the period of residence needed before U.S. citizenship could be granted, the acts also gave the president powers in peacetime to expel aliens who were "dangerous to the peace and safety" of the nation, and to arrest and deport any citizen of an enemy state in time of war. Most galling of all was the Sedition Act, which provided a definition of "treasonable act" that stretched as far as the publication of any false, scandalous, and malicious writing. This was perceived as an effort to silence criticism of the government and, indeed, it led to the arrest of the editors of several Republican newspapers. As well as helping Madison draft the Virginia Resolutions in opposition to these acts, Jefferson also composed the response from the Kentucky legislature—although his authorship remained secret for several years. A key principle was at stake: "the several States composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government" and "whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." The Constitution had certainly granted Congress the power "to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations." But that was all the power that had been granted. The powers claimed in the Alien and Sedition Acts did not reside with the federal government. Crucially, "no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people." It was also important to remember that in addition to this general principle, the First Amendment had offered specific guarantees protecting freedom of religion and the press. "Libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion," were simply "withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals." Here was a fine example of Jefferson pursuing a cause that both served his political interests and won his philosophical support. Jefferson was finally elected to the nation's highest office in 1801. It had been an appallingly ill-tempered presidential contest in which the nation had been warned that electing the radical Jefferson was likely to usher in revolutionary days every bit as chaotic as those recently endured in France. One commentator, writing in the Atlantic Monthly almost eighty years later, recalled the "variety and reckless extravagance of calumny" that had been

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indulged in by the Federalist press. Jefferson had been portrayed as an enemy of the Constitution, a man who lorded over a harem at Monticello and who would disband the navy and bring financial ruin down upon the nation. The most persistent theme, however, had been Jefferson's religious opinions, even though, in truth, there had been "not a pin between the heterodoxy of the two candidates." One New York preacher, in a tract warning good Christians against Jefferson, denounced him as a "profane philosopher and an infidel." To expect Christians to elevate such a man to the presidency was an "insult to yourselves and your Bibles." Jefferson had been appalled and surprised at such a reaction, although we are told that he "attributed it himself to the conspicuous part he had taken in the separation of church and state in Virginia." Nonetheless, Jefferson had been successful (although reaching a final result in such a close contest took an inordinate amount of time), and in his inaugural address of March 1801 he called on the members of all competing political sects to strive for consensus: During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. While there was no cull of Federalists in the federal bureaucracy, Jefferson did take the opportunity to loosen the Federalist stranglehold on the legal establishment. The Judiciary Act of 1801 (which had greatly expanded the national court system) was repealed and efforts were made to impeach especially irritating opponents (including John Pickering of New Hampshire and Samuel Chase of Maryland). There was also a further opportunity for Jefferson to put his stamp on the nation's continuing debate over issues of religious freedom.

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In comparison with his predecessors, Jefferson certainly strikes the student of history as a very different kind of president, not least in matters touching upon religious freedom. In his farewell address of September 1796, George Washington had described religion as the "necessary spring of popular government," the best possible source for the Republic's moral identity. To his successor, John Adams, religion helped to establish "the principles upon which freedom can securely stand." He considered a "decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for the public service." Both men would probably have welcomed a general tax assessment to support religion—in which people might choose which particular church would be supported by their tax dollars—but accepted that it might prove divisive if enforced at a national rather than state level. Adams, impressed by the settlement reached in Massachusetts in 1780, was convinced of the merits of a "slender" establishment living alongside religious freedom and pluralism. Both men were adamant that the American national character, if it was to develop in positive, seemly ways, was dependent on the persistence of Christian morality in the nation's culture. The Constitution might have outlawed religious tests for federal office, and the First Amendment might have enshrined a right to free exercise of religion and a barrier against governmental intervention in matters of the spirit. But did that mean that the bulk of the first generation of the new Republic's politicians wanted Christianity (which, for all intents and purposes, meant Protestant Christianity) to disappear from public discourse? Did they want the tenets of Christianity to lose their influence in public life and private morality? The answer, resoundingly, is no. A document such as the Northwest Ordinance, passed by Congress in 1787, does a good job of summing this point up. In the territories beyond the Ohio River "no person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments." But just as importantly, because "religion, morality and knowledge" were "necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Whether or not the desires of late eighteenth-century Americans ought to concern Americans living at the dawn of the third millennium, and whether their Christian enthusiasm extended to a belief in outright governmental promotion of one religion at the expense of others—these are trickier questions, and ones to which we will return. Doting on the moral power of Christianity, believing that it ought to freely permeate American life, was not always the same as thinking that the moral power of Christianity ought to be actively sponsored by government. As for Jefferson, he is routinely painted as the sworn opponent of the posture taken up by men such as Adams and Washington. But there is room for caution. Jefferson was clearly skeptical of the rituals, assumptions, and dogmas of organized religion. His mistrust of a priestly caste was extreme: in a

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letter of 1814, he explained that "in every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." In true Enlightenment fashion, he applied historical tests to the spectacular stories contained within the Bible. He would assemble his own Jeffersonian Bible, made up of the parts of the Christian story that the rational mind could accept and that were still of invaluable, irreplaceable use in aligning the moral compass of an avowedly modern individual. If we must pigeonhole his particular religious identity, it is perhaps best to think of him as a classical eighteenth-century Deist—unimpressed by the supernatural claims of traditional Christianity and a believer in a noninterventionist creator who set the universe in motion but who did not continually drop into human affairs to offer up miracles or any other spectacular source of revelation. But, for Jefferson, as for most of his contemporaries, the ethical content of Christianity was not to be ridiculed or dismissed. Christianity was not the business of human, positive law, but it was, as he once put it, the alpha and omega of moral law. "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation," Jefferson explained, "none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus." It was only the "artificial vestments" and the "speculations of crazy theologists which have made a Babel of a religion the most moral and sublime ever produced by man." In a letter to Benjamin Rush, written in 1803, Jefferson explained that he had engaged in "a life of inquiry and reflection" into the Christian faith, which had helped him devise a moral viewpoint "very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions." He was certainly opposed, he told Rush, to "the corruptions of Christianity . . . but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself." "I am a Christian," he declared, "in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other." Once in the full glare of the national spotlight, Jefferson abandoned the custom of declaring fast days and thanksgiving days as practiced by his predecessors. Writing to Samuel Miller in 1808, he insisted that in making such declarations he would "indirectly assume to the United States an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines." "Fasting and prayer," he went on, "are religious exercises. . . . Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets." It is true that Jefferson did take care to attend church, not least when there was political capital to be made from so doing, and he allowed Christian worship in Congress and preaching in the Supreme Court. But his commitment to the doctrines of the First Amendment seems to have been unshakable. There was nothing

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wrong with a Christian mood in America, but government was never to establish a single, national religion whose temples all Americans must attend, and whose ministers all Americans must support. Perhaps Jefferson's most famous (and certainly most ruminated over) expression of this sentiment came in 1802 with his reply to a congratulatory letter from the Baptists of Danbury. Jefferson's reply—its drafting, the sentences that never made it into the final version—has come under enormous scrutiny. The political purposes of the letter have, quite properly, been stressed, and various theories about Jefferson's meaning have been posited. In its final version, Jefferson wrote, Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. This famous image of a wall of separation would enjoy an enduring presence in America's debate about religious freedom. It would become something of a rallying call and would be invoked by some twentieth-century Supreme Court justices with approval. By others, however, it would be regarded as unhelpful. In his (controversial) dissenting opinion in Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), William Rehnquist argued that it was "impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of constitutional history." Sadly, he reasoned, this was precisely what had been happening for forty years because of relying too heavily on "Jefferson's misleading metaphor." Jefferson, Rehnquist reminded the court, had been in France when Congress discussed the Bill of Rights (although Rehnquist would surely find it difficult to argue that his influence did not pervade that discussion, not least through the involvement of James Madison), and to seek advice in "a note of courtesy" written fourteen years later would "seem to any detached observer as a less than ideal source of contemporary history as to the meaning of the Religion clauses of the First Amendment." Of course, there was much else to concern the United States' third president during his two terms. In his first period in office especially, Jefferson made marked attempts to calm the troubled political climate around him. He presided over a reasonably harmonious cabinet, and dealt with Congress with considerable diplomatic skill. There were rumors and sticky moments, but Jefferson scored some solid political triumphs during these years as well. Even his ambitious plan to eradicate the national debt within sixteen years and simultaneously abolish internal taxes seemed to enjoy a measure of success:

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after seven years the debt had indeed been reduced by forty percent. The dangers that threatened to arise from Spain's proposed sale of Louisiana and New Orleans to France seemed to be solved by the Louisiana purchase of 1803— although supporters of Jefferson's literalist interpretations of the nation's founding documents ought to remember that, as Jefferson knew and regretted, such a purchase was perhaps dubious in terms of the Constitution. Jefferson never lacked enemies. His "attacks" on the judiciary, in combination with his well-advertised moral philosophy, appalled leading jurists such as John Marshall, Joseph Story, and James Kent. Jefferson had something of an ordeal of a second term, with his relations with Congress degenerating and a host of domestic and foreign policy crises emerging. In 1806, Jefferson endured the debacle of the so-called Burr Conspiracy, during which he pursued (with perhaps unjustified zeal) his former vice president, Aaron Burr: to Jefferson's embarrassment, Burr was acquitted of any treasonous activities against the United States. Jefferson's efforts, in 1807-1809, to impose sanctions against the opposing parties in Europe's Napoleonic Wars proved futile, and by the time his tenure as president came to an end, the prospect of war with either Britain or France loomed large. He would retire to his Palladian home of Monticello in 1809 to farm, read, and dote on his expanding family, and as a president of the American Philosophical Society and as founder of the University of Virginia (established in 1817), he would continue to make vital contributions to the cultural life of the nation. His final years, leading up to his death in 1826 at the age of eighty-three, would be blighted by financial troubles and ill health. * *

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Thomas Jefferson was one of the great American interpreters of the theories of John Locke—a crucial participant, albeit through his legacy, in America's debate about religious freedom. This is what the English philosopher wrote in 1689: The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests. . . . Civil interests I call life, liberty, health . . . and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture and the like. The job of the magistrate was to execute laws that allowed his subjects to pursue such interests and to accrue such possessions. Those who threatened such endeavors were to be punished, their possessions and interests diminished. Those who contemplated threatening such pursuits ought to be subjected to the "fear of punishment." But that was as far as the magistrate's duties extended. It was "bounded and confined to . . . the care of promoting these things." Under no circumstances ought it "in any manner . . . be extended to the salvation of souls." God had never granted any "authority to

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one man over another" in matters of religion, and it was certainly not in the gift of the people to grant such authority. "All the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and full persuasion" of the mind; religion was about faith, not coercion. The outward man could be made conformable through the dictates of human law—people could be forced to go to church— but inner beliefs were an entirely different matter. "The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind." It was this message that Jefferson (though also influenced by his study of ancient constitutions and by the ideals of Enlightenment) tried to bring to the United States a century later. Of course, Jefferson, like James Madison, was a politician as well as a philosopher. As such, he had his defeats and he made his compromises. There is something attractive in the notion that his positions on religious freedom and establishment were always contextualized by political and cultural trends and necessities. Precisely what is meant by a wall of separation will continue to be debated—although some interpretations surely appear more outlandish than others—but Jefferson can certainly be seen as setting in motion many of the debates about American religious freedom that continue to rage down to the present day.

SUGGESTED READING Thomas J. Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment (New York, 1986); Daniel Dreisbach, Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation (New York, 2002); J. J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1997); Edwin S. Gaustad, Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson (Grand Rapids, MI, 1996); James H. Hutson, ed., Religion and the New Republic: Faith in the Founding of America (Oxford, 2000); Leonard Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side (Cambridge, MA, 1963); M. D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (New York, 1970); Norman K. Risjord, Jefferson's America, 1760-1815, 3rd ed. (Lanham, MD, 2002); Charles B. Sanford, The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, VA, 1984); and Garret Sheldon and Daniel Dreisbach, eds., Religion and Political Culture in Jefferson's Virginia (Lanham, MD, 2000).

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JAMES MADISON (1751-1836) Beyond the Cognizance of Civil Society In the continuing debates over America's religious freedoms, few people are quoted so often as James Madison. This, at least in part, is because James Madison was adept at turning a phrase, but also because, in the founding decades of the U.S. Republic, he played so important a role at three seminal moments in the nation's encounter with issues of religious freedom—arguing in Virginia, in 1776, that lawmakers ought to be enshrining "free exercise" of religion rather than mere toleration; pushing Thomas Jefferson's Statute of Religious Freedom through Virginia's legislature in 1786; and helping, after earlier misgivings, to pen and pass the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Moreover, as part of the campaign to achieve the second of these objectives, he would also compose his spare and eloquent Memorial and Remonstrance: a text that would continue to be pored over by subsequent generations. Madison was born at his grandmother's estate on the Rappahannock River in King George County, Virginia, in 1751, the first of ten children granted to Nelly Conway and James Madison, Sr., a vestryman, justice of the peace, and an influential Orange County planter—at the moment of the younger Madison's birth, he possessed some 4,000 acres and 100 slaves. As such, Madison was guaranteed a youth of some privilege and a life of influence as a member of the colony's gentry. For five years, from age eleven, Madison attended the boarding school of Donald Robertson, securing a grounding in French, Spanish, Greek, and Latin, and, after two further years of home tuition under the Reverend Thomas Martin, he proceeded to the College of New Jersey at Princeton in 1769. The two years leading up to his graduation (though the course was usually completed in three) exposed Madison to the most progressive curriculum on the East Coast, and in the following months, as he enjoyed additional instruction in law, Hebrew, and theology, he was to be taught by the

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man who would do much to enhance and establish the reputation of the college: President John Witherspoon (1723-1794), leading Presbyterian and the only clergyman to be a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. From his arrival at Princeton in 1768, Witherspoon was hugely successful in raising the college's fame and popularity. He would serve, in many ways, as a role model for Madison. Dedicated to the revolutionary cause, John Adams would declare that Witherspoon was "as high a son of liberty as any man in America." There would be nine Princeton graduates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and it would later be calculated that he had taught twenty future senators, twenty-five future congressmen, three future Supreme Court justices, thirteen future governors, and, of course, one future president of the United States. On leaving college and returning home to Virginia in 1772, Madison's mood seems to have soured but, after a spell when he was engaged as an informal tutor to his brothers and sisters, the looming prospect of war with Great Britain roused his spirits. As Orange County prepared for conflict, Madison joined the local committee of safety, and spent time with the local militia. It was at much the same time that Madison's passionate commitment to the cause of religious freedom truly began to emerge. Already in 1771 he had denounced the flogging of Baptists in Orange County, and in 1774 he was equally unimpressed when Anglicans in Culpepper parish opposed Baptist preachers and secured their arrest and detention in jail. In the same year he wrote to his friend William Bradford in Philadelphia, lamenting the discrepancies between attitudes to religious freedom in Virginia and Pennsylvania. In a letter written to Bradford in January 1774, Madison fumed that a "diabolical hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some and to their eternal infamy the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such business. This vexes me the most of anything whatever. There are at this time in the adjacent county not less than five or six well meaning men in close gaol for publishing their religious sentiments which in the main are very orthodox." Three months later, Madison explained to Bradford that [y]ou are happy in dwelling in a land where those inestimable privileges [of religious freedom] are fully enjoyed and [the] public has long felt the good effects of their religious as well as civil liberty. Foreigners have been encouraged to settle among you. Industry and virtue have been promoted by mutual emulation and mutual inspection, commerce and the arts have flourished and I can not help attributing those continual exertions of genius which appear among you to the inspiration of liberty and that love of fame and knowledge which always accompany it. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.

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Madison's reflections upon the issue of church/state relations were clearly blossoming. As he asked Bradford, "Is an ecclesiastical establishment absolutely necessary to support civil society in a supreme government? And how far is it hurtful to a dependent state?" He suggested that "ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption. All of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects." Madison's own religious orientation, similar in many ways to Jefferson's, and consisting in an appreciation of the moral content of Christianity alongside a measure of skepticism for the rites and customs of the established churches, was clearly emerging. Elected to Virginia's revolutionary convention in 1776—he was too ill to fight—Madison helped to devise one of the first revolutionary constitutions. One crucial moment occurred when George Mason proposed his motion to enshrine religious toleration in the state's new legal code: "all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion." Madison offered an amendment which called for the phrase "toleration" to be replaced by a right to "free exercise." This was an epochal moment. To speak of tolerance, Madison believed, implied that the state was somehow "allowing" individuals to behave and worship in certain ways, and this, in turn, suggested that the state, at some time in the future, might remove this dispensation and make some brands of religious expression illegal. To talk of free exercise, by contrast, recognized that people enjoyed a perpetual natural right to believe and worship however they chose. In spite of such successes, Madison was defeated at the next election to the convention and he instead took up a place on Virginia's Council of State. By 1779, he was beginning a career, distinguished by an extraordinary attendance record, as a delegate to the national Congress. After entanglement with several key issues of the day—the imposition of a 5 percent duty on foreign imports, and the infamous compromise whereby slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of calculating a state's population—Madison retired from Congress and returned to the crucible of state politics. Back in Virginia, the question of how, if at all, the state ought to raise taxes to support religious institutions—a question that had been in limbo since 1779—was about to be resolved. *

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The redoubtable Patrick Henry (1736-1799), as zealous a supporter of the revolutionary cause as America had produced, was the chief spokesman for the cause of "general assessment." Henry had certainly had his unhappy encounters with Virginia's religious establishment during the earlier part of his career. Back in 1755, the Anglican clergy had sought to take advantage of a failed tobacco crop. They had traditionally been paid in tobacco and sold it on, and, in a period of scarcity, this commodity had rocketed in value. The Virginia legislature enacted a measure whereby the clergy would be paid in cash instead. This move was repealed in London, and many clergymen took

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legal action to recoup arrears amounting to twice the value of their usual stipend. It fell to Henry to defend the interests of Louisa County against such an action and, through an impassioned attack on clerical greed, he won both the case and a national reputation. But none of this meant that, thirty years later, Henry had abandoned belief in some relationship between the support of religion and the public purse. Henry had long been convinced that "a general toleration of religion appears . . . the best means of peopling our country." He had earlier noticed that "the free exercise of religion has stocked the northern part of the continent with inhabitants," but that owing to unprogressive legislation "a Calvinist, a Lutheran, or Quaker sails not to Virginia." Under the general assessment scheme, the notion of a single established church supported by every citizen's tax dollars was to be abandoned. Rather, the state would continue to levy taxes to support religion, but each taxpayer could nominate which church was to receive the taxes he paid. The Virginian Anglican establishment (hampered by vast parishes and shortages of competent clergy) had always seemed more dominant on paper than in practice, but this was still a radical enough departure from past tradition. It was envisaged—and here was a concept with a future—as a way for the state to support religion in an evenhanded, nonexclusive manner: outlawing a single state religion was one thing, but outlawing all state support for religion was quite another. As Henry insisted, a successful government simply could not survive without the help of Christian institutions: they were the surest guarantor of decent private and public morality, and to rely on voluntary contributions would be disastrous for the state's religious groups. Madison faced a difficult political problem. There were two major legislative objectives being pursued in the fall of 1784. One was the general assessment plan; the other was an effort to incorporate the Episcopal Church in Virginia. Madison knew full well that he had no chance of quashing both pieces of legislation, and he had to choose the lesser of two evils. Consequently, he voted to establish an Episcopalian establishment and thereafter focused his efforts on defeating the bill for general assessment. On the face of things, given Madison's views, this seems like an odd course of action. In fact, it was an efficient, if risky, piece of statecraft. So far as Madison was concerned, a general assessment was easily the worst possible outcome. He feared it would entrench a multiple Protestant establishment in Virginia: all the various Protestant churches would be happy with the outcome and it was likely to survive in perpetuity. Under such a settlement Madison's greatest fear, a tyranny of the majority, would come to pass. However, he calculated that if a single church was established, then the state's other Protestant factions—Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists—would grow increasingly infuriated with the privileged position enjoyed by the Episcopalians. His assumption turned out to be correct, and by the end of the century the Episcopalian Church had been relieved of its established status.

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Madison had managed to get discussion of the general assessment bill delayed until the 1785 session. In the interim, he was prevailed upon to produce a written attack on the proposed legislation: his Memorial and Remonstrance. Religious belief, he began, could only ever be directed "by reason and conviction, not by force or violence," and the right to worship according to the dictates of conviction and conscience was "an unalienable right." It was inalienable because every man had a duty to render the sort of homage to his creator that he thought fit and, crucially, this duty took precedence "in order of time and degree of obligation" over any claims of civil society. In matters of religion, then, the demands of civil society never abridged an individual's rights. Religion, in fact, was "wholly exempt" from civil society's "cognizance." And if religion had nothing to do with civil society as a whole, it had even less to do with a legislative body. Perhaps the particular plan for mixed establishment was not unusually heinous—far from it—but the real problem lay in granting secular authority the right to make decisions about religious matters—and a right once granted would be jealously held on to and, sometimes, abused. "Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?" Madison expressed legal misgivings about the suggested legislation. The point of a law, he insisted, was that it should be applied equally, so how could anyone defend the imposition of fiscal burdens on some people and the exemption from such burdens granted to others—Quakers and Mennonites, for instance? But his best arguments were doubtless those that seemed to drip with common sense. The Christian religion simply did not require establishment— in any shape or form. This was a fact of history, "for it is known that this religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them" for centuries at a time. To suppose that Christianity required the crutch of state support was something of an insult: it was liable to weaken "pious confidence in its innate excellence." Moreover, whenever religious establishments had been erected they had tended to tarnish the "purity and efficacy" of religion. They inspired pride and indolence among the clergy, ignorance among the laity, and persecution from all quarters. Nor did it make sense to twist the argument around and suggest that civil society was somehow dependent upon religion. On the contrary, ecclesiastical establishments had often imposed a spiritual tyranny on civil authority or helped to sustain "the thrones of political tyranny." However useful bad governments had found bad clerics, "a just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate [the public liberty,] needs them not." Americans, Madison continued, ought to be conscious and proud of their country's traditions, of the fact that some of her colonies had offered "an asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every nation and religion." This

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was "a lustre to our country," and the proposed bill, however benign it might seem to some observers, was "a melancholy mark" on this tradition. "Distant as it may be, in its present form, from the Inquisition it differs from it only in degree." Both vested the right to decide about religious matters in bodies that ought to have nothing to do with religious matters; both contained within themselves—one rather visibly, the other largely in potential— the horror of persecution. And if any persecuted person "in foreign regions" was thinking about settling in the United States, then, Madison cautioned, they should regard the proposed Virginian bill as "a beacon on our coast, warning him to seek some other haven." For Madison it was all or nothing. "The free right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of his conscience" was as important as every other right—it was as much the gift of nature as all the rest. Citizens therefore faced a choice: either to allow a legislature to invade all of their rights or to warn it away from all of them. Either we must say, that they may control the freedom of the press, may abolish the trial by jury, may swallow up the executive and judiciary powers of the state; nay that they may despoil us of our very right of suffrage, and erect themselves into an independent and hereditary assembly: or we must say that they have no authority to enact into law the bill under consideration. And it was a battle that Madison won. In consort with effective publicity and petitioning campaigns from Baptists (notably John Leland), Deists, and Presbyterians, the Memorial and Remonstrance played a major role in defeating Patrick Henry's plan of general assessment, allowing Jefferson's "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom" to be finally enacted in January 1786. Madison's mood after this triumph was somewhat blighted by a suspicion that Henry's program had only collapsed because of arguments and jealousies between rival sects, but in the history of America's religious freedom, the passing of Jefferson's bill, and the philosophical posturing contained within Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, are of pivotal importance. Later in life, Madison would survey America's religious landscape, and muse on how far his vision of religious freedom had spread. "[S]ome of the states have not embraced this just and this truly Christian principle in its proper latitude," he admitted, but "there is one state at least, Virginia, where religious liberty is placed on its true foundation and is defined in its full latitude." The act he had supported back in 1786 was "a true standard of religious liberty: its principle the great barrier against usurpations on the rights of conscience." By the terms of their various state constitutions, Pennsylvania was excluding Atheists from public office; officials in Delaware were still expected to swear allegiance to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and only Protestants could be elected in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New

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Jersey. It was high time, Madison suggested, for such places to follow Virginia's example: You states of America, which retain in your constitutions or codes any aberration from the sacred principle of religious liberty, by giving to Caesar what belongs to God, or joining together what God has put asunder, hasten to revise and purify your systems, and make the example of your country as pure and complete, in what relates to the freedom of the mind and its allegiance to its maker, as in what belongs to the legitimate objects of political and civil institutions.

* T * Madison grew increasingly concerned about how the political identity of the new republic was developing. There was genuine fear that the fragile union might fracture. Competing interests and economic malaise hardly helped the cause, and the poor levels of attendance at the Annapolis Convention in 1786 convinced Madison that a new federal convention was sorely needed, where the new nation's political identity could be clearly defined. Madison was adamant that a despotic national government should be avoided at all costs, but he was equally certain that local, state-based interests should not be allowed to unduly hamper the legitimate, if limited, authority of national institutions. In the coming years, Madison sought to defend his political ideals (along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) in the pages of The Federalist (stressing, for instance, that the very diversity of religious and political sects and factions in the new nation was itself a bulwark against the establishment of a tyrannical majority). He would help to compose, then assure the states' ratification of, the Constitution. The settlement that emerged—characterized by careful balances (between state and federal power, between the branches of government), by a desire to incorporate as many different religious and economic interests as possible, and by resistance to any brand of tyrannical popular majority—had a decidedly Madisonian complexion. Madison found himself at the heart of the new political elite, serving in the first federal Congress. On the issue of amendments to the Constitution, Madison was not at first convinced of their advisability. Men such as Jefferson and John Leland made great efforts to win him round and—perhaps as much out of political necessity as philosophical scruple—Madison took up the cause. As he explained in 1789, in the face of considerable resistance, government was "bound by every motive of prudence, not to let the first session pass over without proposing to the state legislatures some things to be incorporated into the constitution, as will render it as acceptable to the whole people of the United States, as it has been found acceptable to a majority of them." There were clearly many people who desired further protections for their freedoms "and if there are amendments desired, of such a nature as will not injure the constitution, and

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they can be engrafted so as to give satisfaction to the doubting part of our fellow citizens," then they should be enacted. The debates over the phrasing of the First Amendment—in fact, the third of twelve originally offered to the states for ratification—has been well discussed. Much has recently been made of the moment when, faced with a clause that read "no religion shall be established by law," Madison suggested the inclusion of the word "national" before the word "religion." It has been argued that this shows Madison was in favor of nonpreferential treatment of all religions and did not subscribe to the kind of church/state relationship as was later summed up by Jefferson's metaphor of a wall of separation. In response to this, it has been pointed out that precisely what Madison meant by "national" is unclear, and, besides, he quickly gave up the word after a single objection was raised. Perhaps even more importantly, Madison's actions in Virginia a few years earlier had revealed him as a determined opponent of plural establishment. Ultimately, Madison remains an unlikely champion for modern-day proponents of an accommodationist approach to church/state relations to turn to. That said, there is perhaps more historical ammunition to be derived from the unassailable fact that there were many individuals in the 1789 Congress who had no qualms whatsoever about the principle of a religious establishment and who saw little to recommend the provision of freedom of conscience to non-Christians. Wrangling over the wording of the amendment continued, and drafts moved back and forth between the House and the Senate. On September 25, 1789, the final phrasing was agreed upon: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." On December 5, 1791, this and the rest of the first ten amendments were ratified by Virginia, the final state to give its blessing. By the early 1790s, Madison was a prominent Jeffersonian, opposing various fiscal and foreign policies of the incumbent administration, questioning the Hamiltonians' overly flexible approach to interpreting the Constitution (summed up by the plan to establish a national bank), and worrying deeply about the possibility of a return to a more authoritarian quasi-monarchical style of government. Madison would voice many of these concerns (albeit anonymously) in the pages of Philip Freneau's National Gazette. In September 1794, he married Dolley Payne Todd. After leaving the House of Representatives in March 1797, he declared his intention to lead a more private life at his Montpelier estate. As the 1790s progressed, however, Madison grew increasingly disheartened with some of the national government's policies—most importantly the anti-French bias of America's foreign policy and the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, measures that both he and Jefferson opposed as assaults on the Constitution. Though advertised as measures to protect the national interest in a period of troubled international relations, the acts were perceived by some as a deliberate attack on the Jeffersonian party. As well as extending the period of

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residence required before U.S. citizenship could be conferred, the acts also granted the president powers to deport aliens who were "dangerous to the peace and safety" of the country during peacetime, and to arrest and deport any citizen of an enemy state in time of war. Most resented of all was the Sedition Act, which offered a very wide definition of treasonable acts that stretched to the publication of any false, scandalous, and malicious writing. This was seen as a thinly veiled attempt to silence criticism of the government, and, indeed, the editors of several Republican newspapers were arrested. In response, the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, devised by Jefferson and Madison, sought to elucidate important constitutional principles. The state's General Assembly declared "a warm attachment to the Union of the States, to maintain which it pledges all its powers," and to that end it was "their duty to watch over and oppose every infraction of those principles which constitute the only basis of that Union, because a faithful observance of them, can alone secure its existence and the public happiness." The powers of the federal government were plainly limited by "the plain sense and intention" of the constitutional settlement. Unfortunately, a spirit had sometimes been exhibited by the federal government "to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional charter which defines them." The end result of such tendencies would surely be "to transform the present republican system of the United States, into an absolute, or at best a mixed monarchy." The Alien and Sedition Acts were such an infraction. Powers had been taken on by the federal government that it simply did not possess. Worse yet, the measures had been ranged "against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right." The assembly was determined to defend the freedom of conscience and of the press "from every possible attack of sophistry or ambition." Madison, furious and reenergized, was back in the state assembly by 1799, and between 1801 and 1809 he served as Thomas Jefferson's secretary of state, assisting his old friend in efforts to reduce the national debt and to pursue a policy of neutrality in dealings with the French and the British. His own term as president was marred by economic crisis and a disastrous war with Great Britain. After a more successful final year in office, Madison retired from public life, although for the rest of his days, his opinions would be sought (and eagerly given) on any number of political and philosophical issues. ¥ -¥- * During his later career, and especially while serving as president, Madison would have ample opportunity to revisit the question of religious freedom and church/state separation. On several occasions he vetoed initiatives that, by his reckoning, the First Amendment forbade. In February 1811, he returned to

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the House the bill passed by the two houses to incorporate the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexandria in the District of Columbia. He suggested that the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are limited, by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions, and violates, in particular, the article of the Constitution of the United States, which declares, that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment." The bill. . . establishes by law, sundry rules and proceedings relative purely to the organization and polity of the church incorporated, and comprehending even the election and removal of the minister of the same. Some of the delegates in Congress were mightily displeased with Madison's stance. One member of the House said that he had "no idea that the constitution precluded Congress from passing laws to incorporate religious societies for the purpose of enabling them to hold property . . . he had always held the constitution to intend to prevent the establishment of a national Church, such as the Church of England": a far from unusual point of view at the time. Another boldly declared that "the objections made by the president to this bill were altogether futile." If the bill under discussion infringed the First Amendment, he argued, then both branches of the legislature, since the commencement of the government, had [also] been guilty of such infringement. It could not be said, indeed, that they had been guilty of doing much about religion; but they had at every session appointed chaplains, to be of different denominations, to interchange weekly between the Houses. Now, if a bill for regulating the funds of a religious society could be an infringement of the constitution, the two Houses had so far infringed it by electing, paying or contracting with their chaplains. In the same year, Madison also vetoed a bill for the relief of Richard Tervin, William Coleman, Edwin Lewis, Samuel Mims, Joseph Wilson, and the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, in the Mississippi Territory. On this occasion, the president argued that a bill for "reserving a certain parcel of land of the United States for the use of said Baptist Church comprises a principle and precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.' " When Baptists in North Carolina wrote to praise Madison for his decision, he reiterated his belief that "the practical distinction between religion and civil government [are] essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could

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not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself." Such police actions by Madison represented his unshakable belief that religious matters were simply beyond the cognizance of political authority. He later admitted that "it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points," but that was precisely why blanket prohibitions against entanglement were so desirable. It is crucial to stress, however, that Madison should not be construed as antireligious. He believed that the guarantees of the First Amendment were a positive boon to organized religion. Religion flourished best when there was no governmental interference. As he explained in 1821, "the experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity. " Nor did Madison envisage an America in which the ideas and aspirations of Christianity played no part in the country's social, political, and philosophical discourses. He conceded that Christianity always had been, and ever would be, one of the wellsprings of American morality. Madison did not win every battle he fought. He came to oppose the custom of presidents declaring days of fasting and thanksgiving because they "imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion," but he was obliged to make precisely such declarations—although of a deliberately indiscriminate variety—during his term of office. He was always as much the worldly politician as the political philosopher, and while he denounced others for not interpreting and applying the Constitution in the strictest possible terms, there were occasions—the Louisiana purchase, for instance—when, invoking notions such as contingency and implied authority, he himself made use of a decidedly expansionist interpretation of the nation's founding documents. As for the issue of America's religious freedom, debates will continue about Madison's motivation—was he inspired by philosophical ideals or the pragmatic realization that, in a nation containing so many competing sects, establishment was simply impractical? But one very easy judgment to reach is that Madison, perhaps more than any other figure discussed in this book, was thinking, speaking, and legislating not just in the fleeting interests of his own time and place, but also in order to provide history with a lesson. As he wrote in 1822, The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects dissenting from the established sect was safe, and even useful. The example of the

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colonies, now states, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all sects might be safely and even advantageously put on a footing of equal and entire freedom; and a continuance of their example since the Declaration of Independence has shown that its success in [the] colonies was not to be ascribed to their connection with the parent country. If a further confirmation of the truth could be wanted, it is to be found in the examples furnished by the states which had abolished their religious establishments. I cannot speak particularly of any of the cases excepting that of Virginia, where it is impossible to deny that religion prevails with more zeal and a more exemplary priesthood than it ever did when established and patronized by public authority. We are teaching the world the great truth, that governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson: that religion flourishes in greater purity without, than with the aid of government. *

*f>

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Madison seems to have succeeded in his desire to be heeded by history. In 1947, when the epochal case of Everson v. Board of Education (see appendix 2) came before the Supreme Court, there was a conscious effort on the part of the sitting justices to locate their interpretation of the First Amendment within a Madisonian and Jeffersonian tradition. In an appendix to the decision, the Memorial and Remonstrance was quoted in full. In his majority decision, Hugo Black offered a potted history of America's struggle over religious freedom. Many of the early settlers in the nation had, he explained, come from Europe "to escape the bondage of laws which compelled them to support and attend government-favoured churches." Sadly, the "practises of the old world were transplanted to and began to thrive in the soil of the new America." There had been persecution, the imposition of unjust religious taxes, and these had all served to "shock the freedom-loving colonials into a feeling of abhorrence." Out of these feelings, however, came the First Amendment. "The people . . . reached the conviction that individual liberty could be achieved best under a government which was stripped of all power to tax, to support or otherwise to assist any or all religions, or to interfere with the beliefs of any religious individual or group." In this struggle, first in Virginia and then in the U.S. Congress, Black averred, Madison had played a leading role. An orthodox view of Madison's interpretation of the First Amendment thus emerged—although, as we have seen, it is one that has come under scrutiny in recent years. As Justice Wiley Rutledge concluded in his dissenting opinion, "With Jefferson, Madison believed that to tolerate any fragment of establishment would be by so much to perpetuate restraint upon [religious] freedom. Hence he sought to tear out the institution not partially but root and branch, and to bar its return forever."

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SUGGESTED READING Robert S. Alley, ed., James Madison and Religious Liberty (Buffalo, NY, 1985); Lance Banning, "James Madison, the Statute for Religious Freedom and the Crisis of Republican Convictions," in Merrill D. Peterson and Robert C. Vaughan, eds., The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Its Evolution and Consequences in American History (New York, 1988); idem., The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic (Ithaca, NY, 1995); Thomas J. Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment (New York, 1986); C. Emmerich, "The Enigma of James Madison on Church and State," in Luis Lugo, ed., Religion, Public Life and the American Polity (Knoxville, TN, 1994), 51-73; and Jack N. Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Glenview, IL, 1990).

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LYMAN BEECHER (1775-1863) Borrowed from the Bible Lyman Beecher was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1775, the son of David, a blacksmith, and Esther Lyman. The Beecher family had been in New England since 1638, and it would sustain an influential presence in the generations to come: all of Lyman's sons would become ministers, though not all of them would share their father's passion for the clerical life. Two of Lyman's daughters, Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, would also become nationally influential figures. Beecher's mother died a few days after giving birth to him, and so he was raised by his aunt and her husband—Catharine and Lot Benton—at their farm at North Guilford. Beecher and his father would never be close. Beecher would later pronounce that "a new day was dawning as I came on the stage," and his professional career would certainly coincide with a fraught and dynamic period in the country's religious history. The consequences of the republic's constitutional settlement would begin to emerge, and the problems and opportunities of a pluralistic religious culture would manifest themselves. If an acceptance of the swarm of sects had been one of the pragmatic reasons for advocating the ideals enshrined in the First Amendment, then the explosion and expansion of religious movements in the first half of the nineteenth century made adherence to older analyses of the relationship between church and state still more difficult to sustain. A group such as the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more well known as the "Shakers," would scandalize orthodox opinion with its talk of a second incarnation of the divine in Mother Ann Lee. Utopian experiments such as the Oneida community, founded by John Humphrey Noyes in western New York, would predicate the coming spiritual revolution on a sexual revolution, the controversial doctrine of "complex marriage," and a rejection of monogamy. Others, such as the adherents of William Miller and the Seventh-Day Adventists, would win converts from the Congregational,

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Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist communities with their talk of an imminent return of Christ. Some, like Alexander Campbell, would call for a return to New Testament purity and a rejection of the debilitating infighting that raged between competing Christian sects. Bold theological and philosphical movements—Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, and the rest—would enter the religious arena. Key debates—about the future of established churches, about the pros and cons of interfaith dialog and cooperation, and about the impact of mass immigration into the country—would rage and, on all these subjects and more, Lyman Beecher's voice would make itself heard. Above all, Beecher would contribute to the debate about what role Christianity ought to play in the moral, social, and political life of the United States. He would position himself as a leading advocate of what has been termed a voluntary establishment. The First Amendment had made its pronouncements about the relationship between church and state, but men such as Beecher remained adamant that for the new republic to thrive, for decent standards of moral behavior to endure, the tenets of Christianity would have to remain at the heart of American public life and discourse. "Our own republic," Beecher once declared, "was not borrowed from Greece or Rome, but from the Bible." Such statements would have a major impact on the debate about the nature and quality of the nation's religious freedoms. * *

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Beecher enrolled at Yale in 1793. At the time, he later recounted, the university was in the grip of a moral and intellectual decline. Students were apparently addicted to vice—preeminently gambling and drinking—and an overly rationalistic and skeptical mood was allegedly blighting the institution's intellectual atmosphere. Much of the blame for this last problem was placed on the shoulders of the university's president, Ezra Stiles. But then, in 1795, a new president arrived in the shape of Timothy Dwight: Beecher would later credit Dwight with having "the greatest agency in developing my mind." It was meditation on Dwight's theology that helped Beecher endure a troubled conversion experience beginning in his junior year—an extended period of depression and anxiety followed by a sense of spiritual rebirth— and, after completing his degree, Beecher spent a year studying theology with his intellectual mentor. Above all, it was Dwight's efforts to realign Yale's theological identity and his commitment to revivalist preaching and moral reform that would have the greatest impact on Beecher's future career at the heart of what would come to be known as the Second Great Awakening. After a probationary year, Beecher took charge of the Presbyterian Church in East Hampton, Long Island, in 1799. In the same year, he took Roxana Foote as his wife, and together they would have nine children. Beecher quickly secured a reputation as a skilled preacher and a minister devoted to serving the pastoral needs of his flock. It quickly became clear that

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Beecher felt himself obliged to supervise the moral regeneration of the entire community, and from the outset he exhibited a commitment to reform and spiritual revival. In 1806, Beecher first came to national attention with his sermon on the death of Alexander Hamilton in a duel: in its published version, the sermon (intended to prick the public conscience about the sinfulness of dueling) sold 40,000 copies. Four years later, Beecher took up a position as pastor of the Congregational Church in Litchfield, Connecticut—a prosperous town with a population of almost 5,000—which he would serve for the next sixteen years. In 1813 he helped found the Connecticut Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Good Morals. The American Bible Society followed in 1816, and in this year Beecher lost his wife. He took Harriet Porter for his second spouse in 1817: together they would have four children. As well as cultivating links with like-minded ministers and regularly embarking on preaching missions across New England, Beecher helped to found publications—the Christian Spectator and the Connecticut Observer— which could share in the work of reform and revival. A key issue in the new republic was how organized churches might best influence the wider culture. While the First Amendment had outlawed religious establishments at the federal level, several states had preserved established churches through their constitutions. Such was the case in Connecticut, but by the time Beecher arrived in Litchfield, debate was already brewing about this state of affairs. At first Beecher was adamant that preserving an established church was the best way to allow Christian ideals to permeate society and guide the citizenry's morality. Thus, when Connecticut decided to disestablish its church, Beecher was devastated. He was convinced that it would provoke political factionalism and moral breakdown and rob the community's natural moral leaders of their just authority. When news of disestablishment arrived in 1818, Beecher was convinced that "the injury done to the cause of Christ, as we then supposed, was irrevocable. For several days I suffered what no tongue can tell." Gradually, however, Beecher decided that, in fact, it was "the best thing that ever happened to the state of Connecticut. It cut the churches loose from dependence on state support. It threw them wholly on their own resources and on God." Many commentators in the early nineteenth century believed that the Christian churches ought to play a crucial, privileged role in cultivating the morality of the new American republic. Indeed, as someone like Alexis de Tocqueville insisted, in the new democratic environment of the United States, the role of religion as a moral arbiter and guide was more important than ever. For all the epochal pronouncements of the First Amendment, there was still endless scope to discuss how the ideals of Christianity ought to influence America's political, social, educational, and moral identity. Here was an issue that would ever be at the heart of America's debate on religious freedom.

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As for Beecher, he had moved from the tried and tested notion that statesupported churches were the best way to instill Christian virtue toward the conviction that voluntarism was a far more desirable principle. If churches had to compete with one another for attention, funds, and congregations, they would surely become more dynamic, less complacent. There would be more scope to encourage the laity to cooperate in the work of moral regeneration. After 1818 Beecher would emerge as a passionate advocate—writing and sermonizing—of religious disestablishment. His crucial contribution to the debate on religious freedom was his effort to turn the terms of the First Amendment to the advantage of a powerful, politicized, socially engaged church. Beecher perceived that, first and foremost, people had to be alerted to their moral shortcomings and convinced to mend their ways. He won a reputation as one of the most compelling preachers of his age, skillfully blending passion and pragmatism in his sermons, and always insisting that individuals ought to be given due time to embrace the need for their moral reformation. He promoted missions, helped to organize the dissemination of bibles, and spilled huge amounts of ink publicizing his evengelical campaign. The hope was that once they had embraced reform, individuals would group together in voluntary benevolent societies, self-help and educational groups among the working and professional classes. The elimination of all varieties of vice and immorality was the declared objective. This was of benefit to the individuals wrapped up in sin, and it was a blessing to the whole of society. As Beecher explained in his sermons on intemperance, "of all the ways to hell, which the feet of deluded mortals tread, that of the intemperate is the most dreary." The physical consequences were horrendous enough: "the stomach, the head, the heart, and arteries, and veins, and every muscle, and every nerve, feel the exhaustion, and the restless, unutterable wretchedness which puts out the light of life, and curtains the heavens, and carpets the earth with sackcloth." But the possible dangers to the community as a whole were worse yet: "the day is not far distant when the great body of the laboring classes of the community, the bones and sinews of the nation, will be contaminated." But even more was at stake. Beecher was so committed to moral reform, so insistent that the United States should be permeated by Christian morality, because he was imbued, like so many of his contemporaries, with millennial hope and expectation. He was confident that the coming of Christ's kingdom, of his 1,000-year rule on earth, might be imminent, and that this kingdom of God could be achieved in the United States. When Beecher had first been exposed to millennial thinking he had "thought it chimerical," but the providential developments he had witnessed since, and "all the signs of the times," had made it rather convincing. The trouble was that such momentous events were unlikely to come to pass before humanity had cleansed

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and reformed itself. And as Beecher would discover at his next posting, there were other obstacles in the way of his millennial dreams. ¥ + * In 1826, Beecher was called as pastor to the Hanover Street Church in Boston. During the next seven years he continued his evangelical work, founding new publications (including the Spirit of the Pilgrims newspaper in 1828), fostering benevolent societies, and encouraging initiatives such as the Valley Campaign of 1828-1830, which sought to bring missions, Bibles, and Sunday schools to the Mississippi Valley. In pulpit and pamphlet, by drawing on his increasingly impressive roster of influential contacts, his avowed aim to establish "an extended combination of institutions, religious, civil and literary," moved on apace. There was, of course, room for debate within evangelical circles about how revival might best be pursued, and Beecher grew increasingly distrustful of the overly enthusiastic, sometimes irreverent methods employed by the likes of Charles Grandison Finney in western New York. A conference was arranged at New Lebanon in 1827 and, after both sides had sought to defend their strategies, it ended without any meaningful accord being reached, although Beecher did grow more conciliatory in time and even invited Finney to preach in Boston. However, from Beecher's perspective, Boston was home to an even greater threat to his evangelical and moral revival: Unitarianism. A crucial issue in the early republic was how church leaders should negotiate the pluralism of the new republic: how should they interact and cooperate with those of other churches. Those of a Unitarian stripe stressed a universalist agenda, pointing to what all Christian churches had in common and playing down, when possible, points of theological difference. They were resolutely in favor of the widest possible toleration and hoped to avoid theological controversy wherever possible, although it should not be forgotten that, for all their theorizing, they remained, for the most part, a parochial, sometimes snobbish Boston elite who were not always sympathetic to Catholics or Transcendentalists. The Unitarian controversy rocked the New England religious establishment. Indeed, the challenges Unitarianism offered to mainstream theology provided one of the first serious challenges to the republic's ideal of religious toleration. The controversy had begun in earnest in 1805 when rival candidates emerged for the Hollis Chair of Divinity at Harvard. With the election of the liberal theologian Henry Ware, the anti-Unitarian camp began a determined propagandist campaign. By 1815, William Ellery Channing was despairing of the disreputable tactics of the anti-Unitarians and calling for concerted action: "Are we not authorized," he wrote to a friend, "to repel these charges with some degree of warmth? Are we not called to speak in the language of indignant and insulted virtue, as well as of pity and sorrow, in relation to the man, who is propagating these unmerited reproaches?"

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Channing would do as much as anyone to articulate the Unitarian theological agenda, its challenge to traditional Calvinist ideas about predestination and human depravity, and its optimistic assessment of human potential. In a watershed sermon at Baltimore in 1819, he mounted an articulate defense of the Unitarians' belief in the important role of reason in matters of faith, their progressive methods of biblical analysis, and the bold theological conclusions that such analysis led to—not least a denial of Trinitarian ideas. "We are particularly accused," he explained, "of making an unwarrantable use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture. We are said to exalt reason above revelation, to prefer our own wisdom to God's." These were "loose and undefined charges," Channing suggested, because all that Unitarians were arguing was that "the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and that its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books." All books "require in the reader . . . the constant exercise of reason . . . their true import is only to be obtained by continual comparison and inference." He objected "strongly to the contemptuous manner in which human reason is often spoken of by our adversaries, because it leads, we believe, to universal skepticism. If reason be so dreadfully darkened by the fall, that its most decisive judgments on religion are unworthy of trust, then Christianity, and even natural theology, must be abandoned." The use of reason in examining biblical texts simply made it necessary to "protest against the irrational and unscriptural doctrine of the Trinity." Channing challenged "opponents to adduce one passage in the New Testament, where the word God means three persons, where it is not limited to one person, and where, unless turned from its usual sense by the connection, it does not mean the Father. Can stronger proof be given, that the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead is not a fundamental doctrine of Christianity?" Such sentiments were appalling to more conservative New England ministers. Beecher had specific objections to the Unitarian challenge. He was not opposed to cooperation between different churches—it was at the heart of his voluntarist movement. But he still saw a need for those of contrasting beliefs to articulate their differences and engage in healthy competition—something which he believed the Unitarians were undermining. More importantly, he despaired of the Unitarians' denial of original sin. This, Beecher suggested, might lead people to lose interest in thoroughgoing moral reform, and this, in turn, was a huge threat to his millennial hopes. The famous Dedham decision of 1820 had declared that the governance of a church belonged to the entire parish, not just to churchgoing communicants. As a result, parishioners in some areas had succeeded in putting Unitarian ministers in charge of their local churches. By 1833, such developments would lead Massachusetts to abandon the idea of an established church, but long before that, Beecher had grown incensed at the Unitarian advance. "I was as fire in my bones," he declared, not least because the Unitarian camp expended considerable energies in portraying him as the representative

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of an outmoded intolerant Christianity. It was perhaps with a measure of relief that Beecher entered the final stage of his career when he headed west in 1832. In that year, Beecher was elected president of the Lane Theological Seminary in Ohio, an institution (established to train up ministers for the western territories) that Beecher would serve for twenty years. In 1833 he took up a position at the Second Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati—the "London of the West." It was at Lane that Beecher's own religious freedoms, or at least his right to declaim whatever brand of theology he so chose, would come under threat. Beecher is often identified as one of the leading lights of New Haven Theology, a recasting of existing theological orthodoxies within the American Protestant tradition, institutionalized in the Yale Divinity School and founded—with Beecher's assistance—in 1822. This theological movement never abandoned the Calvinist idea that sinful, sinning man only ever received grace as an unmerited gift, or that the bestowal of such gifts was predestined. What it did stress, and this was certainly a rich source of controversy, was the notion of some sort of role for human agency in the process. This was an extremely useful idea for those Protestant evangelicals like Beecher who spent so much time involved in revivalist preaching. If crowds and communities were to be roused to action, if they were to be alerted to their moral responsibilities, then it was very useful to be able to tell them that they had some positive, active role in the salvific economy. "Men are free agents," Beecher had declared back in 1828; they were sinners, tarnished by original sin, but they were also "in possession of such faculties and placed in such circumstances as render it practicable for them to do whatever God requires." This was too much for Presbyterians of an older school to stomach. Led by the Reverend Joshua Lacy Wilson, of the First Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati, they charged Beecher with "heresy," with undermining traditional teaching on grace and salvation. The process, involving the Presbytery and the Synod of Cincinnati, dragged on and, although Beecher emerged more or less unscathed, the controversy contributed significantly to the final separation between Old and New School Presbyterians in 1837. There were other troublesome episodes during these years, not least the debates at Lane over the issue of slavery and abolition. Having sought to silence discussion of such questions, Beecher had to endure the spectacle of staff and students leaving his seminary and establishing the rival Oberlin Collegiate Institute. At the top of Beecher's agenda, however, was the broader issue of the risks posed, and the evangelical opportunities afforded, by the virginal territories of the western United States. ¥ *

*

For all his acceptance of cooperation between the various sects within the Protestant tradition, Beecher proved far less tolerant and conciliatory when

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it came to his dealings with the Roman Catholic Church. Complete religious freedom, so far as Beecher was concerned, was not necessarily available to everyone in the United States. This was a very common mood in the early nineteenth century, and one that Beecher does a good job of epitomizing. Back in New England, he had done his share of warning against the perils of Romanism—perils that, to Beecher's mind, were increasing with the arrival of each new ship filled with European immigrants. Though it would be wrong to assign any direct blame to Beecher, he had preached in especially fierce terms just ahead of the nativist violence in Charlestown in 1834 that culminated in the burning of an Ursuline convent. The Catholic threat in the West struck Beecher as still more urgent and appalling. Beecher's vision of the future of the West neatly sums up his belief in the power of Protestant Christianity to directly guide and influence the destiny of the nation, his passionate belief that the morality and stability provided by religion should underpin every aspect of the republic's public life. In his 1835 tract, A Plea for the West, based on a series of lectures given a year earlier, Beecher articulated his vision. Alongside the troubling "barbarism" of the West, the roughness of its settlers, stood a still more disturbing challenge. Beecher believed that action needed to be taken to scotch a welldeveloped Catholic conspiracy to dominate the western territiories. Jesuits and other missionaries, with the backing of Rome and assorted European powers, were apparently already "in full organisation, silent, systematized, unwatched" amongst us. And this was far more than a nuisance. Such people, with their obsolete, illiberal politics and philosophies, were putting the whole western experiment at risk, and it was in the West that the "religious and political destiny of our nation is to be decided." The West was the engine of future progress, "the great central power of the nation," and would have a huge influence on the "cause of free institutions and the liberty of the world." As such, it had to be protected from Romanist influence: "the conflict which is to decide the destiny of the West, will be a conflict of institutions for the education of her sons, for purposes of superstition, or evangelical light; of despotism, or liberty." Beecher was careful to insist that he was not simply being an anti-Catholic rabble-rouser. He would never suggest that the "civil and religious rights of the Catholics should be abridged or violated. As naturalized citizens, to all that we enjoy, we bid them welcome, and would have their property and rights protected with the same impartiality and efficacy that the property and rights of every other denomination are protected." Rather, Beecher suggested that he questioned the politics and philosophy of institutionalized Catholicism and a church that, mired in the medieval past, still sought to dominate the political world. Beecher claimed that he was "opposed to any attempt to cast odium upon Catholics of the present generation for any maxims, doctrines or practices of past ages," but this did not remove the duty to remain wary of the church's "unchangeable and infallible creed, and for all

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the deeds of persecution and blood, justified by their principles and perpetrated by Catholic powers, and not disavowed by his holiness or by a council," for which "the Catholic church is accountable." For all that, of course, Beecher could move easily from such careful distinctions to unmistakably xenophobic outbursts. To Beecher it remained a shame that "clouds like locusts of Egypt are rising from the hills and plains of Europe, and on the wings of every wind are coming over to settle down upon our fair fields." To protect the West from the twin influences of Catholicism and immigration, and to ensure that the West emerged as a monument to Protestant ideals and ethics, Beecher advocated not just the raising of funds and the offering up of prayers. There was also a need for permanent institutions (such as the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education in the West, established in 1843) and social, political, and educational strategies deeply imbued with good Protestant Christian morality. The West was to come under the "all-pervading influence of schools, and colleges, and seminaries, and pastors, and churches." Men of piety, eloquence, and talent were to be trained up as teachers, ministers, and public leaders, and a network of schools, seminaries, and colleges was to be established. With such things in place, there was real hope of a "perpetual civil and religious prosperity." The thing that Beecher feared most from Catholicism was its commitment to a union of church and state wherever it held sway, and its certainty that Catholic rulers had a duty to preserve and promote Catholicism, to stamp out all error and dissent. It was against this, Beecher concluded, that "we lift up our voice," against "a union which never existed without corrupting the church and enslaving the people." "No treason against our free institutions would be more fatal than a union of church and state; none, when perceived, would bring on itself a more overwhelming public indignation." Rather, Americans ought to embrace the ideal of a voluntary establishment, of a social and political culture in which the nostrums of Protestant Christianity were everywhere to be seen, but in which no official establishment of any particular church was to be countenanced. Indeed, it was the duty of the United States to teach this lesson to the rest of the world: there was not another nation upon the earth in a better position to instruct the world, and it was time for the nation to understand its high calling. "In the providence of God," the nation was "destined to lead the way in the moral and political emancipation of the world." ¥ ¥

¥

Beecher retired from his Cincinnati congregation in 1843, and from Lane in 1851. The next year he was back in Boston, and after moving into the house of his son Henry Ward Beecher in 1856, he died in 1863. He remains something of a conundrum. A passionate advocate of America's liberties, he was never anything other than particularist in his religious beliefs. It might easily be averred that in a society dominated by Protestant ideas and sensibilities,

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religious freedom was rather more attainable for a Protestant like Lyman Beecher than for those—many of whom Beecher fulminated against—of other faiths. What can hardly be denied, however, is that Beecher sums up a vitally important aspect of America's debate about religious freedom. He insisted that, while civic morality could not endure without the influence of Christianity, there were better ways to allow that influence to flourish than relying on the interventions of government. Instead, faced with any variety of moral or social dilemmas, Americans should organize themselves into voluntary societies to carry out the work of reform, evangelism, and social improvement. It is an idea that has never faded. SUGGESTED READING Marie Carpenter Caskey, Chariot of Fire: Religion and the Beecher Family (New Haven, CT, 1978); Conrad Cherry, "Nature and the Republic: The New Haven Theology," New England Quarterly 51 (1978), 509-26; B. M. Crosse, ed., The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher (Cambridge, MA, 1961); James Fraser, Pedagogue for God's Kingdom: Lyman Beecher and the Second Great Awakening (New York, 1985); Vincent Harding, A Certain Magnificence: Lyman Beecher and the Transformation of American Protestantism, 1775-1863 (New York, 1991); Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catherine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (New Haven, CT, 1973); Timothy L. Smith, "Protestant Schooling and American Nationality, 1800-1850," Journal of American History 53 (1967), 679-95; and Mark Vasquez, "Correctly Forming the Public Opinion: Religious Rhetoric, Social Change and the Myth of SelfCulture," American Transcendental Quarterly 14 (2000), 173-92.

JOSEPH STORY (1779-1845) Judging the New Republic Joseph Story, the son of Elisha Story and his second wife, Mehitable Pedrick, was born on September 10, 1779, in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It was a deeply devout home. There were morning and evening prayers, and each Sunday, after attending church, the entire household (servants included) would be treated to a religious reading. Story's father, a doctor and surgeon, instilled a distinctive religious outlook in his son. He rejected the Calvinist God "of terror and not of love . . . a being whom I was to propitiate, rather than a parent of whom I was to ask blessings." Story would always retain a somewhat Calvinistic sense of the world's duality, a sharp division between good and evil, but he would emerge as somewhat liberal in his theological views, a Unitarian with a sense of God's benevolence and love. Story's father could boast of an eminently patriotic past. He had been present at the Boston Tea Party and had fought at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. As a member of the Sons of Liberty, he had been among those who audaciously stole the British cannon from Boston Common. His father's values would influence Joseph's political and philosophical attitudes during his early life, although Story's early identification as a Jeffersonian Republican would come under considerable scrutiny in his later career. Story's contribution to the debate on religious freedom was fundamental and enormous: through his attempts to interpret the legal ramifications of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (most especially in his 1833 commentary on the Constitution), Story would emerge almost as a second-generation founding father. Along with his great friend and ally John Marshall, he remains one of the most significant figures ever to sit in the Supreme Court of the United States. He would produce thirteen volumes of commentaries and offer 188 opinions in the Supreme Court. Devoted to the Constitution, a genuine believer in the religion clauses of the First Amendment, Story remained

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adamant throughout his judicial career that the United States was, and ever should be, a Christian nation. *

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Story's education at Marblehead Academy (where he received a solid grounding in Greek, Latin, and literature) was cut short in 1794, when his father withdrew him from the school after a master had beaten him for committing a trivial offense. His plans to enter Harvard University were quashed at first—the university authorities did not believe he had received an adequate education. He was "glum, disconsolate, mortified," but after a period of intense study at home, Story returned to Harvard, gained admission, and graduated second in his class, behind William Ellery Channing. It was a period of his life that Story would always remember with affection. On his arrival at the university, he recalled, "I awoke, as it were, from a dream. . . . Everything was new to me. I seemed to breathe a higher atmosphere and to look abroad with a wider vision and more comprehensive power." He next studied law with Samuel Sewell in Marblehead and Samuel Putnam in Salem, passed the Essex County bar examinations in 1801, and set up practice in Salem. It was a town dominated by the Federalist Party and, owing to his political sympathies (acting as secretary to the Republican Town Committee, making speeches at Republican meetings), Story received a sometimes hostile reception. He would be denounced as "a deist, a defender of suicide, an eccentric phenomenon, a violent Jacobin," although in his professional life it was not long until, as he later recalled, "business flowed in upon me." In 1805 he produced his first important book, A Selection of Pleadings in Civil Actions, and in the same year was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, where he unsuccessfully sponsored a bill to raise judicial salaries. He served here until 1808, the year in which he was elected to Congress, and returned in 1810 when he was also honored with the position of speaker. During these years, Story also endured the personal tragedy of losing his father in August 1805 and his first wife, Mary Lynde Oliver, only two months earlier. It was a devastating episode. As he wrote to a friend, "In losing my wife I have lost the companion of my studies, the participator of my ambition, the consoler of my sorrows and the defender of my frailties." More happily, he found a second wife, Sarah Waldo Wetmore, in 1808; produced an elegant work of poetry, The Power of Solitude, in 1810; and came to national attention through his involvement in the Supreme Court case of Fletcher v. Peck. For all his apparent Republican sympathies (largely, it must be said, inherited from his father), Story's relationship with Thomas Jefferson had already showed signs of strain during these years. He had opposed Jefferson's embargo on exports to Europe while in Congress, and, for the rest of their lives, the two men would be sometimes not-too-polite adversaries. Jefferson never forgot Story's opposition to the embargo and it made him seriously

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doubt his supposed political affiliation: "the Federalists, during their shortloved ascendancy," he wrote at the time, "have nevertheless, by forcing us from the embargo, inflicted a wound on our interests which can never be cured, and on our affections which will require time to cicatrize. I ascribe all this to one pseudo-republican, Story." Story would later say of his relations with both Jefferson and Madison that it was "wrong to imagine that I was a mere slave to the opinions of either." This was something of an understatement. It came as little surprise, then, that when William Cushing died, Jefferson was far from keen on Story replacing him in the Supreme Court—Jefferson avidly counseled Madison against offering Story the position. Levi Lincoln was the first to be offered the job, but he declined. Alexander Wolcott would have happily accepted the post, but the Senate rejected his candidacy. John Quincy Adams met with the Senate's approval, but he too did not want the position. And so it was to Joseph Story that the administration finally turned, as a fourth and final choice. He took his seat in February 1812 and seems to have felt suitably at ease almost immediately. As he informed a friend, the ermine rested easily upon his shoulders: "I am more at home than I looked to be in so novel an appointment." ¥ ¥

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The nature of debates about religious freedom would always have to take place in the context of the wider debate about how the Constitution ought to be interpreted, about how the various powers of the states and the federal government ought to be balanced. Along with John Marshall, Story constantly advocated an expansionist reading of the Constitution, pointing to the potential availability of implied powers. In 1819, for instance, when issues surrounding the chartering of the Second Bank of the United States arose in McCulloch v. Maryland, Story's majority opinion insisted that Congress could possess powers unenumerated in the Constitution. The federal government ruled according to the powers given "or given by necessary implication" by the Constitution. The trouble was that that document had been written in deliberately unspecific words designed to remain operative through a "long lapse of ages." It was the duty of future generations to interpret those words according to particular circumstances, and this depended upon a "reasonable construction" that did not excessively restrict or enlarge powers. At all times, "wisdom and the public interests" were to underpin all interpretations. Beyond doubt, Story believed in the desirability, and the necessity, of a strong federal government. Ideally, he would have favored a federal common law with competence in all matters. Draft legislation from 1812 spoke of giving "the judicial courts of the United States power to punish all enemies and offences against the government, as at common law." Within this scheme it was also imperative to sustain an independent, dynamic judiciary,

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and Story contributed eagerly to any sensible moves toward judicial reform. He also cherished the idea that, as established in Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the Supreme Court had the power to declare an act of Congress unconstitutional. Of course, a corollary of a strong federal government was the need, on occasion, to rein in the powers of the various states. An early instance of this was the decision in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee in 1816 revolving around lands of British subjects being seized in Virginia. The principle was established that the Supreme Court could override decisions reached in state courts. This served to create a uniform system of law, and answered the obvious need for some kind of final legal tribunal. "The questions involved in this judgement," Story explained, are "of great importance and delicacy." The fundamental point was that "the Constitution of the United States was ordained and established not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the Constitution declares, by 'the people' of the United States." It was a mistake to suppose "that the Constitution was not designed to operate upon the states." There were many, many instances within the document that stripped some aspects of state sovereignty away or required the states to carry out certain duties. Ultimately, it fell to the Supreme Court to be the final interpreter of the Constitution. * ¥

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Just as important to Story was his firmly held belief that Christianity had a vital role to play in American public life. One question that Story returned to again and again during his career was whether Christianity was part of the nation's common law. Once again, Story found an opponent in Thomas Jefferson. As the years piled up, Story's dislike of the sage of Monticello only grew. Story had long regarded him as the "head of the enemies of the judiciary and I doubt not [he] will leave behind him a numerous progeny bred in the same school." Story was clearly worried that "the judiciary in our country is essentially feeble, and must always be open to attack from all quarters." It was the inevitable enemy of demagogs, and its natural allies were the wise, good, and elevated in society—always a small minority in the ranks of government, Story lamented. Men like Jefferson, who had done their utmost to attack their opponents on the bench, made Story suggest that if the judiciary was indeed doomed, then "I should be glad to have the decisive blow now struck, while I am young," so he could take up some other career. The responsibility of Supreme Court justices was clear: "to do their duty firmly and honestly, according to their best judgements." It would be a disaster "if we shrink at the threats or the injuries of public men." And worse yet was Jefferson's moral philosophy. Having read a collection of Jefferson's works in 1830, he described them to a friend in decidedly unflattering terms, especially when it came to Jefferson's attitude toward Christianity. "Have you seen Mr Jefferson's Works}" he asked. "If not, sit down at once

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and read his fourth volume. It is the most precious melange of all sorts of scandals you ever read. It will elevate your opinion of his talents, but lower him in point of principle and morals not a little." Jefferson had argued on many occasions that Christianity was not a part of the English Common Law, most famously in an 1824 letter to the English radical John Cartwright that was published without permission. Story felt obliged to reply to this letter, although his response was not published until 1833. He pointed to the ancient tradition of English courts protecting Christianity by punishing heresy and blasphemy. Taylor's case in 1676 and Woolston's case in 1728 demonstrated, with their censoring of blasphemy and lewd Bible readings, that this tradition was still very much alive. "Can any man seriously doubt that Christianity is recognised as true, as a revelation, by the law of England?" Story asked; "what becomes of her whole ecclesiastical establishment and the legal rights growing out of it on any other supposition?" As for the United States, one need only look to James Kent's recent ruling in People v. Ruggles, when a man had been indicted for profaning Christ and the Virgin Mary: there was no New York law against blasphemy, but this hardly mattered because the common law forbade indecent references to holy persons. The defendant had "wickedly, maliciously, and blasphemously utter [ed], in the presence and hearing of diverse good and Christian people, these false, feigned, scandalous, malicious, wicked and blasphemous words, to wit, 'Jesus Christ was a bastard, and his mother must be a whore.' " The "single question," Kent explained, had been "whether this be a public offence by the law of the land." The language was deemed blasphemous "not only in a popular, but in a legal sense; for blasphemy, according to the most precise definitions, consists in maliciously reviling God, or religion." And, as the law of precedent made clear, this was an offense against the common law. Moreover, such an offense threatened to corrupt "the morals of the people, and to destroy good order." And it remained an offense regardless of the existence of a religious establishment or of whether it offended the rights of the church. It was an offense for the simple reason that it affected the "essential interests of civil society." Christianity was at the heart of the American experience: "the people of this state, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity, as the rule of their faith and practice; and to scandalize the author of these doctrines is not only, in a religious point of view, extremely impious, but, even in respect to the obligations due to society, is a gross violation of decency and good order." Nothing could be more offensive to the "virtuous part of the community, or more injurious to the tender morals of the young, than to declare such profanity lawful." Granted, "the free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of religious opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any religious subject, is granted and secured" but "to revile, with malicious and blasphemous

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contempt, the religion professed by almost the whole community, is an abuse of that right." Offenses against "the religion of Mahomet or of the grand Lama" were one thing, but attacks against Christ were quite another, "and for this plain reason . . . we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors." New York's own constitution had been careful to "guard against spiritual oppression and intolerance, by declaring that 'the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, should forever thereafter be allowed within this state, to all mankind.' " But this declaration, Kent concluded, "never meant to withdraw religion in general, and with it the best sanctions of moral and social obligation from all consideration and notice of the law." To suppose that it removed common law injunctions against blasphemy "would be an enormous perversion of its meaning." Like Kent, Story was doubtless so passionate about this issue because of his grander, larger vision of the role of Christianity in the republic. He regarded Christianity as the basis of social stability. He had a particular vision of how it should pervade American culture, which had obvious consequences for the religious freedoms of those of non-Christian beliefs. Church and state shared a common goal: the encouragement of public and private virtue. Clerics would preach their sermons, and the state would enforce laws and provide the material conditions in which good Christian morality might flourish. Story was no advocate of theocracy, and he more than once wrote of the perils of flouting the establishment clause of the First Amendment. What he could not countenance, however, was the idea that church and state, given their shared objectives, should enjoy no sort of relationship whatsoever. In his 1833 commentaries on the Constitution, he elaborated at great length on this theme. James Kent regarded the commentaries as a "bold and free defence of sound doctrine against the insidious, mischievous and malignant attacks of Jefferson . . . an incomparable monument of sound and healthy constitutional principles." Story first turned to the constitutional prohibition of religious oaths for public officials. This was "not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons who feel an invincible repugnance to any religious test. . . . It had a higher object: to cut off forever every pretence of any alliance between church and state in the national government." Note: the national government. The framers saw such dangers "marked out in the history of other ages and countries." Bigots were always looking for ways to become dominant and would embrace any civil powers that allowed them to attack those with whom they disagreed. One need only look to the Reformation and the persecutors and martyrs it produced. England itself had seen its share of state-sponsored bigotry, and those who sought to prove that antidissenting legislation had at least not

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been enforced as harshly as it might have been were resorting to a feeble argument: "the meanest apologist of the worst enormities of a Roman Emperor could not have shadowed out a defence more servile." The United States had thus made a wise decision: it was easy "to foresee that without some prohibition of religious tests, a successful sect in our country might, by once possessing power, pass test laws which would secure to themselves a monopoly of all the offices of trust and profit under the national government." But Story remained insistent that one could not simply shut Christianity out of public life and discourse. Turning to the religion clauses of the First Amendment, he revealed that few would contest that "piety, religion and morality are intimately connected with the well-being of the state, and indispensable to the administration of civil justice." Any society needed its references to God, Providence, and the rewards and punishments of heaven and hell. It was "difficult to conceive how any civilised society can well exist without them," and it was "impossible for those who believe in the truth of Christianity as a divine revelation to doubt that it is the especial duty of government to foster and encourage it among all the citizens and subjects." The trickier dilemma lay in deciding what limits ought to be placed on this fostering and encouraging. There were, Story explained, several options. There could be an ecclesiastical establishment of a single religion that still left people free to worship wherever and however they saw fit. Or, there might be such an establishment that "excludes all persons not belonging to it, either wholly or in part, from any participation in the public honours, trusts, emoluments, privileges and immunities of the state." The United States had made its choice, and the idea of the federal government erecting a national church had rightly been cast out. The founders had not sought to encourage Islam or Judaism, but to "exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment." America had learned the dangers of certain kinds of religious settlement. After all, those persecuted Puritans who had fled to New England "would furnish out a chapter as full of the darkest bigotry and intolerance as any which could be found to disgrace the pages of foreign annals." With so many sects, it was "impossible that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendancy if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment. The only security was in extirpating the power . . . thus the whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to the state governments." But this did not alter the fact that there were "few persons in this or any other Christian country who would deliberately contend that it was unreasonable or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian religion generally." It remained undeniable that, as the Massachusetts Bill of Rights explained, "the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality."

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The solution, therefore, was to accept, and this had been just as true at the time of the constitutional settlement, that the "general if not the universal sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state so far as was not in competition with private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship." There had been no ambition to level all religions or encourage indifferentism. Of course, when Story referred to Christianity, he really meant Protestant Christianity, and he believed that the United States was involved in a test case where it would be proven that no free government was likely to survive without the influence of Christian morality. "The future experience of Christendom and chiefly of the American states must settle this problem." It was entirely appropriate for Christianity to be generally encouraged by government, although this in no way gave the state a right to force the consciences of other men, or to punish them for their religious behavior. After all, as had been argued by everyone from John Locke onward, religious faith could never be instilled through coercion. Story remained confident that, even within a society permeated by Christian mores and morals, "the Catholic and the Protestant, the Calvinist and the Armenian, the Jew and the infidel," would be able to "sit down at the common table of the national councils without any inquisition into their faith or mode of worship." Story was not alone in his analysis of American culture. When the Reverend Jasper Adams, president of the College of Charleston, published a printed version of his sermon, The Relation of Christianity to Civil Government in the United States, he was sure to send Story a copy. Adams's fundamental point was that "the people of the United States have retained the Christian religion as the foundation of their civil, legal and political institutions." In response, Story revealed that he had "read it with uncommon satisfaction." "My own private judgement," he wrote, "has long been (and every day's experience more and more confirms me in it) that government cannot long exist without an alliance with religion to some extent and that Christianity is indispensable to the true interests and solid foundations of all free governments." Story voiced real concerns about the indifference with which the American people "seem in our day to be disposed to cut adrift from old principles." ^

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In later life, Story would express growing disenchantment with the way the American experiment was developing. He was an ardent opponent of many of the trends of Jacksonian democracy, and, by the year 1840, he was reaching extremely unhappy conclusions. He believed that "we have fully tried the experiment of a representative republic: and that is a failure on our part." From his beginnings in the fulcrum of Jeffersonian republicanism, he had emerged as a champion of New England conservatism, lamenting the arrival of the "reign of King Mob" in the nation's political life. In spite of this,

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Story could at least find solace in the fact that he had made a major contribution to the American legal tradition. As a professor at Harvard, he transformed the reputation of the university's law school and personally taught many of the United States' future legal luminaries. In comparison with our own times, Story was a very different sort of Supreme Court justice. As well as sitting in a (much less busy) court in Washington, he also spent periods touring circuit courts in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. He saw little reason to concern himself with the conflicts that might have developed because of his political activities—a role in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in 1820, for instance, where he fought against the disestablishment of the Congregational Church—or because he was judging cases dealing with banking issues at the same time as holding important positions on the boards of nationally affiliated banks back in Salem. What remains undeniable is Story's role in the debate with which this book is concerned. He was one of the first justices to comment extensively on the religion clauses of the First Amendment and one of the first to deal with legal cases rooted in issues of religious freedom and church/state relations. In the case of Terrett v. Taylor in 1815, Story addressed an issue at the state level that surfaced time and again in the early years of the Republic: church property. He argued that Virginia was not entitled to expropriate property acquired by the Episcopal Church before the Revolution, or to abolish its incorporation. At the time of the Revolution, the church had enjoyed a right to acquire such tracts of lands, and the "property so acquired by the church remained unimpaired, notwithstanding the revolution." As for the issue of incorporation, Story offered a revealing analysis of the situation. He conceded that "at the revolution, the Episcopal church no longer retained its character as an exclusive religious establishment." It was entirely legitimate, therefore, for the "people and . . . the legislature to deprive it of its superiority over other religious sects, and to withhold from it any support by public taxation." So far as Story was concerned, however, it remained "difficult to perceive how it follows as a consequence that the legislature may not enact laws more effectually to enable all sects to accomplish the great objects of religion by giving them corporate rights for the management of their property, and the regulation of their temporal as well as spiritual concerns." As the state's constitution made clear, the legislature could not "create or continue a religious establishment which should have exclusive rights and prerogatives, or compel the citizens to worship under a stipulated form or discipline, or to pay taxes to those whose creed they could not conscientiously believe." But the preservation of free exercise of religion was surely not hindered by "aiding with equal attention the votaries of every sect to perform their own religious duties, or by establishing funds for the support of ministers, for public charities, for the endowment of churches, or for the

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sepulture of the dead." It was correct for the legislature to bring an end to "compulsive attendance and payment of taxes in support of any particular sect," but the upholding of constitutional principles did not require "the abolition of all religious corporations." It is important not to assume that Story was pursuing a partisan agenda in such a ruling, however. His judgment rested on a strict legal analysis, and he was entirely capable, as the case of Town of Pawlet v. Clark from the same year made clear, to come down on the opposite side of church property disputes when the legal merits of the case so demanded. Nonetheless, the wording of the Terrett decision does give an insight into Story's worldview. In a case such as Vidal v. Girard's Executors in 1844, only a year before his death, Story's attitudes toward the role of Christianity in American culture came into even sharper focus. In his will, Stephen Girard had bequeathed funds to set up a school. As well as detailing the curriculum to be taught, he also insisted that no ministers and missionaries be allowed to teach there. This provoked the response that the foundation of the college upon the principles and exclusions prescribed by the testator, is derogatory and hostile to the Christian religion, and so is void, as being against the common law and public policy of Pennsylvania; and this for two reasons: first, because of the exclusion of all ecclesiastics, missionaries, and ministers of any sect from holding or exercising any station or duty in the college, or even visiting the same: and secondly, because it limits the instruction to be given to the scholars to pure morality, and general benevolence, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, thereby excluding, by implication, all instruction in the Christian religion. Story did not agree with this analysis. He allowed, as one might expect, that Christianity was indeed part of the common law of Pennsylvania, although in a "qualified sense," as the state's constitution sought to protect all religions, even those of Jews and "infidels." If, therefore, Christianity was openly reviled or repudiated by Girard's actions, the school would not be acceptable. But this, Story argued, was simply not the case. "The testator does not say that Christianity shall not be taught in the college. But only that no ecclesiastic of any sect shall hold or exercise any station or duty in the college." Philadelphia had other resources to hand in the vital task of sustaining a Christian culture. Others could enter Girard's school to instill Christian virtue. There were, "and doubtless, under the auspices of the city government. . . will always be, men, not only distinguished for learning and talent, but for piety and elevated virtue, and holy lives and characters." It was impossible to "overlook the blessings, which such men by their conduct, as well as their instructions, may, nay must impart to their youthful pupils." It was entirely

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possible that the Bible "and especially the N e w Testament, without note or comment, be read and taught as a divine revelation in the college." In such a way—and this was at the heart of Story's vision of sustaining American Protestant morality—its general precepts might be expounded, its evidences could be explained, and "its glorious principles of morality inculcated." As the nineteenth century progressed, the United States would have to confront the issue of precisely what such inculcation meant for society's broader religious freedoms. SUGGESTED READING Stuart Banner, "When Christianity Was Part of the Common Law," Law and History Review 16 (1998), 27-62; Gerald T. Dunne, Justice Joseph Story and the Rise of the Supreme Court (New York, 1970); Richard Ellis, The Jeffersonian Crisis: Courts and Politics in the Young Republic (New York, 1971); James, McClellan, Joseph Story and the American Constitution: A Study in Political and Legal Thought with Selected Writings (Norman, OK, 1971); R. Kent Newmyer, John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court (Baton Rouge, LA, 2001); idem., Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story: Statesman of the Old Republic (Chapel Hill, NC, 1985); and G. Edward White, The Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1815-1835 (New York, 1991).

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JOHN HUGHES (1797-1864) Dagger John Roman Catholicism had enjoyed mixed fortunes in colonial America. Under the leadership of George and Cecil Calvert, first and second Lords Baltimore, Maryland had emerged as something of a Catholic haven, with the colony's 1649 Toleration Act providing freedom of worship for all Christians: whereas the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion has frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practiced . . . be i t . . . enacted that no person . . . within this province . . . professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be any ways troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof. Any person who presumed "wilfully to wrong, disturb, trouble or molest" anyone "professing to believe in Jesus Christ . . . for or in respect of his or her religion [or] the free exercise thereof" would be expected to make monetary recompense. Failing that, such an "offender shall be severely punished by public whipping and imprisonment during the pleasure of the Lord Protector." By 1692, however, Maryland had become a royal colony, directly controlled from London, and in 1702, an Anglican establishment had been introduced. Very soon, Catholics would be paying taxes in support of Protestant ministers and excluded from any official role in the colony's political system. In some places, in New France and the northern reaches of presentday Maine and New York, for instance, Jesuit missionaries had won enviable reputations as, variously, evangelists, cultural ambassadors, and martyrs. In other places, not least Massachusetts and Virginia, Jesuit priests had been loathed, pilloried, and persecuted without respite. When Massachusetts enacted its revised charter in 1691, it proclaimed that "there shall be a liberty

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of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians (except Papists)": it was a far from unusual exclusionary measure. The lessons and attitudes of the European Reformation died hard in the American colonies (they still smolder on in certain circles), and in a predominantly Protestant culture, the disciples of Rome regularly excited scorn, mistrust, and, when it seemed necessary, violence. This would prove to be a haunting legacy for those American Catholics who hoped to secure their own share of religious freedom. John Hughes, as important a Catholic leader as the nineteenth century produced, would have to live with this legacy, too. By the time his American career got underway, there was certainly room for increased optimism. Many Protestant citizens recognized the crucial and loyal role those of Catholic inclination had played in the struggle for independence—although this did not prevent New Jersey or New Hampshire from excluding Catholics from public office until 1844 and 1876, respectively. The first generation of native Catholic bishops, from John Carroll of Baltimore onward, struck many onlookers as somehow authentically American. One of them, Bishop John England of Charleston, South Carolina, became the first Catholic clergyman to preach to Congress in 1826. But, as Hughes's career made clear, there were many battles still to be fought. Hughes was born at Annaloghan in County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1797, the son of Patrick, a linen weaver and small-scale farmer, and Margaret (nee McKenna). These were economically depressed times, largely thanks to the impact of Europe's Napoleonic Wars, and Hughes's parents had little choice but to withdraw their son from school and apprentice him to a local gardener. With few prospects left to them in Ireland, John's father and elder brother, like so many of their countrymen, decided to seek out a better life in the New World and headed to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1814. John followed in 1817, and his mother and other siblings joined the rest of the family a year later. Hughes's standing as an immigrant Irish Catholic would influence every aspect of his American career. Hughes worked for several years as a day laborer on Maryland's east coast and, while boarding with an Irish teacher, he met a priest who helped him obtain a position as gardener and stone mason at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmetsburg. It was here that Hughes's clerical career would begin. When Hughes had first arrived at Mount St. Mary's in 1819, the rector, John Dubois, declined his request for admission as a student but relented in the following year. Hughes enrolled in the seminary and, after intensive studies, was ordained as a priest of the Philadelphia diocese on October 15, 1826. Hughes held a series of pastoral appointments in Philadelphia (at St. Augustine's, St. Joseph's, and St. Mary's) and quickly emerged as a powerful advocate of the rights of Irish immigrants and as a supporter of Catholic emancipation back in his native Ireland. A lifelong interest in establishing pastoral institutions and outlets for Catholic opinion was also emerging—he helped to form St. John's Orphanage in 1829, and in 1827 he established the

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Catholic Tract Society in Philadelphia, an organization explicitly committed to rebutting criticism from Protestant writers and polemicists. In 1833, he founded the Catholic Herald newspaper, three years after successfully lampooning anti-Catholic attitudes under the pseudonym "Crammer" in the Protestant press. His growing reputation—enhanced by his role as theologian at the First Provincial Council in Baltimore—soon made Hughes a possible candidate for elevation to the bench of bishops. Having received nominations in 1829, 1833, and 1836, he was finally appointed as coadjutor bishop of New York in 1837 with the right of succession on the death of the sitting bishop. Consecrated at Old St. Patrick's on January 7, 1838, he would not become a full bishop until the death of John Dubois in December 1842, but long before this he had done much to stamp his authority on the diocese. In 1850, when New York took on the mantle of an archdiocese, Hughes was elevated to the office of archbishop. Such were the bare bones of Hughes's career. What, though, were the challenges that confronted him? Much of his time—whether as parish priest or bishop—was taken up with matters of internal discipline. The most troubling issue of all was the burgeoning ambitions of lay trustees within the Catholic community, and their efforts to establish decidedly Protestantlooking parish structures and to take control of church property. In part, this was a legal necessity: many of the states had passed legislation preventing religious groups from directly owning property. But it was anathema to Hughes and most of his Irish clerical colleagues. American democratic ideals were fine for American politics, he insisted, but they had no place in the hierarchical, closely structured world of the Catholic Church. Nor were his objections purely philosophical. Lay trustees had, he suggested, been less than impressive whenever they had tried to manage the business of a parish: for proof, one only had to look at the staggering debts amassed by so many Catholic churches. In both Philadelphia and New York, Hughes worked very hard to circumvent the property-owning laws, regularly installing pliable, figurehead boards of trustees, while reserving true authority to himself and his clerical colleagues in all ecclesiastical matters. In such struggles, there were many furious moments. In 1839, when the trustees of the cathedral parish in New York saw fit to remove a recently appointed Sunday School teacher, Hughes launched a vicious attack on their audacity: they were nothing but pygmies attempting to wrest away the ancient rights that Christ had given to his church. Assimilation to the fashionable ideas of the U.S. Republic could only ever go so far. Two thousand years of Catholic tradition could not simply be cast off. ¥ ¥

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Hughes also entered the fray in defense of Catholic rights at a time of escalating anti-Catholic sentiment. Nineteenth-century United States was very much a de facto Protestant society. Having religious pluralism enshrined in

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the statute book was very different from having it accepted in the minds of Protestant Americans. It must have struck many Catholics that American religious freedom had become something of a dead letter when angry Protestant crowds saw fit to burn down an Ursuline convent in Charlestown in 1834, when savage anti-Catholic riots erupted in Philadelphia in 1844, or when the residents of Ellsworth, Maine, stoned the house of the Jesuit John Bapst in 1854, then undressed the priest, tarred and feathered him, and railroaded him out of town. Nor was it always about acts of violence. Midcentury anti-Catholicism also had a habit of covering itself in the respectable-looking clothes of journalism, scholarship, and high politics. The alarm would be raised against imaginary papal invasion forces, Charles Chiniquy would claim that the Society of Jesus was responsible for the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination, and Lyman Beecher would express his horror at Catholic missionaries being allowed to ply their evangelical trade in the western territories. In 1849, Charles Allen would organize his Order of the Star Spangled Banner, out of which a national Know-Nothing Party would emerge. Standing on a violently anti-Catholic, xenophobic platform—pledging never to vote for a Catholic, seeking to rob Catholics of all political influence, and campaigning to remove foreign language instruction from public schools—the Know-Nothings would grow enormously powerful in New York and Massachusetts state politics and would secure dozens of congressional seats. Much anti-Catholic sentiment—expressed in a staggering range of contemporary journals, scurrilous works of fiction, and newspapers (many of which turned their fire directly on John Hughes)—was often couched in patriotic-sounding talk of the aims and beliefs of Catholicism being wholly incompatible with the democratic spirit of the new republic. Where the United States stood for liberty, progress, and pluralism, it was averred, Rome—with its declarations of papal infallibility and its vigorous denunciations of the sins of the modern world—stood for despotism, backward-looking obscurantism, and rigid intolerance. But nineteenth-century anti-Catholicism was also about the fear and loathing of immigration, about the xenophobic reaction to events like the influx of Catholic Irishmen during the worst years of the potato famine in the 1840s and 1850s. Samuel Morse did as much as anyone to popularize the notion that the Catholic monarchies of Europe were deliberately striving to undermine American institutions and morality by encouraging mass immigration. After developing anti-Catholic feelings during stays in Europe, Morse returned home, established a newspaper intended to alert Americans to the perils of popery, and even ran (unsuccessfully) in New York's mayoral race in 1836. His 1835 tract, Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States through Immigration, warned of the "great mass" of immigrants who, with their dead minds, were nothing but "senseless machines": "they obey orders mechanically . . . they obey their priests as demigods . . . they

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have been taught from infancy that their priests are infallible." It was naive to suppose that such people, "by the act of coming to this country," might have their minds "illuminated to discern the nice boundary where their ecclesiastical obedience to their priests ends, and the civil independence of them begins." Rather, they were the ideal tools, "foreign materials," with which Catholic leaders "can work to accomplish their designs." These designs rested on the fact, Morse continued, that "popery is opposed in its very nature to Democratic republicanism: and it is, therefore, as a political system as well as religious, opposed to civil and religious liberty, and consequently to our form of government." Catholicism was "spreading itself into every nook and corner of the land; churches, chapels, colleges, nunneries and convents, are springing up as if by magic everywhere." Priests—especially Jesuits—had sought to influence elections, they had established so-called benevolent societies in order to efficiently organize the Catholic vote, and they had even tried to set up Catholic military corps. These were the simple "facts," Morse declared, and "if they are not facts they will be easily disproved." Nowhere were tensions at a higher pitch than the two cities where John Hughes forged his clerical career—New York and Philadelphia. In 1836, Hughes had the perfect opportunity to challenge the notion that Catholicism and the American political ethos were antithetical. In Philadelphia, opposite the Presbyterian John Breckinridge, Hughes discussed the supposed effects of Catholicism on civil and religious liberties. The two had sparred before. Back in 1832, Breckinridge had sent a letter to the Christian Advocate asking if anyone was willing to enter into a debate about the proposition that the Protestant religion was the true religion of Christ. Hughes had responded, and, for the next five months, articles appeared from the two men in the Presbyterian and the Catholic Herald, set up by Hughes specifically for the purpose. By any standard, the exchange was dull, and the other newspapers that had reported on the contest at the outset quickly lost interest. The whole enterprise ended in considerable animosity, with Breckinridge declaring, "I thank God . . . that the time is not yet come when the threat of a Roman priest can make me tremble for my reputation, my liberty or my hopes of heaven." Now, however, the two men had the opportunity to revisit their argument. Breckinridge, in one of the twelve debates that took place, claimed that nothing but his love of the truth "could induce me to subject to the coarse and ill-bred impertinence of a priesthood whose temper and treatment toward other men alternate between servility to their spiritual sovereigns and oppression of their unhappy subjects." In response to Breckinridge's horrifying stories of the crimes of the Inquisition and the eternal relationship between Rome and the world's worst despots, Hughes offered the most personal account of his own history and philosophy. He recounted the death of his sister back in Ireland during his childhood. The prevailing law had

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made it impossible for the local Catholic priest to enter the churchyard and oversee the burial. All that was left to a grieving brother was to pick up a handful of dirt, have the priest bless it outside the churchyard, and scatter it on his sister's coffin. It was to avoid such indignities, Hughes informed his opponent, that his family had made the journey to the United States. He had been born under the scourge of Protestant persecution, he explained, just like his father and the preceding generations. Rather than being an enemy of American ideals, he was as conscious as anyone of the value of the civil and religious liberty that "our happy government secures for all." The United States, Hughes insisted, was a beacon and a haven for Catholics like himself, a country in which no stigma would be impressed on his brow simply because he preferred one creed or another. Far from being a dangerous fifth column, Catholics had the potential to be the most loyal citizens the republic had ever known. This message would be reiterated by Hughes whenever his enemies called his patriotism into doubt. When two of his newspaper-owning critics did just that in New York, he was quick to produce a series of statements about himself that he dared anyone to contradict. Never in his life, he bellowed, had he done one action or uttered one sentiment intended to rob anyone of the rights he claimed for himself under the Constitution. He had never "entered into intrigue or collusion" with a political party or an individual, nor had anyone ever approached him with so insulting a proposition. Finally, throughout his New York career, he had never done or said anything "unworthy of a Catholic bishop and an American citizen." The bishop was fully aware, however, that the Catholic community had to do more than win rhetorical battles. Sometimes, their rights were directly and urgently threatened. This was never more obvious than in the year 1844, when nativist violence was devastating the Catholic population of Philadelphia. Hughes was determined that these outrages, which had cost at least thirty lives, should not be allowed to spread to New York. With plans for nativist rallies and meetings in the offing, Hughes warned the mayor of New York that "should one Catholic come to harm, or should one Catholic business be molested, we shall turn this city into a second Moscow": a chilling reference to the year 1812 when, to scupper Napoleon's invasion plans, the residents of Moscow had set fire to their own city. The chaos that had been visited on Philadelphia was thus avoided, and the sight of armed parishioners standing guard around New York's churches was an eloquent reminder that the city's Catholic population was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to preserve its rights and freedoms. This had been revealed, albeit in less dramatic fashion, earlier in the decade in another battle for Catholic religious freedom in which John Hughes was intimately involved. The issue on that occasion was one with which modern-day Americans are very familiar—the role of religion in public schools.

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Since 1805, the Public School Society had exerted significant influence over the curricula and organization of New York's schools. By 1840, the city's Catholic population had decided to speak out against the society's approval (even encouragement) of the use of the Protestant King James Bible, of textbooks that portrayed the Catholic Church in an unfavorable light, and of works of fiction in which stereotypical images of Irish immigrants as drunken, debauched social parasites were commonplace. In that year, encouraged by a speech by Governor William Seward in favor of establishing schools where immigrant children might be taught by teachers of their own language and faith, the Catholic parish schools in the city made their demands. They asked that, in the light of the anti-Catholic ethos that so many Catholic children had to endure, the Public School Society provide them with a share of the funding (raised from general taxation) it had at its disposal. The petitioners insisted that they were willing to bear their portion of every common burden, but this surely meant that they were also entitled to participate in every common benefit. Unfortunately, the petitioners continued, so far as common school education in New York was concerned, this participation had "been denied them for years back," except on conditions with which their conscience, and, as they believe their duty to God, did not, and do not leave them at liberty to comply. . . . Your petitioners only claim the benefit of this principle in regard to the public education of their children. They regard the public education which the state has provided as a common benefit, in which they are most desirous and feel they are entitled to participate; and therefore they pray your honourable body that they may be permitted to do so without violating their conscience. The Public School Society, they admitted, was actually composed of people belonging to various sects, including even one or two Catholics, and it certainly claimed to exclude all sectarianism from its schools. If that claim was false, however, and if "they do not exclude sectarianism, they are avowedly no more entitled to the school funds than your petitioners, or any other denomination of professing Christians." And what many people simply referred to as "religion" was actually, to a Catholic audience, patently sectarian and discriminatory. Even the reading of scripture in those schools your petitioners cannot regard otherwise than as sectarian; because Protestants would certainly consider as such the introduction of the Catholic scriptures, which are different from theirs, and the Catholics have the same

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ground of objection when the Protestant version is made use of . . . many of the selections in their elementary reading lessons contain matter prejudicial to the Catholic name and character. The term "popery" is repeatedly found in them. This term is known and employed as one of insult and contempt towards the Catholic religion, and it passes into the minds of children with the feeling of which it is the outward expression. Both the historical and religious portions of the reading lessons are selected from Protestant writers, whose prejudices against the Catholic religion render them unworthy of confidence in the mind of your petitioners, at least so far as their own children are concerned. Ultimately, the funds the Public School Society dispensed were raised by the taxing of New York's citizens, but why should Catholics contribute to something so manifestly detrimental to their interests? "The contest is between the guaranteed rights, civil and religious, of the citizen on the one hand, and the pretensions of the Public School Society on the other." All that had been left to Catholics was to set up their own institutions, and as well as continuing to pay the local taxes they were now paying for the upkeep of their own parochial schools: "The expense necessary for this was a second taxation, required not by the laws of the land but by the no less imperious demands of their conscience. . . . They were reduced to the alternative of seeing their children growing up in entire ignorance, or else taxing themselves anew for private schools." The solution was simple: Should your honourable body be pleased to designate their schools as entitled to receive a just proportion of the public funds which belong to your petitioners in common with other citizens, their schools could be improved for those who attend. Here was a campaign to which John Hughes could avidly contribute. He had returned to New York in July 1840 and quickly organized a series of meetings in which he asked if it was not obscene that Catholics were paying taxes so that their religion could be denounced in the ears of their children. At a public meeting in October 1840, Hughes made the Catholic argument in a speech lasting three hours. Ultimately, the Catholics' demands were rejected, but the battle was far from over, and the issue of religion in the public schools emerged as a key issue in the elections of 1841. Hughes was probably reluctant to become too embroiled in the political process, but on October 30, four days before the people went to the polls, he organized a meeting at which the names of "suitable" candidates were revealed. The gesture had enough of an impact to seriously reduce the Democrat share of the vote (Hughes was angry that the Democratic Party machine had not done more to support the petitioners' campaign). In 1842, a much-transformed New York legislature, now filled with suitably chastised Democrats, enacted

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legislation that established an elected Board of Education and, theoretically, prohibited sectarian religious education in the city's public schools. This was a compromise that Hughes accepted—it seemed to be the only workable way to expunge anti-Catholic aspects of the curriculum—but ultimately it was not an ideal solution for a Roman Catholic prelate. The notion of an education lacking in any religious content was untenable. Moreover, although the monopoly of the Public School Society had been removed, the state's school boards retained an undeniably Protestant identity, and all efforts to secure a share of public funding for Catholic schools met with failure. Over the next decade, Hughes would come to the conclusion that the church's best alternative was to further develop its own system of parochial schools, where Catholic children could be properly exposed to good Catholic doctrine. When the issue of readings from the King James Bible in public schools was raised once more, Hughes simply avoided involvement in the debate. As Hughes expressed it, priorities had changed and it was now vital to build schools first, churches second: "build your own schools," he urged his flock, "raise arguments in the shape of the best educated and most moral citizens of the republic." The battle over New York's public schools was not an isolated incident. The anti-Catholic violence that flared in Philadelphia in 1844, for instance, had much to do with the efforts of Bishop Francis Patrick Kenrick to protect the consciences of those Catholic students in common schools who had been expected to endure readings from the King James Bible. For the rest of the century, the issues of religion in public schools and funding for parochial schools would continue to be debated. When the Know-Nothing Party gained political ascendancy, it invariably sought to use its influence to hinder the efforts of Catholic educators. Similarly, in Massachusetts, an amendment to the state constitution was proposed that forbade the provision of any public funds to sectarian schools, and little effort was made to disguise the anti-Catholic underpinning of the measure: "If gentlemen say that the resolution has a strong leaning towards Catholics, and is intended to have special reference to them, I am not disposed to deny that it admits of such interpretation. I am ready to say to our fellow Catholic citizens: You may come here and meet us on the broad principles of civil and religious liberty, but if you cannot meet us upon this common ground, we do not ask you to come." By the mid-1870s, James Blaine of Maine, also fired by anti-Catholic sentiment, was proposing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that outlawed the provision of any public funds to sectarian schools. The amendment fell, but similar measures were enshrined in the constitutions of the majority of the states. It remains something of a historical irony that these pieces of legislation, with their unhappy origins in anti-Catholic bigotry, are made use of today by principled advocates of state/church separation. It was in Ohio, however, that the issue of religion in the public schools

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once more won national attention. John Baptist Purcell, bishop and later archbishop of Cincinnati, was a lifelong friend of John Hughes and the two men engaged in a prolific correspodemce, seeking one another's counsel on a variety of pastoral and social issues. From the 1830s through the 1860s, the issue of religion in Cincinnati's public schools was debated time and again, and various proposals—allowing Catholic children to be excused from readings of the King James Bible and allowing Catholic children to read from their own Bibles—were mooted. At one stage, Purcell had asked Hughes to visit him to discuss the issue or, failing that, to send him "a copious letter containing the necessary suggestions" to bolster the Catholic cause. In his reply, Hughes offered a very bleak analysis of efforts to reconcile Protestant and Catholic interests. The Protestants' enmity to Rome is their great overruling passion, which they are willing to gratify in every degree, and by every means. With this conviction on my mind, you will not be surprised that I have no confidence in their religious friendship; that I dread their favors. . . . In these coalitions there is no advantage. If we join them for instance in education, they will not expunge their abominable books. And if they should yield to correct some things, they will retain others. What has been excluded will be more than compensated by the implied sanction of what will be retained. Purcell and other Catholic leaders were not entirely deterred from reaching some compromise, however. The debate rumbled on and by 1869, a bold proposal was being discussed within the city's Board of Education. It was suggested that the Catholics should merge their schools with those of the board. To make this more palatable, it was proposed that all Bible readings and religious instruction should be prohibited in the schools: "the true object and intent of this rule [was] to allow the children of the parents, of all sects and opinions in matters of faith and worship, to enjoy alike the benefits of the common school fund." As matters fell out, the Catholic representatives withdrew from discussion, but the proposed ban on Bible reading and religious instruction still had to be decided upon by the board. A fierce debate— the so-called Ohio Bible War—ensued. The adherents of all major faiths, Jews as much as Protestants and Catholics, took up their positions. Meetings were held, editorials were written, and, when the board agreed to the ban, a legal action to gain an injunction was launched. Defenders of the ban made many a rousing speech: it was suggested by one participant that the very notion that America was a Christian nation was really a sham, and another supporter of the ban rested his case on the fact that all he wanted was "to bring the children of Protestants, Catholics, Jews— yea, of unbelievers—together in the common school." But all in vain. First a temporary and then a permanent injunction was granted by the Cincinnati

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Superior Court, but in 1873, this was overturned on appeal by the Ohio Supreme Court and the board's right to enact the ban on Bible reading and religious instruction was upheld. The incident revealed much about contemporary views on church/state relations and the place of the Roman Catholic Church in American society. Least edifying of all was the virulent anti-Catholicism that erupted when the ban was first proposed. There was also familiar talk about the dangers of letting religion disappear entirely from the public forum and of the disastrous consequences this would have for the nation's moral climate. At a meeting at Pike's Music Hall in September 1869, one speaker feared that the ban means . . . not merely the exclusion of the Bible, but the expurgation, from every text book in the common schools, of every religious sentiment. It means the abolition, from the text books of the schools of Cincinnati, of every recognition of Christianity, or God Almighty, or conscience, or of accountability to the Supreme Being. It means to put it in a single sentence to make the schools of Cincinnati schools of atheism. And I say, my fellow citizens, that it is the most outrageous and damnable proposition that has ever been made in respect to our common schools. Another speaker warned his audience of a "coalition which now seeks to expel the Bible from our public schools" and if they succeeded "in the real object which they are gradually coming at, the crushing out of all religious instruction, what will be the result? Who does not see that righteous men of all sects and creeds will then unite to tear down such a system? It will be far better, as one of the parties in this scheme proclaims, to have no public schools at all, than that they should be the 'godless' institutions which they would thus become." Those familiar with present-day debates over the place of religion in the public schools would surely be struck by how extraordinarily familiar some of those words and sentiments seem. ^ ^ *f

Contained within John Hughes's career are trends and tensions that would characterize the whole American Catholic experience. He would be fiercely loyal to Rome, and to the established structures and hierarchies of his church (he would, for instance, help to found the Pontifical North American College in Rome in 1859). But he also realized that the American Church was a unique institution. He struggled with the issue of how far Catholics ought to assimilate to the assumptions and aspirations of the wider culture—to a great degree in secular matters, he suggested, but never in ways that undermined the fundamentals of their faith. He insisted that the rights of Catholics—not to be beaten by nativist rioters, and not to have their children's ears filled with anti-Catholic bigotry courtesy of the taxpayer—ought

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to be respected, but he also argued that, just because they had a special way of worshiping God, this in no way meant that Catholics could not be good U.S. citizens. Convincing the population as a whole of this last argument was, indeed, the most efficient way of making sure that Catholic freedoms would not be jeopardized. Hughes himself had proven to be an efficient public servant during his career, traveling to Europe in 1861-1862 to drum up support for the Unionist cause, and meeting with Napoleon III. In his final public appearance, he would be seen restoring order in New York, urging Catholics to abandon their draft riots. He had also been willing to reach compromises, accepting the appointment of unofficial Catholic chaplains to the armies involved in the Mexican War of 1846-1848: official sanction would clearly have been preferable, but at least Catholic soldiers would now have their spiritual mentors with them. Perhaps his greatest dedication was to his New York flock. He was frank about the faults and frailties of the New York Irish: the scattered debris of the Irish nation, as he called them. He would seek to combat their abuses— especially their fondness for alcohol—and, through a campaign of urban evangelism, to revive their devotional appetites. Various religious orders would be invited to the diocese—Pietist Fathers, Christian Brothers, and Sisters of Mercy—to enhance charitable and educational initiatives. Above all, Hughes was determined that the members of his dioceses should learn to assert themselves, to seek out causes and symbols of which they could be proud. One such was St. John's College, founded by Hughes in 1841, which would later evolve into Fordham University. Another was St. Patrick's Cathedral. Hughes laid the cornerstone on Fifth Avenue in 1858, the building costs soon spiraled out of control, and Hughes died before its completion, but he was doggedly determined that it should be seen as a potent source of New York Catholic pride. The spiritual descendants of St. Patrick had been scattered over the world, he once said, and they were outcasts from their native land, but with such a cathedral rising from their adopted city's streets, they had assuredly found a new home. By the time of his death, Hughes had personally consecrated 100 new churches, he had seen his diocese's Catholic population double from 200,000 to 400,000 souls, and he had overseen an educational revolution at the end of which three-quarters of New York's parishes had their own school. He had also done much to solve the enigma of what it meant to be a Roman Catholic, eager to preserve the lessons and duties of tradition, living in the United States. SUGGESTED READING Ray Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (Chicago, 1964); Stephan Brumberg, "The Cincinnati Bible War

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(1869-1873) and Its Impact on the Education of the City's Protestants, Catholics, and Jews," American Jewish Archives Journal 54 (2004), 11-46; Jay Dolan, The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865 (Baltimore, 1975); John Hassard, Life of the Most Reverend John Hughes (New York, 1866); Lawrence Kehoe, ed., Complete Works of the Most Rev. John Hughes, 2 vols. (New York, 1866); J. W. Pratt, Religion, Politics and Diversity: The Church-State Theme in New York History (Ithaca, NY, 1967); and Richard Shaw, Dagger John: The Unquiet Life and Times of Archbishop John Hughes (New York, 1977).

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RALPH WALDO EMERSON 1803-1882

A Temple in the Heart The debate about American religious freedom has not only involved the passing of laws, the persecution of minorities, or the staging of trials. It has also been about the shifting trends in society's attitudes toward the role of religion in public life, about the relative value of tradition and innovation, and about the cohabitation of the individual conscience and the institutional framework of organized churches. In this history there have been figures who, even if they had almost nothing to say about something like the religious freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment, still did much to shape the broader cultural landscape that those freedoms inhabited. One such person, by virtue of both his deeds and his legacy, was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson was born on May 25, 1803, the third son of William Emerson, minister at the First Church of Boston, and Ruth Haskins, a profoundly devout woman, from whom Emerson probably derived much of his religious sensibility. His father died in 1811, when Emerson was only eight, and the effect on the family's finances obliged Emerson's mother to go out to work and take in boarders. Alongside the advantages offered by a literate household, Emerson was also much influenced in his youth by the religious thinking of his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson: a woman Emerson once described as being "the best writer in Massachusetts" during her prime. Emerson entered Harvard in 1817 and, although he only made a middling showing in his graduating class, he had spent much of his time at the university reading off syllabus and indulging his twin passions for painting and poetry. Emerson was already demonstrating his colossal capacity for devouring books, regularly rising as early as 4:30 in the morning to begin his day's studies. His years at Harvard had been financially impoverished but intellectually rewarding. Back in Boston after graduation, Emerson took up a position teaching at a girls' school run by his brother William. In 1823 the family moved to

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Roxbury, and Emerson's attachment to the Unitarian ideas of William Ellery Channing—his rejection of Trinitarian theology and the harsh decrees of Calvinist predestination—was cemented. By early 1824, Emerson had decided to pursue his burgeoning interest in theology, pledging to "dedicate my time, my talent and my hopes to the Church." After plowing through reading lists provided by Channing, Emerson abandoned his teaching career and, in February 1825, returned to Cambridge and registered at the Harvard Divinity School. Sadly, however, Emerson was overtaken by illness, a disease of the eye, which prevented him from continuing his studies. Undeterred, he was licensed by the Middlesex Association of Ministers in October 1826 and preached his first sermon. After a trip south during the winter of 1826-1827, Emerson returned to New England, gave sermons in and around Boston, and in January 1829 was elected as junior minister at Boston's Second Church. The following September, he married Ellen Tucker. Very quickly, however, Emerson began to have doubts about his future as a Unitarian clergyman, finding his duties too constricting and his own abilities somewhat lacking. As early as 1830, he was already writing in terms of an individualistic religious sensibility that presaged his later thought and brought his uneasiness with the formalism of the New England churches into focus. Following the personal, devastating tragedy of his wife's death in February 1831, Emerson's dissatisfaction with his professional career came to a head in September 1832. On the ostensible grounds that he felt unable to administer Holy Communion according to the prevailing fashion, Emerson decided to abandon his ministerial post. In his letter of resignation he claimed to "look back . . . with a painful sense of weakness to the little service" he had been able to provide. After a European trip, visiting Italy, France, and England, during which he met various luminaries (Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Carlisle among them), Emerson settled in Concord. The years 1834 and 1835 saw Emerson pursuing his extraordinary reading regimen, indulging his interest in natural science and writing some of his best poetry. One special area of interest was the history of the Quaker movement, whose stress on the inner light of religious faith and the central role of the individual in religious experience chimed in with Emerson's own developing theology. The movement's founder, George Fox—who had worked toward bringing "the universe into the possession of the single soul"—was one of the figures dealt with by Emerson in a series of biographical lectures given in 1835. That same year Emerson married Lydia Jackson. The next—controversial and prolific—stage of his public career was about to begin. * *

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Emerson would come to be known as one of the sages of New England Transcendentalism: a movement that, through its challenges to any number of existing orthodoxies, would serve to test the levels of genuine toleration

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within American society. It would also, with its passionate advocacy of selfreliance and original thought, help to create a freethinking tradition that would have an immense impact on the extent and nature of religious freedom in the nation's culture. Rejecting the empirical philosophy of John Locke, the Transcendentalists took up an idealist philosophy akin to that of Immanuel Kant. As Emerson himself explained in Boston in 1842, What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842. As thinkers, mankind have ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final, and say, the senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. The materialist insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances, and the animal wants of man; the idealist on the power of Thought and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture. But Transcendentalism—something that has always been difficult to define—was never merely about dry philosophizing. It was about a spiritual communion with the whole of nature that sometimes took on an almost mystical aspect. There was objective truth in the world, certainly, but the role of the subjective consciousness was never to be underestimated. Emerson would write of the experience of "standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God." Crucially, the philosophical musings of Transcendentalists would inspire concrete action in the worlds of literature, social change, and art. They would also provoke a reevaluation of the nature of religious belief and worship, questioning the assumptions of the Unitarian tradition out of which Transcendentalism had itself developed. The religious spirit was to be understood as a crucial facet of human nature, but it was not located in institutions, historically determined forms of worship, and ceremony: its habitation was the individual soul. In 1836, Emerson published his first major work, Nature, which served as something of a manifesto for the philosophical ideals of the movement that would grow up around figures such as Emerson, Mary Fuller, Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau. Alongside a steady round of lecture-giving, Emerson also helped to set up an informal Transcendentalist Club. The club, which first met at Willard's Hotel in Cambridge in 1836, was envisaged as a deliberate riposte to what its members perceived as the dust-dry intellectual climate of the Harvard establishment.

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It served extremely well to help its members refine their ideas, and has been aptly described as being "full of yeast and ferment." It was out of this club that The Dial would emerge in 1840: a forum for essays, commentary, and poetry, this journal was envisaged as furnishing "a medium for the free expression of thought on the questions which interest earnest minds in every community." During these years, Emerson would offer lectures on the philosophy of history and turn his attention to a number of political questions—opposing the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia, for instance—and until the end of his career he would seek to apply the conclusions of his philosophizing to any number of social issues: abolitionism, academic freedom, and women's educational and economic rights, to name only a few. In 1837 he would make use of the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard to launch a campaign for the independence of the American scholar, urging his countrymen, for all his love of Old World intellectuals like Goethe and Coleridge, to cast off the shackles of European tradition. The oration, with its implication that an institution such as Harvard was complicit in perpetuating a stultifying intellectual climate, was received in some quarters as an insult to the New England scholarly elite. It was on July 15, 1838, however, that Emerson's most famous meditation on religion was delivered to the senior class of the Harvard Divinity School—their families, friends, and professors all in attendance. It sent a shock wave through the American ecclesiastical establishment, and is deserving of close examination. Jf

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The speech began with what seemed like nothing more than an exercise in florid, pastoral description: In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy. The cool night bathes the world as with a river, and prepares his eyes again for the crimson dawn. The mystery of nature was never displayed more happily. But this was more than picturesque prosifying. It went to the heart of Emerson's argument: that it was to such glories of nature, rather than the stale traditions of established churches, that people should open up their souls. Emerson fumed against the "universal decay and now almost death of

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faith in society." A "sleep of indolence" had descended on the United States, and the responsibility rested squarely on the shoulders of the leaders of the organized Christian churches—the curators of a stale, inherited Christianity. Perhaps worst of all were the preachers: with their lack of enthusiasm, they failed to see that "they make [Christ's] gospel not glad, and shear him of the locks of beauty and the attributes of heaven." There were exceptions, Emerson granted, but "it is still true that tradition characterises the preaching of this country; that it comes out of the memory and not out of the soul; that it aims at what is usual, and not at what is necessary and eternal; that thus, historical Christianity destroys the power of preaching." Emerson remembered a recent occasion when he had endured the preaching of one such dust-dry formalist. "A snow storm was falling around us," Emerson remembered, and just as the snowstorm seemed fully real, so the preacher seemed "merely spectral." There was the saddest "contrast in looking at him, and then out of the window behind him, into the beautiful meteor of the snow." His very humanity seemed to be missing. No member of the congregation could have had the faintest intimation whether "he had laughed or wept, was married or in love, had been commended, or cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and acted, we were none the wiser for it." He was failing, signally, in his duty to "convert life into truth." Obviously, he must have "ploughed, and planted, and talked, and bought, and sold; he had read books; he had eaten and drunken." His head had doubtless ached, his heart throbbed, "yet was there not a surmise, a hint, in all the discourse, that he had ever lived at all. Not a line did he draw out of real history." "It seemed strange," therefore, "that the people should come to church." Why would they forsake their homely entertainments for this "thoughtless clamor"? For Emerson, such an experience summed up everything that was wrong with the churches of New England. What was truly lacking, so far as Emerson was concerned, was any sense of the intuitive truths about religion that the Transcendentalists were so eager to promulgate. "Historical Christianity" had "fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion . . . it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual." Instead of relying on dull tradition, ministers should realize that "the spirit only can teach." There were precious few churches where man was "made sensible that he is an infinite soul; that the earth and heavens are passing into his mind; that he is drinking forever the soul of God." Religious inspiration, a direct communion with an omnipresent God, was to be found in things like snowstorms, in vistas like the one described at the beginning of Emerson's address: "the faith should blend with the light of rising and of setting suns, with the flying clouds, the singing bird, and the breath of flowers." Instead, the Unitarian churches sought out their "objective" facts that proved Christ's revelation was "true." They doted on Christ's

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historical miracles without realizing that it was man's life that was the real miracle, without seeing that religious truths did not have to be proven: they were to be intuitively "known." And if "dry creaking formality" had taken hold, this surely had disastrous consequences. Public worship was no longer able to fasten on to the "affection of the good," or "the fear of the bad," and "what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship?" All things, from literature to science, would fall into decay, and society would become addicted to "trifles." Of course, Emerson had the solution. He implored his audience, made up of the next generation of clergymen, to become "newborn bard[s] of the Holy Ghost," to cast out all conformity. "Let the breath of new life be breathed by you through the forms already existing," Emerson concluded, and recognize the place where existing deformities could be remedied: "first, soul, and second, soul, and evermore, soul." Emerson's address caused an uproar. He had undermined the importance of biblical miracles, he had called the caliber of the whole ecclesiastical profession into question, and, perhaps most shocking of all, he had peddled his extraordinary Transcendentalist theology. In fact, to someone like the Harvard professor Andrews Norton, it was not theology at all, but merely the "latest form of infidelity." Norton had recently published his Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospel, precisely the kind of scholarship that Emerson regarded as hopelessly outdated. In the pages of the Boston Daily Advertiser, Norton lambasted Emerson's address as an incoherent rhapsody, warning that "such false preachers could have a disastrous effect upon the religious and moral state of the community." In a "restless craving for notoriety and excitement," Emerson had made the error of invoking the "disgusting obscurity of some of the worst German speculators." The address was nothing less than a "general attack upon the clergy" and an "insult to religion." Norton's outrage was matched by contributors to other newspapers across the country, and, while some of Emerson's supporters rushed to his defense, others cautiously remained silent. A year later, it was Norton's turn to address the Divinity School, and, in a thinly veiled assault on Emerson, he announced that "we meet in a revolutionary and uncertain state of religious opinion, existing throughout what is called the Christian world." With men like Emerson gaining such fame and notoriety, there was "little to guard us against the influence of the depraving literature and noxious speculations which flow in among us from Europe." Emerson's ideas were striking "directly at the root of faith in Christianity, and indirectly of all religion, by denying the miracles attesting the divine mission of Christ." They only served, through their gross misrepresentations, to "withdraw men's thoughts and affections" from Christianity. Emerson was embarrassed by the publicity his address had engendered. He even warned his friend Thomas Carlyle to abandon plans for an American lecture tour, as his association with Emerson would count against him

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among prospective audiences. Emerson lithely backed away from the controversy, but the process that Emerson had put in motion would bring somewhat harsher judgments down on other figures within the Transcendentalist camp. ¥ * ¥ Theodore Parker was born in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1810. He entered Harvard at the age of nineteen but was unable to keep up his tuition payments. Undeterred, Parker continued to work through the curriculum privately, and in 1832 set up an academy in Watertown. Having decided that his future lay with the ministry, Parker enrolled at the Harvard Divinity School, married Lydia Cabot in 1837, and was ordained as a minister at the West Roxbury Unitarian Church. It was already clear that Parker's theological musings were taking on a radical complexion. He was much influenced by contemporary European biblical criticism, and spent many years completing a translation of Wilhelm De Wette's Critical and Historical Introduction to the New Testament. Parker steadily worked out his theories regarding the nature of divine inspiration and challenged the Unitarian orthodoxy that the religious truths available through the exercise of reason ("natural religion") had to be supplemented by those truths only accessible via the "miraculous revelation" of the Bible. Parker declared that Emerson's Divinity School address was the "noblest, the most inspiring" thing he had ever heard. Unlike Emerson, Parker did not abandon his career within the Unitarian Church: rather he sought to reform it from within. This, in and of itself, made Parker a more obvious, and more annoying, enemy. In 1841, he delivered a sermon on the permanent and the transient in Christianity that was every bit as provocative as Emerson's address three years earlier. "Jesus of Nazareth believed the religion he taught would be eternal, that the substance of it would last forever," Parker began. In these latter days, however, the slightest deviation from orthodoxy met with a horrified response: "there are some who are affrighted by the faintest rustle which a heretic makes among the dry leaves of theology; they tremble lest Christianity itself should perish without hope." But, to calm such fears, it was only necessary to differentiate between Christianity's eternal truths and its shifting, temporary outward forms. The former was extraordinarily important—and just like Emerson, Parker would never have underestimated the vital role Christianity ought to play in every aspect of America's life and culture: Silence the voice of Christianity, and the world is well nigh dumb, for gone is that sweet music which kept in awe the rulers and the people, which cheers the poor widow in her lonely toil, and comes like light through the windows of morning, to men who sit stooping and feeble, with failing eyes and a hungering heart.

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But it was quite wrong to be overly concerned with the particular version of Christianity that flourished in a particular time and place. These had never been the same in any two countries or any two centuries: judging by the endless transformations of outward forms, nothing seemed more uncertain or perishable than the "history of what men call Christianity." It was folly for the present generation to object to any alteration in how people wanted to define or practice their Christianity: such alterations were inevitable—was there really a "difference between the nineteenth century and some seventeen that have gone before it?" Christianity had two components—the folly and uncertain wisdom of man, and the eternal truth of God. The problem with the churches of New England was that "transient things form a great part of what is commonly taught as Religion. An undue place has often been assigned to forms and doctrines, while too little stress has been laid on the divine life of the soul, love to God, and love to man." There was too much concern with "what passes for Christianity with Popes and catechisms, with sects and churches, in the first century or in the nineteenth century." With a decidedly Emersonian flourish, Parker urged his listeners to look within themselves for religious truth. We never are Christians as he was the Christ, until we worship, as Jesus did, with no mediator, with nothing between us and the Father of all. He felt that God's word was in him; that he was one with God. . . . The Christianity of sects, of the pulpit, of society, is ephemeral—a transitory fly. It will pass off and be forgot. Such remarks, especially when they led him to question the factuality of biblical miracles, brought Parker into considerable trouble. Three Trinitarian ministers had attended his sermon, and they published a summary of his argument along with a call for the Unitarian Church to disown him. In the coming years, many within the Unitarian fraternity took their advice, refusing even to speak with Parker in the street; calling him an atheist, a Deist, and an infidel; and refusing (as was the custom) to exchange their pulpits with him. When one minister, John Sargent, did make a pulpit exchange he was told never to make such an error again: to which stricture Sargent responded by proffering his resignation. Parker's own West Roxbury Congregation remained loyal to him, but as for the twenty-five members of the Boston Association of Congregational Ministers, they sought to exclude Parker from their number and, when he refused to leave the association, they ostracized him instead. Parker began to supplement his West Roxbury services with lectures at the Melodeon Theater, and out of these the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society of Boston emerged in December 1845. As this new project blossomed, so Parker's alienation from the Unitarian establishment deepened. Parker

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remained an influential figure in the Boston intellectual landscape: he continued to codify his radical theologizing, introducing a decidedly sociological element to his thought, and proving to be a keen advocate of abolitionism, women's suffrage, and the rights of the urban poor. Nonetheless, he was cast adrift of the Bostonian Unitarian elite he had once so craved to belong to. His story is a reminder that American religious freedoms—in this case, the ability to function fully and unhindered as a minister—could sometimes be assaulted in more subtle ways than outright acts of persecution. ¥ ¥

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However much criticism the Divinity School address brought Emerson, it manifestly did nothing to check the growth of his national reputation. Over the next decades, he would produce much-praised and popular books (his two series of Essays, his Representative Men, and his English Traits being among the most celebrated) and embark on any number of speaking tours— over the course of his public career, Emerson would deliver as many as 1,500 lectures. His readings expanded ever more into the religious traditions of other cultures—Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—and he embarked on an increasingly impassioned attack on the institution of slavery. Personal tragedy, none more appalling than the death of his son Waldo in January 1842; bouts of ill health; and moments of financial insecurity would provide a counterpoint to Emerson's burgeoning national fame. There would be further trips to Europe—Emerson would be in France at the moment of Revolution in 1848—and opportunities, thanks to his lecture tours, to see the far western reaches of his country: a nation that Emerson sometimes feared was failing hopelessly to live up to its full potential—"we live in Lilliput," he once claimed. In July 1872, fire destroyed the Emersons' home and the disaster seems to have marked the beginning of a rapid decline in Emerson's spirits. With his memory and health abandoning him, Emerson more and more took on the role of a recluse. He died in Concord on April 27, 1882. Although Emerson had never again launched quite so explicit an attack on the religious establishment as was contained in the Divinity School address, he had continued to preach the virtues of self-reliance and to further refine his understanding of the operation of the soul and the all-pervasive presence of God in his creation. To the champions of orthodoxy there was an obvious threat in this, and eyebrows would continue to be raised whenever Emerson talked of the "influx of the Divine mind into our mind" or of looking forward to the day when "we have broken our God of tradition, and ceased from our God of rhetoric." Those whose careers depended on the existence of an elevated priestly class, those who derived their influence from their role as guardians and interpreters of tradition, were never likely to be overly impressed by Emerson's talk of direct communion with God, or his urging people to seek the truth

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from within their own reflections. "The faith that stands on authority is not faith," Emerson declared in his essay on "the over-soul"; "the reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul." Such remarks could only ever have been controversial. Indeed, the reception of the Transcendentalist movement as a whole taught the United States an important lesson about just what sorts of theologizing it was willing to accept and tolerate. What could never be called into question, however, was the legacy Emerson bequeathed to the twin American traditions of intellectual independence and free thought, ably encapsulated by two of the men upon whom Emerson had so profound an effect: Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. Emerson was never the enemy of religion. He merely wanted to make it new. As he complained in Nature, "Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchers of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?" Meditating on the nature of "worship" in The Conduct of Life, Emerson articulated his profound faith in the necessity of religious belief to a fulfilled human existence. We are born believing, he explained, and man carried this belief "as a tree bears apples." But it remained a tragedy that "I and my neighbors have been bred in the notion, that, unless we came soon to some good church—Calvinism, or Behmenism, or Romanism, or Mormonism— there would be a universal thaw and dissolution." But the "stern old faiths have all pulverized," and a "whole population of gentlemen and ladies" were out in search of religions. There seemed to be a "flat anarchy in our ecclesiastic realms." But the fact that Calvin's or Wesley's or Channing's influence had fallen away "need give us no uneasiness." Religion could never vanish unless the soul itself were dissipated. God would always build "his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions." Forms of worship come and go, and "we live in a transition period, when the old faiths which comforted nations, and not only so, but made nations, seem to have spent their force." On the face of things, at least, there seemed to be much to be wary of. A divorce between religion and morality seemed to be a genuine threat: one only had to look toward the "know-nothing religions, or churches that proscribe intellect . . . slave-holding and slavetrading religions." Many complained that people had succumbed to despair, had been "corrupted into a timorous conservatism, and believe in nothing." Some held that faith in the moral universe had been replaced by "faith in chemistry, in meat, and wine, in wealth, in machinery, in the steam-engine, galvanic battery, turbine-wheels, sewing machines, and in public opinion." In such a world, the critics urged, "not knowing what to do, we ape our

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ancestors; the churches stagger backward to the mummeries of the dark ages." But this was a skeptical way of looking at the world. "Imbecility and terrors" certainly abounded, but to assume human virtue had vanished was a colossal error. The "moral sense reappears today with the same morning newness that has been from of old the fountain of beauty and strength." To say that there was no longer any religion would be like saying that, in rainy weather, there was no sun. Yes, organized religion was despoiled and stultified, but that did not extinguish the "presence, dwelling very peacefully in us," of "our rightful lord." "Souls are not saved in bundles," Emerson explained. The spirit was still at work, asking each individual soul, "How is it with thee? thee personally? is it well? is it ill?" The old forms had decayed, and tinkering with theological creeds was no kind of solution. It was time to "forget your books and traditions, and obey your moral perceptions," to look to "those sentiments which make the glory of the human being, love, humility, faith." It was time to act: "the weight of the universe is pressed down on the shoulders of each moral agent to hold him to his task." It was time to forge a new religion, fitted for the age. It must be intellectual: modern man had a scientific mind, and so his faith must be scientific too. "There will be a new church founded on moral science, at first cold and naked, a babe in a manger again." It would lack the rituals and paraphernalia of older faiths, but it would have "heaven and earth for its beams and rafters; science for symbol and illustration; it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry." Here was, assuredly, a call for religious freedom: for an equalizing, leveling faith that, while offering endless potential, also carried hefty duties. The last lesson of life, the choral song which rises from all elements and all angels, is a voluntary obedience, a necessitated freedom. Man is made of the same atoms as the world is, he shares the same impressions, predispositions, and destiny. When his mind is illuminated, when his heart is kind, he throws himself joyfully into the sublime order, and does, with knowledge, what the stones do by structure.

SUGGESTED READING Catherine Albanese, ed., The Spirituality of the American Transcendentalists: Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Theodore Parker, and Henry Thoreau (Macon, GA, 1988); Charles Capper and Conrad Wright, ed., Transient and Permanent: The Transcendentalist Movement and Its Contexts (Boston, 1999); Peter Field, Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Making of a Democratic Intellectual (Lanham, MD, 2002); Dean Grodzins, American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism (Chapel Hill, NC, 2002); Robert D. Habich,

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"Emerson's Reluctant Foe: Andrews Norton and the Transcendental Controversy," New England Quarterly 65 (1992), 208-37; Robert Richardson, Emerson: The Mind on Fire (Berkeley, CA, 1995); and Albert von Frank, ed., The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 4 vols. (Columbia, MO, 1989-1992).

JOSEPH SMITH (1805-1844) The Cry of the Oppressed Mormonism is hard to define. Is it a unique brand of Christianity—a fulfillment of the Christian tradition, as its founder, Joseph Smith, believed—or a new, particularly American sort of faith? What is certain is that among the many religious experiments of the nineteenth-century United States, the trials and accomplishments of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints obliged Americans to interrogate notions of religious freedom afresh. Mormons would be pilloried, tarred, and feathered; they would leave many audiences puzzled; and they would be dismissed as cranks and have their presses smashed, but it was impossible to deny the vibrancy and radicalism of their enterprise. For two decades in the middle of the century, it was very hard to ignore Joseph Smith—prophet, pilgrim, and presidential candidate—the creator of a homegrown American religion. The emergence of this novel, controversial church would serve, as never before, to test America's commitment to the ideals enshrined in the First Amendment. Smith was born at Sharon, in Windsor County, Vermont, on December 23, 1805, one of eleven children. The family of Joseph Smith, Sr., and Lucy Mack (married since 1796) would struggle through the first decades of the century. They would struggle as farmers, laborers, and shopkeepers in Vermont and New York. And they would struggle with their faith, located on the edges of New England Congregationalism. It was a confused religious milieu, saturated with enthusiastic revivalism and mistrust of traditional clerical authority. From his father, Smith would inherit a suspicion of organized religion and a passion for buried treasure and magical revelation. Smith, who only ever enjoyed a sporadic formal education, was the product of his time and place in history, the so-called burned-over-district of the deprived Vermont/New York borderlands: a place that would provide America with more than its share of radical theologies, charismatic leaders, and bold quests for redemption.

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There was endless scope for confusion in such an environment, and at age fourteen Smith decided to pray for some guidance, asking his maker to reveal which was the one true church among the swarm of sects. Smith claimed that "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun . . . when the light rested upon me I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description." The two figures, the divine Father and Son, forgave his sins and told him to separate himself from all existing churches. When Smith recounted the experiences to those around him, they were dismissed as the fantastical outpourings of an overactive adolescent imagination. One Methodist minister suggested that Smith had been deceived by the devil. On September 21, 1823, Smith received another series of visions. An angel calling himself Moroni appeared in a "loose robe of the most exquisite whiteness" and, after once more forgiving Smith's sins, told him of a sacred history and prophecy that had been engraved on golden tablets. Smith was to gain possession of the plates, then translate them, and a new priesthood was to be revealed to him. On the next night, Moroni revealed where they were buried: on a hill not far from the Smiths' 100-acre property. The following day, Smith found the burial site, but although it was ultimately to be Smith's duty to recover the tablets (along with a translation key), he was not to be granted the privilege immediately. He was told to return to the site each year on September 22, and on his fifth visit—in 1827— he finally gained possession of the tablets: earlier thoughts about their commercial value, he insisted, had now entirely vanished. Based in Harmony, Pennsylvania, the hometown of his new wife, Emma Hale, Smith set about his work of translation with the assistance of Martin Harris (a wealthy farmer who became Smith's secretary in February 1828) and Oliver Cowdery (a schoolteacher who joined the group in April 1829). After various setbacks, including the loss of a large section (116 pages) of the translated manuscript, 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon were printed byy Egbert B. Grandin in 1830 at the cost of $3,000. Mormons would believe that the Book of Mormon enjoyed the same canonical status as the Old and New Testaments. It was seen as the fulfillment of earlier prophecies, of the "sealed book" mentioned in Isaiah, the final dispensation of the Almighty. The book told of a millennia-long history, beginning with the flight from Jerusalem to the Americas of a Hebrew prophet, Lehi, in around 600 B.C. After his resurrection, it was revealed, Christ had visited the Americas, ordained disciples, and established a flourishing church. Subsequently, however, divisions had arisen between the descendants of Lehi's sons. In time, one group had destroyed the other, but the vanquished group had always kept written records, and it was from these that one of the defeated group's last prophets, Mormon, had derived the historical account engraved on golden tablets. He had passed these on to his son, Moroni, who had buried them beneath the hill from which Smith had

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recovered them. (Significantly, Mormons also believed that the descendants of the victorious group, the Lamanites, were none other than the ancestors of the present-day Native American tribes—people, it was suggested, who could be once more introduced to their forgotten faith.) Although the Book of Mormon was widely denounced as a fraud, Smith did manage to attract a few followers, and on April 6, 1830, the church (renamed as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1834) was formally instituted in Fayette, New York. Smith had continued to receive visions and, confident that he was the true inheritor of the authority of the ancient priesthood, he announced himself as the church's prophet, seer, translator, and first elder, with Cowdery as his second-in-command. * *

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Wherever they went during these first decades, Mormons would receive a hostile reception. Smith himself would be tarred and feathered in March 1832, and spurious charges (from assault and battery to attempted murder) would regularly be made against Mormon leaders. Critics started producing tracts aimed at discrediting the movement: Alexander Campbell's Delusions (1832), Eber D. Howe's Mormonism Unveiled (1834), and William Harris's Mormonism Portrayed (1841) were among the first influential broadsides against the church. The fulfillment of an ancient covenant, the preparation for an imminent Second Coming, would prove to be difficult work. One of the key duties of the new church was to take its teachings to the Indians of the western frontier: the descendants, so it was supposed, of the ancient peoples mentioned in the Book of Mormon. In 1830, four missionaries headed west but, after a spell of evangelism, were told to desist by the government. However, during their journey the Mormons had stopped off at Kirtland, Ohio, and won over an impressive number of converts. After receiving a new revelation, Smith resolved to move the church's entire operation there. Smith would remain in Kirtland until 1838, beginning work on a Mormon temple (dedicated in 1836), continuing to define the church's ethos and ecclesiastical structure (establishing the "Quorum of the Twelve Apostles" in 1835), dispatching missionaries to Europe and across the United States, and receiving revelations that forbade Mormons from using tobacco or alcohol. However, the Book of Mormon also spoke of the building of a New Jerusalem where the Second Coming could be awaited. This Zion was to be somewhere deeper in America's western territories, perhaps on a site near Independence in Jackson County, Missouri, to which Mormon missionaries traveled in 1831. As one of the Mormon articles of faith has it, "we believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the ten tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory."

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Unfortunately, many of the residents of Jackson County were far from happy with the Mormons' arrival. Violent clashes between locals and members of the church ensued and, in the fall of 1833, the church was driven out. Time was spent in Clay County, across the Missouri, and then the state governor allowed lands in Caldwell County to be opened up for the church's use. In 1838, after Smith's Kirtland bank failed and anti-Mormon sentiment reached epidemic levels, the church's leader also decided to head to Missouri. But the people of Caldwell County soon began to resent the Mormon presence, especially after members of the church (voting en masse) had appeared likely to influence the outcome of local elections in 1838. Pitched battles between Mormons and locals now began to erupt—in late October, a 250-strong mob shot twenty Mormons dead (the "Haun's Mill Massacre")—just days after Governor Lilburn Boggs had ordered the church to leave the territory: the "Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public good. Their outrages are beyond all description." While Smith was seeing out a prison sentence (charged with treason), his followers crossed the border into Illinois in 1839. Allowed to escape from jail in April, Smith proceeded to join them on new lands secured at Commerce and across the river in Iowa. It was here—in the town renamed as Nauvoo—that another Mormon experiment in communal living, where property was to be redistributed according to need, and where surplus profits were to be collected in a general treasury, began to take shape. In response to the Missouri expulsion, the church set about flexing its propagandist muscles. John Green, for instance, traveled to Cincinnati in 1839 to recount the outrages suffered by his brethren. The Mormons did not care if people agreed with their beliefs, he explained. They were content if people thought their doctrines evil, but the events in Missouri were not about theology; they were about the contravention of basic American rights. Fellow citizens. . . . Turn not a deaf ear to this cry of the oppressed! The Mormons are outlawed, exiled, robbed . . . they ask of your justice and your charity that you befriend them. They have suffered these outrages from mob violence; they bid you beware, lest licentiousness unreproved bring ruin to your own privileges. Law has been trampled down, and liberty of conscience violated, and all rights of citizenship and brotherhood outraged by the house-burnings, field-wastings, insults, whippings, murders, which they have suffered; and in the name of humanity and of heaven, they pray you to utter the indignant condemnation merited by such crimes. In late 1839, Smith went to Washington, seeking compensation for the loss of lands in Missouri. President Van Buren proved unhelpful, but back in Illinois, Smith asked the local authorities to charter his new town of Nauvoo

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and to allow Mormons control of municipal government. The request was granted, and over the coming months and years, converts from across the United States and Europe began to flood in. Missionary projects continued to be launched, and in 1841, the doctrine of eternal marriage and its support of polygamy were first promulgated. In March 1844, a Council of Fifty was set up to oversee the smooth running of the community's theocratic government. Some within the church, notably William Law and Sidney Rigdon, were not convinced of the desirability of Mormon polygamy. Others began to suggest that Smith was concentrating far too much power in his own hands. When Smith announced his intention to enter the 1844 presidential race, local Whig and Democratic politicians—realizing that they would now lose access to the Mormon vote—entered the ranks of Smith's enemies. By April of that year, Mormon dissenters had established a newspaper (the Nauvoo Expositor) and a reformed church of their own. The town council—headed by mayor Joseph Smith—declared that the newspaper was a public nuisance and closed down its presses. As a result of this action, and the riot it allegedly incited, Smith was arrested in June. He was taken to Carthage jail and began to experience premonitions of death. They proved to be prescient. On June 27, a mob with blackened faces stormed the prison and murdered Smith and his brother Hyrum. ¥ ¥

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Joseph Smith would be honored as a martyr. Indeed, he had always told his followers—and given the circumstances, this was certainly a wise policy—that persecution was something to be embraced. If they were called to pass through tribulation, he explained, if they were accused and threatened, even if "they tear you from the society of your father and mother and brethren and sisters," if they were cast into a pit or into the hands of murderers or were sentenced to death, or if the "very jaws of hell shall gape open" before them, they were to know that "these things shall give you experience, and shall be for your good." It was a message that, by the time of Smith's death, 26,000 church members would be contemplating. The response to Mormonism was mixed. One writer in the 1840s took up what he presumably regarded as an evenhanded position. The great majority of the "Latter Day Saints" are honest and sincere fanatics, I have no reason to doubt. They have made great sacrifices and endured severe and protracted persecution for their faith. The reports circulated against them by their unprincipled enemies in the west are in the main destitute of foundation. I place no dependence upon charges made against them by the ruffian mob of the Mississippi valley, and the reckless slave-drivers, who, at the point of the bayonet and the bow knife, expelled them from Missouri, and signalized their

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Christian crusade against unbelievers by murdering old men, and violating their innocent wives and daughters. Smith himself was now dead: "he died by the hands of wicked and barbarous men, a martyr." Smith could not "have been wholly insincere," or, "if so in the outset, it is more than probable that his extraordinary success, his wonderful power over the minds of men" had caused him to "seem a miracle and a marvel to himself; and, like Mohammed and Napoleon, to consider himself a chosen instrument of the eternal power." This was about as sympathetic a press as the church received: it was often a good deal more hostile. What, though, were the roots of anti-Mormon sentiment, the reasons behind the concerted campaign to prevent Mormons from practicing their faith where and how they chose? Some critics were motivated by a desire for revenge. John C. Bennett, a former mayor of Nauvoo, having been excommunicated from the church, embarked on a lecture tour which Mormons felt obliged to follow and disrupt at every opportunity. As for the hostile reaction of the wider culture, the church's staggering success was certainly one factor. Already in 1837, one writer was calling upon the citizens of the United States to arouse from your slumbers, for the enemy of truth is abroad in the land. Our beloved country is overrun with the propagators of the most mischievous delusion that has been recorded since the creation of man; and the consequence is that thousands are annually embracing it. Smith was adamant that his church was not a theological novelty, but rather a restoration of the true religion of Christ. Others were not convinced of this. The church may have had its positive emphases—a rejection of Calvinistic predestination and an optimistic view of human nature—but some onlookers were rather more concerned with the church's talk of immediate revelations from God, with its rejection of original sin and the traditional division between priests and laity. The belief in an actual, imminent second coming of Christ was hardly exceptional in the early decades of the nineteenth century, but, to many minds, the extraordinary story of the Book of Mormon, not least the assertion that, after the resurrection Christ had walked on American soil and established a Christian church, was simply too incredible. Much energy was expended by the church's enemies in denouncing it as a fraud, a work of plagiarism. Just as importantly, Mormon communities were perceived as self-righteous and exclusionist. With their communitarian idealism they challenged the assumptions of local economies, and with their habit of voting as a block in elections, they had the potential to bring chaos to local politics. Crucially, Mormons—however much they were forced into it—regularly moved in large numbers to new locations, stirring up ever-present fears of the

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disruptive consequences of mass migration. The church was also, because of its belief in the imminence of the Second Coming, forced into the most energetic missionary activity. Such zeal was not always welcome. In sum, with its undeniably dynamic leader, the church struck some people as little more than a theocratic despotism: a challenge to the democratic spirit of the U.S. Republic. During the 1850s, one journal article summed up the feeling that Mormonism simply did not suit the mood of the mid-nineteenth-century United States: One of the most striking features in the history of modern fanaticism is unquestionably the progress of Mormonism in the United States. That an uneducated youth, without the recommendation of decent morality, and in fact notorious only for a vagrant and dissolute life, should create and excite a new and revolutionary movement in the religious world, and be able to operate on the public mind by means of the most absurd pretences to the divine and prophetic character, and that too in an age and amongst a people who boast of their general intelligence, is a paradox scarcely to be accounted for on any known laws of the human mind. But within that paradox, there was no more worrying feature than the morality that Joseph Smith had espoused. For a decade, "strange whispers began to be breathed over the country" that charged Smith with an attempt to establish a system of polygamy "in defiance of reason, morals and law" and to "enforce it as a religious observance among his infatuated followers." This was an "odious practice, which Christianity centuries ago abolished, and which the civilised world has uniformly discarded and punished." When Smith first made declarations about multiple marriage in the 1840s (although it seems likely he had been meditating on the issue for as long as a decade before this), many eminent Mormons were conflicted. Brigham Young confessed that at the time, it "was the first time in my life that I desired the grave." As for the response in the wider culture, it was the issue of Mormon polygamy that would most influence the American debate on religious freedom. Ignorant, bullying mobs had been responsible for the early persecution of Mormon communities. When it came to deciding whether American civil society could countenance the practice of multiple marriage, matters were passed on to the nation's jurists. * ^

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The Morrill Act of 1862 introduced new fiscal and custodial punishments for individuals convicted of bigamy. It was often difficult to prove that people had taken part in ceremonies that made polygamists of them, so most convictions relied on demonstrating the crime of bigamous cohabitation.

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There was nothing exceptional in the conviction of George Reynolds, a Utah Mormon. The trouble was, Reynolds had been given permission by his church to have more than one wife: indeed his church suggested that failure to do so might well have perilous consequences for his eternal soul. Here was a quandary. How were an individual's rights to exercise his religious beliefs to be reconciled with the state's needs to uphold the law of the land? In the Supreme Court case of Reynolds v. United States in 1879, Chief Justice Morrison Waite offered this answer: Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and until the establishment of the Mormon church was almost exclusively a feature of life of Asiatic and of African people. At common law the second marriage was always void and from the earliest history of England polygamy has been treated as an offence against society. It was an example that the United States readily followed: "it may safely be said [that] there never has been a time in any state of the Union when polygamy has not been an offence against society, cognizable by the civil courts." In other words, claims for the right to free exercise could be pushed too far. Marriage was a civil contract and, therefore, very much the business of government. "Upon it society may be said to be built, and out of its fruits spring social relations and social obligations and duties with which government is necessarily required to deal." "It is impossible to believe," Waite suggested, "that the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom was intended to prohibit legislation in respect to this most important feature of social life." If polygamy was to be allowed in order to salve individuals' consciences, what would be next? "Suppose [a person] believed that human sacrifice were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice?" A person could believe absolutely anything he wanted, but in the name of social order there sometimes had to be limits to how he could act. Over the next century and a half, the issue raised by a member of Joseph Smith's fledgling church—the balance between religious freedoms and the social good—would come to dominate debates about the nature and limits of free exercise. The 1880s saw an escalation in the campaign to stamp out Mormon polygamy, and more than 1,300 members of the church spent time in jail. The Edmunds Act of 1882 forbade polygamists from serving on juries, excluded them from public office, and removed their right to vote. Five years later, the Edmunds-Tucker Act threatened the very survival of the church and authorized the seizure of real estate not used for religious purposes. Faced with such pressures, the church's president, Wilford Woodruff, acting

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for the "temporal salvation of the Church," ended the Mormon commitment to plural marriage. In a sense, the dream of a self-governing Zion was at an end. Like everyone else, Mormons were citizens of a territory (which became a state in 1896) that was ruled according to the rubrics of state and federal law. Mormonism, faced with misunderstanding and hostility, had begun by striving to isolate itself from what Smith described as the "outside world." His successor, Brigham Young (1801-1877), oversaw a dramatic removal, away from neighbors who had proved unable to tolerate the Mormon Church. Having pledged never to "winter again in the United States," a country to which the Mormons did "not owe a single sermon," he led the church to a "far distant region of the west where bigotry, intolerance and insatiable oppression lose their power." The great Mormon march, from Nauvoo to Illinois, to Omaha, Nebraska, and finally to the Salt Lake Basin, began in 1847. Ultimately, though, Utah (a place transformed by the agricultural and economic efforts of the church) would not remain isolated from the nation, and Mormons would face the enduring challenge of preserving their theological uniqueness at the same time as staking a claim as fully fledged citizens of the republic. They would also confront the potential and the pitfalls of becoming a worldwide faith, with 11 million adherents by the year 2000. The historical irony is that a church that was established as an antidote and solution to the confusion of early-nineteenth-century religious pluralism would emerge as an advocate (at least until the day of Christ's return) of that very pluralism and its protection under the terms of the First Amendment. It was a lesson that, as a result of its own bitter experience, the Mormon Church learned very quickly. As one Mormon newspaper declared in the midst of the Missouri persecutions, if Americans wanted to "help perpetuate the great legacy of freedom which came unimpaired from the hands of our venerable fathers, they will also protect us from insult and injury." This was a plea that would be heard from novel religious movements down to the present day.

SUGGESTED READING Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints (Urbana, IL, 1992); Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana, IL, 1984); Douglas Davies, An Introduction to Mormonism (Cambridge, MA, 2003); Terry L. Givens, The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths and the Construction of Heresy (Oxford, 1997); Klaus J. Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (Chicago, 1981); Donna Hill, Joseph Smith, the First Mormon (Garden City, NY, 1977); H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters, Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record (Salt Lake City, UT, 1998); Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana, IL, 1985); and Kenneth H. Winn, Exiles in a Land of Liberty: Mormons in America, 1830-1846 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1989).

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ISAAC MAYER WISE (1819-1900) An Open Gate Isaac Mayer Wise (to use the anglicized version of his surname from the outset), the son of Leo and Regina Wise, was born in March 1819 in the Bohemian town of Steingrub, close to the German border. After spells at various schools (the details and exact chronology of Isaac's early life are somewhat hazy), Wise seems to have taken various courses at the universities of Prague and Vienna. In 1842 he appeared before the Prague Beth Din, received some variety of rabbinical diploma, and took up duties with the Jewish congregation at Radnitz, Bohemia, in 1843. In the following year he married Therese Bloch, with whom he would have ten children. These were dynamic years for European Judaism. Conscious of the values and nostrums of Enlightenment and postrevolutionary civilization, a movement had emerged, which sought to reform the Jewish faith. While there was always a commitment not to undermine fundamental Jewish beliefs, leaders of this movement hoped to rid their faith of unhelpful, unnecessary anachronisms in prayer and ritual, and to replace traditional isolation and particularism with a sense of universalism. Judaism was to be seen as a historical faith, one that ought to develop with changing historical eras, and one whose message was available to the whole of humanity: as Wise himself later put it, "God has selected the people of Israel from among all nations to be the bearers of divine truth, and to diffuse the bright light of religion among mankind." The first recognizably reform congregation had emerged in Hamburg in 1818, and hallmark reforms—the use of the vernacular for some prayers and sermons, organ music, and the exclusion of certain prayers (for the rebuilding of the Temple, for a return to ancient sacrifices)—were carried through. Though Reform always had its Orthodox critics, the movement spread out during the coming years to Austria, Hungary, Holland, Denmark, England, and, of course, the United States—although it is crucial to stress that Wise's own efforts to transform Judaism were related to, but

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far from synonymous with, the European Reform movement. Indeed, the broader issue of the relationship between European Reform Judaism and developments in the nineteenth-century United States has been a matter of strenuous scholarly debate. It is certainly wise to caution against an assumption that European ideas simply "migrated," unchanged, to America. For all the energy of European Judaism during these years, Jews in many countries were still socially and politically disadvantaged, and a steady stream of immigrants continued to make its way to the United States. In 1846, Isaac Wise decided to join them. After a sixty-three-day sea voyage from Bremen, he arrived at New York on July 23 with two dollars in his pocket. ¥ ¥

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American Jewish history had begun in 1654 with the arrival of a party of twenty-three Sephardic Jews in New Amsterdam. At first, Governor Peter Stuyvesant sought to prevent members of a "repugnant race" from settling in the colony, but he was overridden by the directors of the Dutch West India Company back in Holland. Four years later, fifteen Jewish families arrived in the more hospitable refuge of Rhode Island, and their descendants would go on to erect the Touro Synagogue (America's oldest) in 1763. During the colonial period the Jewish population in America was always tiny (perhaps 2,000 at the time of the Revolution, with a community of roughly 500 living in Charleston). In many places, Jews were allowed to trade and worship openly, although they were generally excluded from any role in political life and were often expected to contribute through their taxes to the upkeep of established Christian churches. There were, to be sure, moments of outright anti-Jewish violence but, on the whole, colonial anti-Semitism was characterized by the circulation, in both elite and popular culture, of ugly, insulting Jewish stereotypes. In the wake of the Revolution and the constitutional settlement, it seemed as if the standing of American Jews, now on an equal civil footing at the federal level and in any new states, had much improved. In 1790, for instance, the Jewish congregation in Newport wrote to George Washington and offered an adoring analysis of the new Republic: "Deprived as we have hitherto been of the invaluable rights of free citizens, we now . . . behold a government. . . which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance . . . but generally affording to all liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship . . . deeming everyone, of whatever nation, tongue or language, equal parts of the great governmental machine." At state level, however, many of the old prejudices remained intact, and by 1820 only seven of the original states had constitutions that recognized Jews politically. A typical debate took place in Maryland in 1826 when legislation was proposed that would finally allow Jews to participate in the state's political process. When the Presbyterian Thomas Kennedy supported the Jewish cause, he was branded an "enemy of Christianity." Throughout the

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debate, arguments were predicated on the idea that the United States was a Christian nation. After all, back in 1811, James Kent, the chief justice of New York's highest court, had been able to confidently declare that "we are a Christian people and the morality of this country is deeply engrained upon Christianity and not upon the doctrines or worship of impostors." Quite how Jews were expected to react to such remarks, quite how they were to behave in a society that was pervaded by Christian morals, ethics, and assumptions, was a conundrum that Isaac Mayer Wise would spend the rest of his career seeking to unravel. Indeed, the nineteenth-century Jewish experience serves as an excellent reminder that the debate about religious freedom is about matters other than outright persecution. The Jewish population would soar over the course of the nineteenth century, to perhaps 150,000 by 1860, and with the influx of Ashkenazi Jews from Central Europe, the homogeneity of the old Sephardic communities would be shattered. The questions of how American Judaism ought to organize itself, of how far it ought to strive to assimilate with American culture, would become urgent. If American Jews were to enjoy religious freedom, how ought they to behave? Was the pressure to assimilate in itself a subtle assault on their religious freedom? Ultimately, how was the very notion of Jewishness to be defined? There had been several experiments in Reform Judaism in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century—at Charleston in 1824, and at Baltimore in 1842, when the first overtly reformed congregation was set up at Temple Har Sinai. In 1846, Isaac Mayer Wise (who had now anglicized his surname) took up his duties as rabbi to the congregation Beth El in Albany, New York. It would be a mistake to portray Wise as a radical reformer at this or any other stage of his career. Unlike his great rival, the Baltimore rabbi David Einhorn, Wise's primary aim was always to achieve as great a measure of union within America's Jewish community as possible. He did advocate many changes in ritual and liturgy, but he usually did so gradually and with care. Indeed, gradual change, often directed by a dynamic rabbi, would be a hallmark of the American Reform tradition. In Albany, Wise did seem to have alienated sections of his congregation— although this has perhaps as much to do with rivalry between a determined rabbi and an assertive laity as with Wise's reforms. In April 1849, a document was produced by the congregation's board of directors outlining Wise's duties, and it was made very clear that he was not to make any further changes in the synagogue's ritual without gaining the consent of the congregation. At the same time, however, Wise's position was confirmed for a further three years and he received a pay rise. Tensions seemed to have been eased: but another crisis was in the offing. Wise had begun to insist that his congregation pay more attention to proper Sabbath observance, not least by shutting their stores on Saturday. One of the board of directors refused, and the president of the board feared that Wise would publicly denounce him during a synagogue service. As a

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precautionary measure, Wise was ordered to stop preaching. He refused, and as a local paper reported in September 1850, chaos ensued: It seems that [the congregation] are not all united in love for Reverend Mr Wise, their spiritual adviser, and one portion have laboured with great zeal to remove him from his pastoral station: while the other portion have been equally zealous in maintaining him in his position . . . the congregation assembled very early when a strife arose between the two sections as to whether the Reverend Mr Wise should or should not officiate. It seems that as soon as the attempt was made by Mr Wise to conduct the ceremonies a general melee commenced. Argument, passion and conciliation were dispensed with and angry words, threatenings and even blows were committed. The die was cast and Wise's relationship with the Congregation Beth El was at an end. It was an inglorious moment, provoked not only by the Sabbath observance issue, but also by a series of clashes and squabbles between Wise and leading members of the congregation. For a while Wise conducted services in his home and then, with fifty-six members of his old synagogue and twenty-six new recruits, he set up a new congregation. For the next four years, Wise would continue down the road of gradual transformation, seeking funds from the Jewish communities in New York and Washington, and consecrating a new synagogue in October 1851, in which men and women sat together and in which organ music and choral singing were to be heard. It should be stressed, of course, that overly radical reform was still no part of Wise's agenda, which rather begs the question: what was? Wise's greatest concern was with the disunity that blighted the American Jewish community. Not least because of the various national origins of American Jews, every congregation "pursues its own way, has its own customs and mode of worship . . . one Jew is a stranger in the synagogue of another Jew." Wise had declared in 1848 that there was "one grand and sublime end" that all American Jews should be striving toward: "to defend and maintain our sacred faith." If this was to be achieved, the Jewish community would have to be "linked together by the ties of equal views concerning religious questions—by uniformity in our sacred customs, in our forms of worship and religious education." It was just as important, however, for the Jewish community to stress its uniqueness. Wise was appalled by the fact that American Jews were "tinged with Christian thought. They read only Christian religious literature . . . there were Episcopalian Jews in New York, Quaker Jews in Philadelphia, Huguenot Jews in Charleston." At the root of this problem was the lack of decent leaders—both lay and religious—within the Jewish fraternity, there was "no particular stimulus to urge on the youth to a religious life; and no nourishment for the spiritual Israelite." Later in life, Wise recalled the situation as it had

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struck him upon his arrival in the United States: "prospects for improvement and progress were very slim," he remembered; there was a serious lack of well-trained rabbis, many Jews were poor, and there was endless backbiting between the Portuguese, German, and Polish communities. Wise had been genuinely concerned that, within a decade, American Judaism could be moribund. Wise would spend the rest of his career trying to right these wrongs. He was also convinced that Judaism, in order to flourish, had to remodel itself as a historical faith, able and willing to respond to changing social and political circumstances. He regularly warned against a blinkered obsession with idolizing tradition. In September 1850, Isaac Leeser, a leading light in the Orthodox Jewish camp, had offered the American public his thoughts on "Judaism and its principles." Wise was offered the right of reply in Leeser's influential paper, the Occident and American Jewish Advocate. It was to be one of Wise's most radical pronouncements. "Where the Torah comes in conflict with the facts of natural philosophy and their logical consequences, and of events as experienced in history and their natural results, I am fearless on the side of truth." Relying entirely on established traditions was foolhardy. It imposed "doctrines or the observances of ceremonies which are foreign to the Bible and which infected us for many centuries with the spirit of intolerance and of separation." Religion had been "degraded into a compendium of blind and insignificant rites which depressed the youthful spirit of Judaism and drove thousands from our community." American Judaism, in sum, had to seek unity, it had to acquire a better qualified leadership, and it had to embrace the fact that it was a modern faith living in a modern world. * *

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In 1854 Wise moved west, to Cincinnati, the third city of the nation. He took up a position as rabbi of the Congregation B'nai Yeshurun. Again, he carefully ushered in his reforms and spent the next decades pursuing his three fundamental goals of unity, improvement, and transformation. He was not always entirely successful. Wise had long urged the holding of national conferences where Jews of differing theological opinions might meet and discuss their differences. One such convention was mounted in Cleveland in 1855, but nothing much more was achieved than an unsatisfactory compromise: for his part, Wise was obliged to agree with the principle that the Torah was the only reputable tool through which to interpret the Bible, which rather went against the sentiments expressed in his Occident articless of five years earlier. It was ever Wise's dilemma to be too radical for some Jewish tastes and not radical enough for others: for the Baltimore Reform rabbi David Einhorn, for instance, who did not attend the Cleveland meeting and regarded its conclusions as a sham. Nonetheless, as the years passed, some of Wise's initiatives did come to

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fruition. His efforts to breathe life into Jewish intellectual life were furthered with the establishment of newspapers such as the American Israelite and the German-language Die Deborah. In 1856 he produced a revised Hebrew prayer book, the Minhag America, and by 1873 he had managed to establish the Union of American Hebrew Congregation (a national Jewish federation founded in Cincinnati by delegates from thirty-four separate congregations). Two years later, the Hebrew Union College was established and Wise would serve as its president until 1900. The college's avowed aim was to train rabbis of all Jewish orientations, although this objective was rather spoiled when shrimp was served at the dinner to celebrate the institution's first ordinands. As a direct result, the more conservative Jewish Theological Seminary was brought into being. Perhaps most importantly, Wise succeeded in articulating a specifically Americanized vision of reform, rather different to its European sibling. That tradition sought accommodation with modern civilization in general. Wise was adamant that Judaism suited the United States especially—he genuinely believed that if it was suitably reformed, it could emerge as the majority religion of the country. Such Americanization, Wise insisted, was not a compromise. It was an acceptance that Judaism was a historical faith, one that had its eternal principles but that had also changed according to shifting circumstances. Judaism, Wise explained, was "a living active system of immutable principles: it has changed its exterior forms with varying ages without the least disadvantage: it can, it will, undergo such other adaptations to times and circumstances without being in the least impaired." As he explained further in 1871, "Reformed Judaism . . . acknowledges no necessary stability of the form, but also no change of the principle. All forms change, adapting themselves to new conditions, and all changes proceed from the same principle, which is not subject to change. This is the central idea of Jewish reasoners on Judaism in the nineteenth century." One had to accept that the world changed: "The civilization of the nineteenth century, being the sum and substance of all previous phases, has produced conditions unknown in former periods of history. Therefore, the principle of Judaism also must develop new forms corresponding to the new conditions which surround its votaries who live among the civilized nations." As he had declared as long ago in 1849, "to be sure I am a reformer, as much as our age requires; because I am convinced that none can stop the stream of time, none can check the swift wheels of the age." Crucially, though, Wise believed that, in the case of the United States, the world had changed for the better. He saw huge potential in the religious and political freedoms of the new republic. America was Zion, and the Constitution was the fulfillment of Mosaic principles. Long ago, Moses had "promised the unsophisticated principles of democracy, liberty, and stern justice in an age of general despotism and arbitrary rule." As such, Moses "formed

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one pole and the American the other of an axis around which revolved the political history of thirty-three centuries." Wise avidly studied America's history, visited its monuments, and mastered its language. As he declared in 1869, the United States was "the favoured high priestess of the goddess of liberty, with the diadem of honour and the breast place of justice." It should be pointed out, of course, that such adoration of the Union was, rather less happily, one of the reasons Wise stayed silent on the issue of abolition. Secession, he lamented, was "the most terrible blow the cause of humanity is likely to suffer in the year 1861." Of course, for all his republican passion, Wise was acutely aware that Judaism still faced many obstacles that long-standing prejudices had endured. One of the key reasons Wise advocated reform was his concern about the inroads Protestant evangelism was making into Jewish hearts and minds. Throughout his career, Wise would denounce those Christian missionaries who sought to make Jewish converts as sly, dishonest hypocrites. In the effort to undermine such people, Wise confessed, he had been obliged to become a "malicious, biting, pugnacious . . . monster of the press." Wise regularly reacted whenever public figures made anti-Semitic utterances. When one New York minister did just that in 1859, Wise produced a withering attack on a brand of fanaticism that "raises up its serpent head to the heavens . . . and spits its venom on those who unfortunately differ with it on religious views." During the Civil War he bitterly attacked the proposed ban on Jewish and Catholic chaplains in the armed forces and fumed against General Grant's infamous General Order 11 to remove Jews from areas under his control in December 1862. As some of the expelled Jews explained to President Lincoln, they felt "insulted and outraged by this inhuman order, the carrying out of which would be the grossest violation of the Constitution and our rights as good citizens under it." The order was swiftly revoked, but Wise had always seen a need to make efforts to explain the true nature of Judaism to a wider public, although many of these initiatives, such as his 1854 History of the Israelite Nation, were only partially successful. It remained a source of great concern to Wise that, at one time or another, "every newspaper printed some stale joke about the Jews to fill up space." Nor would Wise countenance any assault on the protections the First Amendment offered to Jews. From the mid-1840s especially, there was growing agitation within the Jewish community against measures that seemed to exclude Jews from their rightful and equitable place in local communities. It sometimes seemed to be forgotten, as a famous 1845 proclamation from South Carolina put it, that "from the time that the starry banner was flung upon the breeze, till this very moment, they have always ranked among the defenders of the soil on which they were born, or which they had chosen as their residence." Recurrent issues included the punishment of Jewish merchants (whose religious scruples meant they had to close their stores

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on their Saturday Sabbath) for breaking Sunday-trading laws—an economically necessary practice. As explained in Richmond in 1845, this was perceived as a "violation of their natural rights as citizens, who are guaranteed by the constitution against the enactment of any law favouring any religious denomination." In similar spirit, Wise opposed all attempts to include, by means of an amendment, any mention of Christianity in the Constitution, and fumed against Christian instruction in public schools. Wise once joked that if Christians really wanted to place the best possible Bible in public schools then they ought to plump for Greek and Hebrew editions, not the King James Version. Behind this comment, however, was a passionate belief that public schools should not be a place for sectarian inculcation, but institutions where students, Jews included, could be instructed in the duties of being American citizens. "We are of the opinion," Wise once remarked, that schools were there "to teach the practical sciences and arts as far as the citizen needs them." It was strange, he continued, that Christian clerics felt a need to use classrooms to supplement the religious instruction provided by the church: "It is a shame that those reverend gentlemen can not attend to their own business, to teach religion to their flock, and want the teacher of the public school to assist them, to do the business for which they are paid." In 1856 he strongly objected to the governor of Ohio's thanksgiving proclamation because it invoked the Christian people of the state. As early as 1812, Jews in Charleston had resented a gubernatorial proclamation that called on all Christian denominations to hold services of thanksgiving but completely ignored the existence of Jewish congregations: this was nothing less than "an indignity . . . to the whole Jewish nation." Forty years later, Wise said that the Ohio proclamation read like a medieval papal bull, and declared that "we are honestly tired of protesting every year" against such "illiberal and unconstitutional proclamations." He had elsewhere explained that "the entire and complete separation of church and state appears so desirable a policy to us that we abhor the interference of religious ministers in political affairs," although Wise himself was a seasoned lobbyist and was even tempted toward running for public office himself in 1863. When a treaty between the United States and Switzerland was proposed, which undermined the rights of American Jews living in the country, Wise was appalled and when, in 1857, one such American Jew was ordered out of the canton of Neuchatel, Wise raised a protest, announcing that only "slaves and cowards . . . will submit to such an outrage." *

if if

Wise's was only one voice within the nineteenth-century Jewish tradition. On one side stood the Baltimore rabbi David Einhorn, who looked askance at Wise's "Americanizing" and insisted that German language and German thinking ought to remain at the core of the Reform movement. On the other

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stood Wise's great rival, Isaac Leeser, who offered a profoundly different analysis of the dilemmas and opportunities confronting the Jewish community. He emerged as the chief advocate of Orthodox Judaism, striving to preserve doctrinal tradition at the same time as instilling dynamism in the ranks of the faithful. Born in Westphalia in 1806, Leeser had arrived in Richmond, Virginia, in May 1824. He became an influential member of the Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia and, from the early 1830s, began to reach out to a wider audience through publications such as Instruction in the Mosaic Law and The Jews and the Mosaic Law, and, later in the decade, a sixvolume series of prayer books and a primer in the Hebrew language. Leeser was determined to provide institutions around which the larger Jewish community could be organized—the Jewish Sunday School movement being a prime example—and to offer forums for Jewish writing and thinking. He established the American Jewish Publication Society in 1845 and served as editor of the monthly Occident and American Jewish Advocate, founded by himself in 1843, for twenty-five years. Like Wise, Leeser sought to unify the American Jewish community, but he was adamant that such union had to be based in adherence to a reinvigorated religious Orthodoxy. The Reform movement was, so Leeser believed, a major obstacle to achieving this solidarity and he rarely missed an opportunity to criticize it. Although their ideals and strategies might have differed, however, what both men shared was a sense that, alongside huge potential, there were still manifold dangers for Jews living in the U.S. Republic. Grant's wartime General Order 11 had surely made that abundantly clear. Early in 1863, Isaac Leeser made this point with great force in the pages of his influential paper. "Some good-natured persons," he began, "who do not watch closely the course of events, may not discover any thing very alarming in the occurrences which are daily developed before our eyes." They were blithely confident that their rights were secure. After all, they lived in a land "where freedom is at home." They could proudly point to the "beautiful constitution, the work of that august assembly over which the father of his country, the model of rulers, Washington, presided." They regarded themselves as the inheritors "of the wealth of liberty and equality which he helped to secure." And then there was the First Amendment, aimed at securing "all classes, whether they be numerous, counting their adherents by millions, or few, confined perhaps within the space of a single household, in the full enjoyment of their conscientious convictions, to worship or not, as they may feel inclined, without any one being empowered to coerce them to enter his church, contribute to its support; or do aught which they would not do voluntarily and of a perfect free will." Under such a settlement, it would seem that a man "had ample scope to carry out whatever his conscience might dictate to him, provided always that he trouble himself not about his neighbor." But that was where the pragmatic problem arose. People are very often annoyed by what their neighbor

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thinks or does. Sometimes this only resulted in mundane squabbles, but it could also involve disagreements about ideas and principles—especially unusual and minority ideas and principles—and there was ever a risk that people would desire "to intermeddle with what does really not concern them; and it seems that no constitutional restraints, no prudential considerations, no impulses of common sense, are able to keep them within the bounds which we have indicated." From such a social and political reality had religious persecution, "in all ages," gradually arisen, and opportunistic politicians had always been happy to exploit it. Perhaps the United States lacked the brutish demagogs of other times and places, but politicians still saw huge potential in a rallying cry, and shouting that the church was in danger was still as potent a rallying cry as the republic could muster. "We should not be surprised," Leeser continued, "if a latent sentiment inimical to Judaism were already existing, and that it would spread still farther." There were suddenly many more Jews in the country, Leeser explained, "thus attracting to them a good deal of public attention." There was also resentment that efforts to convert them to Christianity had, by and large, been a failure. It was little "wonder that a deep-seated prejudice has by degrees been implanted in the minds of many honest, though ignorant persons, who become horrified the more they discover the Jewish countenance multiplied before them." Grant's awful order had surely shown that "notwithstanding the boasted progress of the age, we are still in bondage." The entire Jewish community had been treated with "medieval cruelty," and as important as revoking the order undoubtedly was, revocation ought not to bring any great solace. "A simple revocation of a military order . . . is no pledge that it may not be renewed at the first fitting occasion, when it may be made to inflict yet greater injuries and indignities than has been done in the present instance." ¥ ¥

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Wise never won all of the debates in which he was immersed, and by the end of his career other trends and other personalities had superseded him. By the time of the 1885 Pittsburgh Conference, Wise was obliged to subscribe to ideas that were really too radical for his tastes, although one of the platform's core sentiments was something which Wise was able to support: Judaism was "a progressive religion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates of reason." The unity that he had so longed for was never to be achieved, a point made still clearer with the emergence of Conservative Judaism in the late 1880s. With the major expansion of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1920, by which date the Jewish population had risen to almost 3.5 million, new tensions and rivalries emerged. American Judaism was destined to be a divided—though, because of this, dynamic—community. But Wise's crucial contribution—and this went straight to the heart of

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America's debate about religious freedom—was to formulate a method by which a religious minority might survive, even thrive, in a potentially hostile culture, but also a culture that offered enormous potential. His methods were hardly uncontroversial, of course. Many within the Jewish community believed that his reforms and his philosophy were cowardly. Why ought Judaism feel obliged to change? the advocates of orthodoxy asked. Surely the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment offered sufficient protection for the Jewish community. Were assimilation and Americanization motivated by genuine theological reflection, or were they the result of pressures and expectations imposed by the dominant Christian culture? How was a balance to be struck between embracing the opportunities offered by the United States and the need to preserve the uniqueness and solidarity of the Jewish community? What is certain, however, is that Wise himself did not see his reform project as a compromise. He did not regard it as a negative response to a suspicious culture but as a positive way of taking advantage of America's freedoms. America, he insisted, was not Bohemia, and the era of isolation had come to an end: "the Israelite has re-entered on the stage of active life: the political, scientific, commercial, social and active life has reopened its gate to receive the sons of Israel." Though always a controversial figure, Wise would bequeath a lifetime's worth of earnest theorizing to the American Jewish community: a community whose debate about issues of self-identity, assimilation, and religious freedom was far from over by the time of Wise's death in 1900. In the century after Wise's death, the Jewish community would do much to defend the religion clauses of the First Amendment through organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, founded in Chicago in 1913 by the lawyer Sigmund Livingston. The league's mission was, through its attacks on stereotyping, conspiracy theorizing, and discrimination in everything from employment to education, "to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience, and if necessary by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people . . . to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike." The anti-Semitic outbursts of men like Charles Coughlin (1891-1979) and Gerald B. Winrod (1899-1957) would continue, but the Jewish contribution to the legal interpretation of the First Amendment—perhaps best epitomized by the involvement of Leo Pfeffer in many of the major church/state cases of the second half of the twentieth century—would be pivotal. SUGGESTED READING David Dalin, American Jews and the Separationist Faith (Washington, DC, 1993); Leon Jick, The Americanization of the Synagogue, 1820-1870 (Hanover, NH, 1976); Bertram Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War (Philadelphia, 1951); Louise Mayo, The Ambivalent Image: Nineteenth-Century America's Perception of the Jew (Rulmerford, NY, 1988); Michael Meyer, Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (New York, 1988); Alan Mittleman et al., eds.,

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Jews and the American Public Square (Lanham, MD, 2002); David Philipson and Louis Grossman, eds., Selected Writings of Isaac Mayer Wise (New York, 1969); Jonathan D. Sarna, "The American Jewish Response to Nineteenth-Century Christian Missions," Journal of American History 68 (1981), 35-51; Lance J. Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (Detroit, 1995); and Sefton Temkin, Isaac Mayer Wise: Shaping American Judaism (New York, 1992).

JOSEPH FRANKLIN RUTHERFORD (1869-1942) The Constitutional Weathervane Joseph Franklin Rutherford—often referred to as "Judge" later in life—was born in Morgan County, Missouri, on November 8, 1869. The son of Baptist farmers James Rutherford and Lenora Strickland, his was a hard, impoverished childhood. After working his way through the legal apprenticeship system, he passed the state bar examinations in 1892 and, following a period in private practice, was employed by the firm of Draffen and Wright in Boonville. Rutherford would not win a national reputation as a jurist, however. His role in America's debate about religious freedom would center on his involvement with the novel religious movement founded by Charles Taze Russell: the Bible Students, known latterly as the Jehovah's Witnesses. An insular organization, openly, sometimes rabidly, critical of every other church and religious movement in human history, the Witnesses would play an extraordinarily influential role in articulating and defending the freedoms enshrined in the religion clauses of the First Amendment: and it was during the period of Rutherford's presidency that this contribution reached its zenith. ¥ ¥

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In the early 1870s, the Pittsburgh merchant Charles Taze Russell developed an interest in the ideas of Seventh Day Adventism. By 1879, though, he had effectively broken with that movement. At the heart of Russell's theological vision was the belief that Christ's return was imminent. Russell believed that in 1874, Christ had begun his "invisible" appearance or parousia, and that the year 1910 would see an outburst of global disasters leading up to Armageddon in 1914. Those who heeded Russell's message would join the 144,000 company of the elect, destined to rule with Christ in heaven. Everyone else would not be destined for eternal damnation; however, they would simply live out their natural lives and die. From the outset, Russell's Bible Students movement was deliberately isolationist (and intolerant of

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other faiths), although it would always have a strong evangelistic ethos, it insisted on biblical fundamentalism, and it rejected many traditional Christian doctrines (the Trinity, for instance) and much of the apparatus of Christian worship (such as church buildings). Rutherford first read Russell's books in the mid-1890s. He met him in 1900, and in 1906 was baptized into the movement. Over the next years, Rutherford emerged as a trusted ally of the president, accompanying him on lecture tours and acting as his legal counsel on several occasions. Encouraged by Russell, Rutherford began giving lectures of his own. In 1909 Rutherford joined the New York bar, and over the coming years he would gain increasing influence in the movement's organizations, sitting on the boards of the Peoples Pulpit Association of New York (one of the movement's legal corporations) and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. In 1915 he penned an influential defense of the movement: A Great Battle in the Ecclesiastical Heavens. By the time of Russell's death in October 1916, Rutherford was a chief contender to succeed him as president. Others, notably Paul S. L. Johnson, were less than sanguine at the prospect of Rutherford leading the movement, not least because Russell had explained in his will that he hoped that the Watch Tower would be governed by a committee of five members after his death. However, it became clear immediately after Russell's death that Rutherford intended to dominate the organization, and by January 6, 1917, he had assumed the office of president. Subsequent to this, Rutherford conducted something of a purge within the movement's higher echelons, replacing unsympathetic board members. A vote in November 1917 reconfirmed his presidency. Several months prior to this, Rutherford had distributed copies of The Finished Mystery during breakfast at the society's headquarters in Brooklyn. This compilation of some of Russell's commentaries had been commissioned by Rutherford without the knowledge or consent of the Watch Tower's editorial board. While this infuriated some within the movement's leadership, it was the book's reception in the wider culture that would prove of greater concern. The Bible Students movement had long been opposed to offering military service to the state (the countries involved in the First World War were regarded as demonically controlled), and this message was reiterated throughout the war and between the covers of The Finished Mystery. The book was banned in Canada in 1918, and in the United States a campaign against the book culminated in the arrest of Rutherford and seven other board members under the terms of the American Espionage Act. As the arrest warrants put it, their actions had "unlawfully, feloniously, and wilfully caused insubordination, disloyalty and refusal of duty." Seven of the accused were sentenced to twenty years in prison (the eighth received a tenyear sentence), and for the next nine months they were incarcerated in Atlanta, Georgia. However, in March 1919, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis ordered the release of the prisoners on bail, the convictions were

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later reversed (owing to the lack of a "temperate and impartial" trial), and in 1920, the U.S. government withdrew all charges. The episode was undoubtedly damaging, both in terms of its reputation and because of its effects on membership numbers—something like 4,000 people, or 20 percent of the membership, left the group during these years. The convictions had unleashed an outbreak of violence against the movement, with beatings and whippings of Bible Students across the nation. However, by the mid-1920s, Rutherford had managed to calm matters and silence most internal dissent. He now set about a thorough overhaul of the movement, striving to concentrate as much power as possible in his own hands and to develop a culture of obedience throughout the organization. The reforms and initiatives of the next decade and a half would serve to highlight the relationship between the movement and issues of religious freedom. * *

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As the 1920s progressed, the profile of the Bible Students grew and grew. Annual conventions, from the meeting at Cedar Point, Ohio, in 1922 to the gathering at Detroit in 1928, allowed Rutherford to rally his supporters and launch often vitriolic attacks on the people and institutions—the Catholic clergy, the League of Nations, big business, politicians—he so detested. Announcing, first in print and then on provocative billboards, that the year 1925 would witness the end of the world and that "millions will die" inevitably garnered a great deal of attention, although the failure of Armageddon to materialize proved to be embarrassing—a perennial problem for the movement. Rutherford made overseas trips, establishing eighteen foreign branches by 1921, and he continued to publish a stream of books and pamphlets (ultimately some 36 million copies of his works would be sold). He found another outlet for his theological musings and polemics in the WBBR radio station on Staten Island—offering addresses that were syndicated to stations around the country. There were well-organized campaigns and boycotts against these broadcasts, and Rutherford stopped broadcasting after 1937, although his words could still be heard, courtesy of the records that Witnesses carried from door to door as part of their evangelical efforts. On occasion, Rutherford's speeches would be played over loudspeaker systems to farfrom-sympathetic crowds. One of the key trends during Rutherford's presidency—and one that often served to alienate his organization from the wider culture—was the increasing separation from the institutions and customs of mainstream American life. It was a fundamental article of faith among the Bible Students that this world was the domain of Satan. Existing political organizations, churches, and the capitalist system were hopelessly corrupt and tarnished: quite literally the devil's work. Through the 1930s, Rutherford urged his coreligionists to ignore political elections, to avoid such pagan customs as Christmas celebrations and

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birthday parties, and to play no role, not just in the armed forces, but also in unions, the scouts, and even parent-teacher associations. Rutherford also sought to encourage a culture of absolute obedience. As early as 1920, he was taking steps to make sure members of the movement regularly reported on their evangelical activities to the Brooklyn headquarters. By the late 1930s, all officers in the organization were elected, and, having assaulted the influence of local elders, Rutherford was able to fully dominate the activities of the movement. There were theological departures too. In 1931, at a convention in Columbus, Ohio, the movement adopted its now familiar name, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and four years later Rutherford proclaimed a doctrine that significantly altered the Witnesses' eschatological vision. Russell had earlier explained that those who joined his movement could look forward to joining the 144,000 members of the elect. To this select band, Rutherford added the so-called Jonadab class who, while not reigning with Christ in heaven, would be allowed to live eternally in an earthly paradise. This created an urgent need to reach potential members of this new order, which, in turn, made it more important than ever before for witnesses to redouble their evangelical efforts. Back in 1919, Rutherford had begun to publish the Golden Age for nonbelievers, and, indeed, it was the Witnesses' extraordinarily energetic proselytizing efforts—going from door to door in communities with their pamphlets, recordings, and other wares—that had provoked the movement's first great battle to preserve its religious freedoms. In many places—starting in New Jersey in 1928—Bible Students were accused of infringing local laws against disturbing the peace, against engaging in certain kinds of activities on Sundays, and against distributing literature without securing the appropriate licenses. In 1936, 1,149 Witnesses were arrested on such charges, the year after Rutherford had reestablished the organization's legal department and employed Olin Moyle as full-time counsel. In the next few years, there were a series of important cases that tackled the question of whether the Witnesses' liberties were being infringed by the efforts of local communities to outlaw their evangelical activities. It was in 1940, however, that a case came before the Supreme Court that would be remembered in legal annals as one of the most pivotal events in American judicial history. Newton Cantwell had toured the streets of New Haven, Connecticut, seeking donations in exchange for items of religious literature. He also played records that included attacks on members of the Roman Catholic faith. He was convicted in the Court of Common Pleas of New Haven County for disturbing the peace and soliciting funds without an appropriate license. In the case of Cantwell v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court was able, for the first time, to declare that the First Amendment prevented state governments from infringing an individual's right to religious freedom. This was an instance of the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause making a protection enshrined in the Bill of Rights applicable at the state level. It was

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a watershed moment. The court argued that making Cantwell obtain a license would violate his religious liberty, especially as it gave responsibility to a state official to determine whether an individual was seeking a license for genuinely religious reasons. There were, of course, times when the state could regulate religious behavior in order to protect society, but in Cantwell's case the state's actions were deemed unreasonable. The court's decision made the important distinction between "freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society." The rule of thumb was that "the power to regulate must be exercised as not, in attaining a permissible end, unduly to infringe the protected freedom." The state could pass nondiscriminatory legislation that, for instance, regulated the time, manner, and place of soliciting funds or holding meetings. On this occasion, Connecticut had sought to protect the state's interests, but it had done so in such a way that "it has come into fatal collision" with the fundamental duty to ensure an individual's free exercise of religion. As for the charge of disturbing the peace, the court accepted that Cantwell's phonograph record had contained a message that some people found unpleasant, but there had been no violent response, and public order had not been seriously threatened. Here was a signal victory for the Witnesses, although, in fact, prosecutions resulting from evangelical activities had begun to decrease as the decade progressed—down to 471 in 1938. But the movement's dealings with the United States Supreme Court would always be multifaceted, and by the time of the Cantwell decision, another controversial issue, in part provoked by Rutherford's actions, had begun to dominate the headlines. ¥ *

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In 1935 Rutherford had announced that, as texts in Exodus made quite clear, Witnesses should not salute any earthly symbols, nor should they join in with national anthems. There were times, as he had declared back in 1929, when obedience to the Watch Tower society was more important than obedience to the national government. But the year 1935 also saw the Massachusetts legislature enact a statute that obliged teachers to make sure that their students regularly saluted the flag and made the Pledge of Allegiance. In Lynn, Massachusetts, Carleton B. Nicholls, Jr., from a Witnesses family, refused to salute the flag. In an impassioned radio address, Rutherford explained that "the Nicholls lad . . . has made a wise choice, declaring himself for Jehovah," and that "all who act wisely will do the same thing." To salute a flag, Rutherford insisted, "means, in effect, that the person saluting ascribes salvation to what the flag represents . . . the nations of the world are under the control of Satan . . . the law of the nation or government that compels the child of God to salute the national flag compels that person to salute the devil."

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Rutherford's words were heeded, and over the next years Witnesses from New York to Texas and from Philadelphia to Florida were prosecuted for failing to salute the flag. Finally, in 1940, it once more fell to the Supreme Court to decide whether the religious freedoms of the Jehovah's Witnesses had been unduly violated. Lillian and William Gobitis, aged ten and twelve, had been expelled from school in Minersville, Pennsylvania, after refusing to salute the flag as demanded by the local board of education. They had been forced into private education, and their father brought a case before the Supreme Court that aimed to show that making his children salute the flag would be a violation of their religious freedom. As the majority decision explained, "a grave responsibility confronts this Court whenever in course of litigation it must reconcile the conflicting claims of liberty and authority." There were endless occasions when the individual's perception of his own religious duties came into conflict with the secular interests of his fellow citizens. The First Amendment undoubtedly sought to protect religious freedoms, but "when does the constitutional guarantee compel exemption from doing what society thinks necessary for the promotion of some great common end, or from a penalty for conduct which appears dangerous to the general good?" There had always been times, throughout the "long struggle for religious freedom," when scruples of conscience were not sufficient to relieve the individual "from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs." This was such an occasion. The Gobitis children could not be "excused from conduct required of all the other children in the promotion of national cohesion." Such cohesion, such national unity, was fostered by something like saluting the flag and making the Pledge of Allegiance, and this was "the basis of national security." The flag was a "symbol of our national unity, transcending all internal differences, however large, within the framework of the Constitution." With an 8-1 majority, the school authorities—who were, at root, asserting "the right to awaken in the child's mind considerations as to the significance of the flag contrary to those implanted by the parent"—were vindicated. But the issue of flag-saluting was far from over. In 1942, encouraged by the Gobitis decision, the West Virginia Board of Education passed a resolution that made the flag-salute "a regular part of the program of activities in the public schools." Pupils who refused to salute would be expelled; if expelled, they would be regarded as absentee delinquents and their parents would face the prospect of fines and custodial sentences. A group of Jehovah's Witnesses parents, including Walter Barnette, challenged this resolution and the matter came before the Supreme Court in 1943. There had been some shifts in the court's personnel—two new justices had been appointed—and in a dramatic about-face, the Gobitis decision was reversed.

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Though clearly related to matters of religious freedom, the decision, articulated by Justice Robert H. Jackson, rested on the protection of free speech by the First Amendment. In this case, Jackson explained, "we are dealing with a compulsion of students to declare a belief. They are not merely made acquainted with the flag-salute so that they may be informed as to what it is or even what it means." The flag salute was a "form of utterance" that required "the individual to communicate by word and sign his acceptance of the political ideas it thus bespeaks." If a compulsory flag-salute was insisted upon, the court would be saying that the "Bill of Rights which guards the individual's right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind." In fact, the "very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." A fundamental principle was at stake: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us." Once again the court reached an 8-1 majority decision, with only Justice Felix Frankfurter dissenting. * # ¥ The flag-salute cases brought a huge amount of publicity to Rutherford's movement. In the immediate aftermath of the Gobitis decision, there was a national outbreak of anti-Witnesses violence. The year 1940 saw 3,035 instances of mob violence against Witnesses in forty-five states, and the only thing as reprehensible as the actions some communities took—mob attacks, stonings, and even one case of castration—was the negligent response of the public authorities in some areas. Solicitor General Francis Biddle was even obliged to make a national radio address to help diffuse the crisis. The Witnesses would continue to face legal battles. During the war, they represented 75 percent of those brought before the civil courts for conscription offenses, and the majority of the 2,000 individuals imprisoned on such counts. Overall, however, the Witnesses' legal strategy was a huge success: between 1938 and 1955 they were involved in forty-five Supreme Court cases and they won thirty-six of them. While Rutherford's personal interventions—such as his testimony in the Gobitis case—were of limited value, he did deserve credit for instilling an activist, litigious mood within the movement: he long urged Witnesses to fight every legal battle that they

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confronted. Under his leadership, the movement's legal department— headed by Olin Moyle and then by Hayden Covington—developed a host of efficient strategies. Witnesses were kept well-informed about legal news, and offered advice on how to behave under arrest and during trial. The significance of Rutherford and the Witnesses to America's debate on religious freedom was twofold. Firstly, much like the Mormons in the nineteenth century, they tested the nature and extent of America's religious tolerance. Though it is easy to overstate the degree to which Witnesses isolated themselves from the rest of society (many were good neighbors in ordinary communities and obeyed all and any laws that did not trouble their consciences), Rutherford himself clearly upset and appalled many groups and individuals. During one speech at Madison Square Garden, in which he accused the Catholic Church of avidly supporting Hitler, there was an outbreak of booing and hissing and "Witnesses, acting as ushers and armed with canes, rushed over to the trouble spot and began cracking their sticks against heads. . . . Other knots of anti-Rutherfordites popped up throughout the audience and pelted the speakers' platform with rotten eggs. By the time the police had dashed in from the street it was a huge free-for-all. Among the four persons injured were a women of forty-two and a girl of fourteen, thrown down a staircase and trampled." But as unseemly as such an event was, the Witnesses' other contribution to the religious freedom debate surely overshadows it. Their legal efforts provide an example of a religious group pursuing its own rights but, as a byproduct, helping to secure those rights for everyone else. Their history represented something of a test case of America's religious freedoms, as a body such as the ACLU was quick to realize. In the midst of the flag-salute controversy, it published a pamphlet about the persecution of the Witnesses. In a preface penned by a collection of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish clergymen, it was announced that "the issues raised by the attacks on the Jehovah's Witnesses constitute a challenge to American democracy and religious tolerance. Nothing in the belief of Jehovah's Witnesses justifies the charges of a lack of patriotism levelled against them. Their refusal on religious grounds to salute the flag rests upon a Biblical injunction which they accept literally. In the conflict between loyalty to God and loyalty to the state, Jehovah's Witnesses stand on the tradition of putting loyalty to God first." * *£• *£

The Jehovah's Witnesses seem destined to sustain an influential role in debates about religious freedom. And not just within the United States. From their harrowing experiences in Nazi Germany onward, they have been involved in struggles to assert their liberty of conscience in countries across the globe. They remain, as ever, controversial, perhaps most conspicuously in their resistance, on religious grounds, to medical procedures such as blood

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transfusion. But their treatment and standing also continue to provide as useful an acid test as the United States possesses in calculating the extent of its commitment to religious freedom. As recently as 2 0 0 2 , the Witnesses' First Amendment rights were once more the subject of scrutiny in the Supreme Court in the case of Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of N e w York Inc. v. Village of Stratton. In a judgment that once more removed obstacles to the Witnesses' evangelical efforts, the court noted that, for fifty years, they had "not struggled for their rights alone, but for those many w h o are poorly financed and rely heavily upon this method of communication," religious and nonreligious alike. SUGGESTED READING James Beckford, The Trumpet of Prophecy: A Sociological Study of Jehovah's Witnesses (New York, 1975); Victor Blackwell, O'er the Ramparts They Watched (New York, 1976); Jennifer Henderson, "The Jehovah's Witnesses and Their Plan to Expand First Amendment Freedoms," Journal of Church and State 46 (2004), 811-32; David Manwaring, Render unto Caesar: The Flag Salute Controversy (Chicago, 1962); Merlin Newton, Armed with the Constitution: Jehovah's Witnesses in Alabama and the US Supreme Court, 1936-1946 (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1995); M. James Pen ton, Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of the Jehovah's Witnesses (Toronto, ON, 1985); Shawn Francis Peters, Judging Jehovah's Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution (Lawrence, KS, 2000); and Leonard Stevens, Salute! The Case of the Bible vs the Flag (New York, 1973).

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JOHN COLLIER (1884-1968) A Nation Made to Order John Collier, the son of Charles Collier, a banker, and Susie Rawson, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in May 1884. He lost his mother in 1897 and his father three years later. Devastated, he headed to the Appalachian Mountains on an extended camping trip. By 1902 he was taking noncredit courses at Columbia and already developing a profound interest in a raft of social and political issues. In 1905 he was appointed as executive director of the Associated Charities of Atlanta, resigning when he felt his efforts to help the state's poor were meeting with undue resistance. A spell in Paris followed, studying psychology at the College de France, and it was here that he met his future wife, Lucy Wood, with whom he would have three children. Collier was back in the United States by 1908, serving as the civic secretary of the Peoples Institute in New York and devoting much of his energies to working among the immigrant communities on the Lower East Side. In 1914 he again resigned his position and once more went camping in the Appalachians. After trying to establish the Home School, a Utopian educational experiment, he was back at the Peoples Institute in 1915, and in 1916 organized the National Community Center Conference, editing its journal down to 1919 when, once more, he resigned on the grounds that insufficient funds had been provided for his proposed reforms. The next few years saw Collier working as director of Americanization for the California State Housing and Immigration Commission and, between 1921 and 1922, teaching sociology at San Francisco State College. It had, by any standards, been a varied early career, although Collier's commitment to pursuing social justice had never been in doubt. From now on, however, one central issue would dominate Collier's professional life: his nation's policies and attitudes toward the Native American community. By the early 1920s, Collier—through a mixture of his readings in philosophy and his experiences in dealing with those on the margins of society—had

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developed a profound dissatisfaction with contemporary American civilization, regarding it as overly materialistic and individualistic. In Native American culture (a phenomenon he did sometimes analyze in naive and reductive ways) he would discern a vibrant alternative. It had created "institutions, even now unweakened, which had survived repeated and immense historical shocks," and produced "states of mind and attitudes of mind," "earthloyalties and human loyalties" that allowed the individual to thrive in a determinedly communal milieu. ¥ ¥

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The encounter between colonists and indigenous peoples surely ranks as one of the most shameful chapters in American history. Over 300 years, as Collier himself recalled, the newcomers to America had sought to "carve out a nation made to order," on the assumption that the Indians were a dying race who ought to be "liquidated." "We took away their best lands," Collier explained, broke treaties and promises, and "tossed them the most nearly worthless scraps of a continent that had been wholly theirs." Throughout this unhappy process, religion had played a vital role. As in most arenas of western conquest, the right to take over lands and resources was predicated on the idea that Europeans had a duty to bring news of Christ to heathen peoples. This duty also meant that all possible steps should be taken to eradicate any traces of indigenous religious traditions: for long centuries, the religious freedom of Native American tribes was all but nonexistent. From John Eliot's "praying towns" in seventeenth-century New England all the way through to the nineteenth century, the duty to Christianize Native Americans was taken extremely seriously. In 1805, at a meeting at Buffalo Grove, New York, organized by a Baptist missionary, the Seneca chief, Red Jacket, offered a damning account of the history of Christian-Indian interaction. There had been a time, he began, "when our forefathers owned this great island" from the "rising to the setting sun." An evil day had arrived, he continued, when the missionary's ancestors "crossed the great water and landed on this island." They claimed to have "fled from their own county for fear of wicked men, and had come here to enjoy their religion." They were few in number and only asked for a little land, so "we took pity on them [and] granted their request." Sadly, "they gave us poison in return." Their numbers expanded, they demanded more land, wars were fought, and liquor was introduced. And yet, even now, "[you] are not satisfied: you want to force your religion upon us." Missionaries were now telling the Indian peoples that "if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter." But how could this be true? If the truth of Christianity was so glorious, why had God waited until now to bring it to the Indian tribes? Besides, if there was truly only one, wonderful Christian faith, how was it that within the Christian fraternity there was so

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much infighting and dissension? It ought to be remembered that "we also have a religion, which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship in that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive; to love each other, and to be united. We never quarrel about religion." Red Jacket ended with a simple plea: "We do not wish to destroy your religion, or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own." It was a plea that largely went unheeded as the nineteenth century progressed. By 1819, Congress was passing the Civilization Fund Act, in the wake of which federally financed educators and missionaries headed west, confident that as Indian "minds become enlightened and expand, the Bible will be their book and they will grow up in habits of morality and industry." Of course, during that century, there was constant, often fierce, debate about how best to approach the Indian "issue," and, as a result, federal policy was often confused and disjointed, with strategies and goals shifting from one generation to the next. Based on crude analyses of the Indians' potential to be Christianized and "civilized," opinions were formed about whether it was best to isolate or assimilate the Indian community. A figure such as Andrew Jackson would epitomize the belief that Indian removal to places far away from "white" civilization was in the republic's best interests. As he explained in 1835: "All preceding experiments for the improvement of the Indians have failed. It seems now to be an established fact [that] they cannot live in contact with a civilized community and prosper. Ages of fruitless endeavors have at length brought us to a knowledge of this principle of intercommunication with them." As the century progressed, lands were stripped away, military campaigns were waged, treaties were broken, and communities were displaced. But by the early 1880s, it seemed as if the policy of forced relocation that had followed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 might have had its day. In 1881 President Chester Arthur insisted that it was time to remove the Indians' right to tribal land ownership as it encouraged them to "live a savage life, undisturbed by any earnest and well-directed efforts to bring them under the influences of civilization." Six years later his goal would be achieved through the Dawes Act of 1887. Communal land ownership was at an end: in future, individuals would be "allotted" lands—160 acres for heads of family, 80 acres for all others over eighteen. All surplus lands from the old reservations were made available for non-Indian settlement. The avowed purpose of such legislation was the assimilation of the Native American population: Indians were to be westernized and Christianized; tribal uniqueness and cohesion were to be assaulted. There had also been sustained efforts to make use of education in this process. Schools, such as the one set up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, by Colonel Richard Henry Pratt in 1879, aimed for total assimilation: children's hair was cut, their names were changed, the use of native languages was forbidden,

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and, of course, conversion to Christianity was avidly pursued. The aim, as Pratt put it, was to "kill the Indian and save the man." By the end of the century, as many as 20,000 pupils were enrolled in such boarding schools across fifteen states. The fact that federal funds were helping to pay for institutions with such overt Christianizing objectives raised serious questions about breaches of the First Amendment's establishment clause. As for Native American religious freedom, this too was in short supply during the 1880s. Interior Secretary Henry M. Teller took measures to outlaw traditional rites, ceremonies, and dances: a policy that could have horrendous consequences, as illustrated by the story of Wovoka and the ghost dance. A Paiute from Nevada's Mason Valley, Wovoka had received a vision in the 1880s. He explained that he had been transported to a sort of paradise, full of happy people, where he had seen and talked to God. He had been told that if Indians would only reform their behavior, stop fighting and arguing with each other, and desist from lying and cheating, then God would return the earth to the way it was before the arrival of the European colonists. They were also to take part in a special symbolic "ghost dance" that Wovoka had been shown in paradise. Much to the annoyance of the federal government and its officers, word of Wovoka and his vision spread quickly and many people took up his message. One such group was confronted by government troops in December 1890, a battle ensued, hundreds of people were killed, and the slaughter at Wounded Knee entered the Native American imagination as a symbol of their lack of religious freedoms. ^ ^ fy

John Collier's fascination with Native American culture can perhaps be traced back to 1920, when he first saw Indian dances being performed in New Mexico. Over the coming decades he would emerge as a leading champion of Indian rights and a determined opponent of policies of assimilation. He would help to introduce major changes in tribal government and land ownership, helping to foster a revival of tribal cultural cohesion and expression. He was also guilty of overromanticizing Native American culture—he believed it could serve as a useful model for white America—and sometimes resorted to the most stereotypical language when describing the peoples he sought to champion. Collier was acutely aware that the attitudes and policies of the nineteenth century had managed to survive into the 1920s. As late as 1921, for instance, Commissioner Charles H. Burke of the Bureau of Indian Affairs had issued his infamous circular 1665: On a number of reservations . . . the native dance still has enough evil tendencies to furnish a retarding influence and at times a troublesome situation which calls for careful consideration and right-minded

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efforts. It is not the policy of the Indian office to denounce all forms of dancing. . . . The dance per se is not condemned. . . . The dance, however, under most primitive and pagan conditions, is apt to be harmful, and when found so among the Indians we should control it by educational measures as far as possible, but if necessary, by punitive measures when its degrading tendencies persist. The sun-dance and all other similar dances and so-called religious ceremonies are considered "Indian Offences" under existing regulations, and corrective penalties are provided. This was followed up two years later by a supplement that sought to regulate when the dances might be permitted and who could participate in them. A thinly veiled threat was offered to the Native American community: I do not want to deprive you of decent amusements or occasional feast days, but you should not do evil or foolish things or take so much time for these occasions. . . . I could issue an order against these useless and harmful performances, but I would much rather have you give them up of your own free will, and, therefore, I ask you now in this letter to do so. . . . If at the end of one year the reports which I receive show that you are doing as requested, I shall be very glad, for I will know that you are making progress . . . but if the reports show that you reject this plea, then some other course will have to be taken. Such policies, Collier complained, represented an assault on the Indians' "last liberty and last dignity." Collier's crusade had begun in 1922 when he became a research agent for the Indian Welfare Committee of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. He would contribute to the campaign to block the Senate's Bursum Bill that would have seized Pueblo land and water rights without adequate compensation, and the Omnibus Bill that sought to place all remaining tribal assets into individual hands. In 1923 he organized the American Indian Defense Association and began a decade of lobbying in Washington, as well as publishing numerous articles and pamphlets such as "The Indian and Religious Freedom," which criticized the widespread policy of coercive, "thumbscrew" conversions. With allies such as Frederick Webb Hodge, curator of the Museum of the American Indian, he tried to undermine the idea that many Indian dances were immoral, and he led outraged opposition to any assaults on Indian freedoms. In 1924, Commissioner Burke and other officials censured two Pueblo boys who had absented themselves from school in order to take part in (once-in-a-lifetime) traditional religious instruction. Collier helped the delegates of the All Pueblo Council draft a complaint that defined the treatment of the boys as "religious persecution." The next year, two Indians were

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disciplined by Pueblo officials for attending traditional ceremonies in nontraditional dress. The Indian Bureau sided with the two men, which led to the Pueblo officials being charged with assault and battery. Again, Collier led the chorus of disapproval, insisting that this was a patent assault on the Pueblo right to self-government. By 1932, the Defense Association had recruited 1,700 members and spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal actions. Collier's efforts were often frustrated. Between 1928 and 1932, he lambasted the government for not taking the conclusions of a report (produced by Lewis Meriam and others) on "The Problem of Indian Administration" seriously enough. He would tour the western reservations and report back on the sometimes appalling conditions he found there. But in 1933, his career moved into its most important and productive stage. He was appointed by President Roosevelt as commissioner of Indian Affairs. Collier's aim was to reverse the past century and more of governmental policy. He would convince Roosevelt to disband the Board of Indian Commissioners—a body that remained stubbornly in favor of assimilation— he would seek to undermine the overbearing role of missionaries in many reservations, and he would see to it that attendance at religious ceremonies in boarding schools was no longer compulsory. He would make government facilities available for religious worship to those of all faiths and lift bans on Native American rites and ceremonies. For Collier, the reassertion of traditional religions was the key to reinvigorating Native American culture as a whole. As he declared in 1934, it was imperative that "no interference with Indian religious life or ceremonial expression will hereafter be tolerated . . . the fullest constitutional liberty in all matters affecting religion, conscience, and culture is insisted on for all Indians." His most famous achievement came in 1934 with the Indian Reorganization Act. Under the terms of this legislation, enacted after consultation with the Native American community, the policy of allotment was abandoned and tribes were offered the chance to establish charters of (limited) self-rule. A federal credit fund was set up, from which tribal corporations could borrow money for economic improvements and to pursue legal actions; $250,000 was to be made available each year to finance scholarships; and efforts were to be made to increase the number of Native Americans employed by the Indian Service. The act, Collier explained, represented a "double blow at the two fatal weaknesses of Indian administration across a whole country: first the disappearance of the Indian estate and the progressive pauperization of the Indians, and, second, the suppression of Indian tribal and social and religious institutions." In the coming years, Collier tried to bring the energy and initiatives of the New Deal to the Native American community through agencies such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration, worked to repeal law codes that attacked Indians' civil

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liberties, and took further steps (such as the creation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board in 1935) toward fostering cultural self-expression. The reception of the Indian Reorganization Act was mixed. In the two years after 1934, more than seventy tribes, notably the Navajo (who were also unhappy with recent moves to reduce their livestock levels), voted against accepting it. Some within the Native American community saw the act as paternalistic, one more effort to impose alien political and social ideologies. For others, the proposed institutions (labeled as puppet regimes by some critics) and electoral political settlements did not fit well with tribal tradition—although Collier always stressed that it only became "operative . . . after the tribe had adopted the act as its own law through a majority vote of its adult members." Some critics suggested that Collier had failed to appreciate the diversity of Native American culture and that he was trying to impose a uniform policy on a multifaceted tradition. Some critics, both Indian and non-Indian, did not agree that a policy of assimilation should be abandoned. Others accused Collier of creating a segregationist policy. In 1945 Collier resigned his position. For the remainder of his life he would take up many causes, notably in opposition to the cold war and in defense of the rights of indigenous peoples in other countries around the world. He would serve as president of the Institute of Ethnic Affairs in Washington in 1945, and as a faculty member at the City College of New York in 1947, and he would continue to comment on Indian affairs in a series of books and newspaper articles. In 1964 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Interior Department. What Collier's career had proven definitively was that the securing of Native American religious freedoms was a delicate and confusing issue. Federal policy would pursue a meandering route in the years after 1945, and in 1978, what seemed like an epochal moment arrived with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA). There was now a duty to "protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian." This religion was an "indispensable and irreplaceable" part of Indian life. Specifically, they were to have access to sacred sites and objects, access to natural resources necessary for their religious practices, and "the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites." For all these provisions, the years since 1978 have not seen a diminution in controversies and legal cases involving issues of Native American religious freedom; quite the contrary. Debate continues to rage about rights to hunt endangered animals or animals out of season, and about the rights of Indian prisoners to continue with religiously motivated behavior and rituals. There continues to be much grumbling about the artifacts that are still kept from tribal communities, and about the unhappy consequences of some encounters with government and private business that result in sacred lands becoming

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inaccessible or being used for what are perceived as inappropriate activities. Most well known of all are the battles over the rights of adherents of the peyote religion to transport and ingest a narcotic substance, which is central to the practice of their faith (an issue addressed directly by the 1994 amendments to the AIRFA). Often, individuals express the feeling that Native Americans continue to fight battles that other communities have long since won. Above all, it has been a battle that has been fought out in the courts, and in recent years two cases concerning Native American religious freedoms have been seen as especially significant, and, as an appendix to this biography of Collier, it seems appropriate to outline them. ¥ *

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The first is Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association. In the early 1980s, plans were hatched to build a road through part of Six Rivers National Forest in California. An environmental study suggested that the plans be abandoned because the proposed route went through areas regarded as sacred by three local Native American tribes. The U.S. Forest Service rejected this advice, although it sought to use a route that was as distant as possible from religious sites. It also promised to establish buffer zones around religious sites to prevent them from being affected by its other plan to allow timber cutting in the area. A group representing the three tribes challenged these plans, arguing that both the construction of the road and the proposed woodcutting directly violated their religious freedoms. In 1988 the Supreme Court ruled that the plans of the forest service were constitutional. It was, admittedly, absolutely true that "the government's proposed actions will have severe adverse effects on the practice of their religion." The Government does not dispute, and we have no reason to doubt, that the logging and road-building projects at issue in this case could have devastating effects on traditional Indian religious practices. Those practices are intimately and inextricably bound up with the unique features of the Chimney Rock area, which is known to the Indians as the "high country." Individual practitioners use this area for personal spiritual development; some of their activities are believed to be critically important in advancing the welfare of the tribe, and indeed, of mankind itself. The Indians use this area, as they have used it for a very long time, to conduct a wide variety of specific rituals that aim to accomplish their religious goals. According to their beliefs, the rituals would not be efficacious if conducted at other sites than the ones traditionally used, and too much disturbance of the area's natural state would clearly render any meaningful continuation of traditional practices impossible.

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However, the Constitution "simply does not provide a principle that could justify upholding respondents' legal claims." For one thing, the First Amendment's free exercise clause very deliberately used the word "prevent." Nothing in the plans would force individuals to act against their religious beliefs, and the forest service had also tried its hardest to limit the impact on religious sites in the area. There was also the pragmatic point that "government simply could not operate if it were required to satisfy every citizen's religious needs and desires." Any number of governmental activities were regarded as offensive by particular sections of the population, for the most sincere reasons, but the First Amendment did not provide such people with a veto unless those governmental activities directly prohibited the free exercise of their religion. There was also the vital point that nothing in the Constitution was helpful to someone who wanted to limit the state's right to make use of its own land. This decision was met with considerable disappointment within the Native American community, but this was nothing when compared with the reaction to our second case: Employment Division v. Smith. For generations, in Texas and northern Mexico, use had been made in religious ceremonies of the peyote cactus: a plant with narcotic properties. At the end of the nineteenth century, the number of devotees of peyote religion began to expand significantly. In the early part of the century, efforts were made, notably by the anthropologist James Mooney (1862-1921), to defend peyote religion from charges of immorality, and the Native American Church (whose members make use of peyote in their religious life) expanded impressively. The peyote issue came to prominence again in the 1960s, however, and in 1962 three Navajo Indians were arrested in California and charged with making use of an illegal substance. The California Supreme Court found for the Navajos, arguing that while the state clearly had an interest in upholding laws against narcotics, there was a heftier interest involved in allowing the practice of a ritual that constituted the "very essence of religious expression." Two decades later, however, in 1984, Alfred Smith, a member of the Native American Church, was fired from his job at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Oregon when he refused to desist from participation in peyote rituals. He was then denied unemployment benefits because of a state law that made the use of certain substances illegal. Smith filed suit on the grounds that his right to free exercise had been violated. The Oregon Supreme Court agreed with Smith, but in 1988 the United States Supreme Court came to a different decision. Justice Antonin Scalia, in a landmark decision, ruled that it was no longer necessary (as had been argued for the previous two decades) for the state to prove it had a "compelling interest" when a law (of general applicability) placed a burden on the free exercise of religion. The compelling interest standard, first enunciated in Sherbert v. Verner in 1963 (see pp. xvi-xvii), "contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense." Smith was suggesting that his "religious motivation

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for using peyote places [him] beyond the reach of a criminal law that is not specifically directed at [his] religious practice." This was untenable. This decision caused outrage in many quarters and led, in 1 9 9 3 , to Congress passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which sought to reinstate the crucial compelling interest standard. In 1997, however, in the case of City of Boerne, Texas, v. Flores, the Supreme Court declared that Congress had exceeded its legislative powers and the 1993 Act was deemed unconstitutional. SUGGESTED READING Henry Warner Bowden, American Indians and Christian Missions: Studies in Cultural Conflict (Chicago, 1981); Lawrence Kelly, The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Policy Reform (Albuquerque, NM, 1983); idem., The Navajo Indians and Federal Indian Policy, 1900-1935 (Tucson, AZ, 1968); Stephen Kunitz, "The Social Philosophy of John Collier," Ethnohistory 18 (1971), 213-29; Kenneth R. Philp, John Collier's Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920-1954 (Tucson, AZ, 1977); Graham Taylor, The New Deal and American Indian Tribalism: The Administration of the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934-45 (Lincoln, NE, 1980); Christopher Vecsey, ed., Handbook of American Indian Religious Freedom (New York, 1991); and Wilcomb Washburn, "A Fifty-Year Perspective on the Indian Reorganization Act," American Anthropologist 86 (1984), 279-89.

EARL WARREN (1891-1974) Freedoms in the Courts Earl Warren was born on March 19, 1891, in Los Angeles, the son of Erik Methias Warren, a railroad repair man, and Christine Hernlund. Throughout his life Warren was well known as a deeply devout, Bible-reading Christian. After studying politics at the University of California, receiving his BA in 1912, he attended law school, graduating in 1914. Following brief spells in private practice and working as legal counsel for an oil company, he joined the army in 1917 and reached the rank of first lieutenant. Returning to civilian life, he served as deputy city attorney in Oakland and, in May 1920, took up the position of deputy district attorney in Alameda County. In 1925 Warren married Nina Palmquist Meyers, and in the following year became the county's district attorney. He would be reelected to this post in 1930 and 1934, steadily winning a national reputation as a legal reformer and a vigorous opponent of the political corruption and organized crime that riddled the prohibition era. In 1938 Warren became California's attorney general (his father was murdered on the eve of the election). At this stage of his career, Warren's liberalism had definite limits, especially regarding his attitude toward communism. He also worked hard to keep Professor Max Radin off the bench of the Supreme Court, regarding him as too outspoken on civil liberties issues. In the 1942 gubernatorial race, Warren secured 57 percent of California's vote and won reelection in 1946 and 1950. He would help the state toward a modern hospital system and highway system, and throughout these terms of office, his policies—on pension and prison reform, and on tax and health insurance—had a marked progressive orientation. Warren ran as a vice presidential candidate in 1948 and, in 1952, made an unimpressive showing in the presidential primaries. By this stage, his position on communists and other "radicals" seems to have softened somewhat, and in 1950, he opposed the enforcement of a loyalty oath on professors at California's universities,

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although, during the Korean War, he would still support a similar oath intended for state employees. Following the 1952 election, Warren had been offered, and turned down, positions as secretary of labor and secretary of the interior, and he seemed destined to take up his duties as solicitor general. An untimely death on the Supreme Court bench intervened, however, and Warren was sworn in as chief justice in October 1953. This was a decision that Eisenhower would come to regret: he does not seem to have held Warren in any great affection but he had hoped that he would bring much-needed gravitas and a moderate conservative slant to the court—instead, Warren proved to be unabashedly liberal. *

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There would be many sides to Warren's Supreme Court career. Some decisions (Mapp v. Ohio, Gideon v. Wainwright,) and Miranda v. Arizona) had a hugely important impact on the criminal justice system—excluding evidence seized without warrant, insisting on a suspect's right to counsel, and codifying the treatment a suspect must receive after arrest, respectively. With the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education ofTopeka, the court would intervene in the fraught issue of segregation in schools. Outside the court, Warren would also win increased fame through his role in the commission set up to investigate the assassination of President John Kennedy. It was during the years 1962-1969, however, that the phenomenon of the "Warren Court" would fully emerge, and although Warren often left the writing of majority decisions to colleagues, there is no doubt that his stamp was left on every case that came before the bench of justices. He made full use of his right, in the conferences where cases were discussed, to speak first and forcefully about the matter at hand. His leadership, as his colleagues frequently testified, was decidedly forceful: as early as the Brown v. Board of Education case, he had managed to secure (albeit by making certain compromises) a much-needed unanimous decision from justices with various, conflicting views on segregation issues. He skillfully oversaw a sometimes fractious court and, with the retirement of Felix Frankfurter and the appointment of Arthur Goldberg, a "liberal" majority came to dominate the bench. For the next seven years, conservative commentators would grumble about the court's decisions on, among much else, issues around freedom of the press, contraception, and civil rights. It even became fashionable among his harsher critics to display "impeach Earl Warren" bumper stickers. In some quarters, the Court was seen as encouraging an overly liberal, even permissive, society. Representative William Tuck of Virginia likened the chief justice to Samson, "for like Samson he is not only blind, heedless, desperate and destructive, but he has also pulled down the temple." In no sphere was the criticism quite so boisterous as the court's rulings in cases involving issues of religious freedom. The rest of this essay deals, in some detail, with four of those famous cases: Braunfeld v. Brown (1961),

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Engel v. Vitale (1962), Sherbert v. Verner (1963), and School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, v. Schempp (1963). (Several other important cases are outlined in the second appendix at the end of the book.) ¥ ¥

¥

The Orthodox Jew Abraham Braunfeld was the owner of a store in Philadelphia. In order to remain economically viable, it was necessary for the store to be open six days a week. His religious beliefs made it impossible for him to work on Saturdays, his Sabbath, so opening on Sundays seemed a matter of economic necessity. Unfortunately, since 1959, Pennsylvania had enforced a law that forbade this. Braunfeld suggested that this law violated his right to free exercise of religion. The court, led by Warren, disagreed, with a 6-3 majority. No religious exercise was prevented by the law in question: "the statute before us does not make criminal the holding of any religious belief or opinion, nor does it force anyone to embrace any religious belief or to say or believe anything in conflict with his religious tenets." All that was aimed at by the state was the enforcing of a uniform day of rest, and it was surely a social good to "provide a weekly respite from all labor and, at the same time, to set one day of the week apart from the others as a day of rest, repose, recreation and tranquility—a day when the hectic tempo of everyday existence ceases and a more pleasant atmosphere is created, a day which all members of the family and community have the opportunity to spend and enjoy together, a day on which people may visit friends and relatives who are not available during working days, a day when the weekly laborer may best regenerate himself." There was an indirect burden on religious exercise—it was perhaps made more expensive for Braunfeld to practice his religion—but the law was neutral, was general, and had a secular objective. Certainly, "if the purpose or effect of a law is to impede the observance of one or all religions or is to discriminate invidiously between religions, that law is constitutionally invalid even though the burden may be characterized as being only indirect." But things were rather different "if the state regulates conduct by enacting a general law within its power, the purpose and effect of which is to advance the state's secular goals." It remained constitutional provided there was no way the state could achieve its goal without imposing such a burden. The crucial point was that "certain aspects of religious exercise cannot, in any way, be restricted or burdened by either federal or state legislation. Compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship is strictly forbidden. The freedom to hold religious beliefs and opinions is absolute." By contrast, however, "the freedom to act, even when the action is in accord with one's religious convictions, is not totally free from legislative restrictions . . . legislative power over mere opinion is forbidden but it may reach people's actions when they are found to be in violation of important social duties or subversive of good order."

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Justice William Brennan dissented, arguing that he could see no "compelling state interest" in achieving a uniform day of rest. He suggested that individuals who observed days of rest at other times during the week ought to be exempt from the law. "What overbalancing need is so weighty in the constitutional scale," he asked, "that it justifies this substantial, though indirect, limitation of appellants' freedom? It is not the desire to stamp out a practice deeply abhorred by society, such as polygamy."

^ ¥ * A year later, it was the turn of the establishment clause of the First Amendment to come under the scrutiny of the court, and although the writing of the majority decision was left to another justice, Warren's imprimatur was undoubtedly on the judgment. A New York School Board had required that a prayer—"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country"—be recited in its public schools at the start of each school day. Participation was voluntary. Ten sets of parents, including Steven Engel, objected to this activity, stating that recitation of the prayer went against their religious beliefs and, crucially, that it violated the First Amendment's establishment clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"), which was now applicable to the state of New York via the Fourteenth Amendment. The court, ruling 6-1, agreed. The majority decision, composed by Justice Hugo Black, insisted that government had no business composing official prayers for public school students: "We think that by using its public school system to encourage recitation of the Regents' prayer, the State of New York has adopted a practice wholly inconsistent with the establishment clause. There can, of course, be no doubt that New York's program of daily classroom invocation of God's blessings as prescribed in the Regents' prayer is a religious activity. It is a solemn avowal of divine faith and supplication for the blessings of the Almighty. The nature of such a prayer has always been religious." Engel insisted that the measure breached "the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State." The court agreed "with that contention since we think that the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government." Nor was the voluntary nature of the prayer of any great relevance to the case. Firstly, one ought not to underestimate the coercive pressure to conform that was to be found in an environment such as a school classroom. Secondly, "neither the fact that the prayer may be denominationally neutral nor the fact that its observance on the part of the students is voluntary can serve to free it from the limitations of the Establishment Clause."

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The majority decision was notable for its historical awareness, not only citing James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, composed as part o the campaign to get Thomas Jefferson's Religious Freedom Bill enacted in Virginia in the 1780s (see pp. 103-4), but also making the point that it was in order to escape government-imposed prayers that many of the first colonists had fled to America. Black was also eager to place this judgment in the context of his interpretation of the intentions of the makers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. "By the time of the adoption of the Constitution," he argued, Our history shows that there was a widespread awareness among many Americans of the dangers of a union of church and state. These people knew, some of them from bitter personal experience, that one of the greatest dangers to the freedom of the individual to worship in his own way lay in the Government's placing its official stamp of approval upon one particular kind of prayer or one particular form of religious services. They knew the anguish, hardship and bitter strife that could come when zealous religious groups struggled with one another to obtain the Government's stamp of approval from each king, queen, or protector that came to temporary power. With the Engel decision (fully supported by Warren), the vibrant, often furious, battle that has raged in the United States over the issue of prayer in public schools was joined. A year later, the Warren Court confronted the case of Sherbert v. Verner and returned to the question of free exercise. Adell Sherbert had worked at a South Carolina textile mill for thirty years, before a new policy was introduced whereby employees were expected to work on Saturdays. Sherbert, a Seventh-Day Adventist, refused to work on her Sabbath and was fired. She made an application for unemployment benefits from the state of South Carolina but was deemed ineligible because, as the state law put it, she had "failed, without good cause . . . to accept available suitable work when offered . . . by the employment office or the employer." The Supreme Court decided, with a 7-2 majority, that it was unconstitutional for South Carolina to deny these benefits to someone who refused work on the grounds of her religious beliefs. Firstly, it was clear that burden had been placed on Sherbert's right to free exercise: it was "apparent that appellant's declared ineligibility for benefits derives solely from the practice of her religion, but the pressure upon her to forego that practice is unmistakable. The ruling forces her to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting benefits, on the one hand, and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to accept work, on the other hand." Secondly, the court could make out no compelling state interest that made

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it right to withhold benefits. As had previously been argued, "only the gravest abuses, endangering paramount interests, give occasion for permissible limitation" of First Amendment freedoms. In this instance, the only threat that had been suggested was that granting Sherbert an exemption from the law raised the possibility that "the filing of fraudulent claims by unscrupulous claimants feigning religious objections to Saturday work might not only dilute the unemployment compensation fund but also hinder the scheduling by employers of necessary Saturday work." This was questionable, but "even if the possibility of spurious claims did threaten to dilute the fund and disrupt the scheduling of work," that hardly influenced the present case as "it would plainly be incumbent upon the appellees to demonstrate that no alternative forms of regulation would combat such abuses without infringing First Amendment rights." The South Carolina law was generally valid, but Sherbert, to protect her religious freedoms, deserved to be exempted from it. This notion of a compelling state interest would be invoked time and again over the coming years. ¥ ¥

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In this same year, 1963, the Warren Court handed out a decision in another epochal case involving the establishment clause: School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, v. Schempp. Since 1959, public schools in Pennsylvania had been obliged to start each school day with a reading of at least ten Bible verses, although pupils could avoid the exercise if their parents requested exemption in writing. In one particular Philadelphia school, these verses were read over the school's intercom and were followed by a recitation of the Lord's Prayer. It was also stressed that there were to be "no prefatory statements, no questions asked or solicited, no comments or explanations made and no interpretations given at or during the exercises." Roger and Donna Schempp's Unitarian parents objected. They had toyed with the idea of securing the available exemption for their children, but they feared that this would have a negative impact on how their teachers and fellow students would treat them. Instead, they made the claim that the school's policy was in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The school board's counterargument was that the readings were intended to promote morality, not religion per se. With an 8-1 majority, the court agreed that the statute that required the Bible readings was indeed unconstitutional. The case was considered alongside Murray et al. v. Curlett et al.\ a Maryland case in which Atheist parents had objected to readings of a similar nature. At the outset of the majority decision (composed by Justice Tom Clark), care was taken not to appear in any way hostile to religion. It was "true that religion has been closely identified with our history and government," and the "fact that the founding fathers believed devotedly that there was a God and that the unalienable rights of man were rooted in Him is clearly evidenced in

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their writings, from the Mayflower Compact to the Constitution itself." This tradition continued to the present day, and was "evidenced today in our public life through the continuance in our oaths of office, from the Presidency to the Alderman, of the final supplication, 'So help me God.'" Both houses of Congress provided "through its chaplain an opening prayer, and the sessions of this court are declared open by the crier in a short ceremony, the final phrase of which invokes the grace of God." But none of this meant "that religion has been so identified with our history and government that religious freedom is not likewise as strongly imbedded in our public and private life. . . . This freedom to worship was indispensable in a country whose people came from the four quarters of the earth and brought with them a diversity of religious opinion." The court insisted that it was obvious that Bible reading was a religious exercise. In additional commentary, Justice William Brennan held as irrelevant the arguments that the readings might lead to better discipline, or might have the secular goal of enhancing harmony or tolerance in the school. As a religious exercise, the danger of violating the establishment clause was all too apparent. As in previous cases, the court had advocated government's sustaining a "wholesome neutrality," which stemmed "from a recognition of the teachings of history that powerful sects or groups might bring about a fusion of governmental and religious functions or a concert or dependency of one upon the other to the end that official support of the state or federal government would be placed behind the tenets of one or of all orthodoxies." What the court's decision did not imply, however, was that "study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment." Nor did the court accept that "the invalidation of the exercises at bar permits this court no alternative but to declare unconstitutional every vestige, however slight, of cooperation or accommodation between religion and government. Our decision in these cases does not clearly forecast anything about the constitutionality of other types of interdependence between religious and other public institutions." "The place of religion in our society is an exalted one," the court argued, "achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind." But it was vital "to recognize through bitter experience that it is not within the power of government to invade that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid or oppose, to advance or retard. In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly committed to a position of neutrality." Of most importance in the Schempp decision was the "test" that the court's ruling sought to establish. Firstly, if a law was to avoid conflict with the establishment clause, it had to have a secular purpose. Secondly, its principal effect must not be to advance or hinder religion. Over the coming years the court would seek to uphold this standard, adding a third criterion in the

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1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman decision that a law must also not foster excessive entanglement between government and religion. There would be no more controversial issue than the role of religion in public schools. As William Brennan, usually a close ally of Warren, explained, "The court's historic duty to expound the meaning of the Constitution has encountered few issues more intricate or more demanding than that of the relationship between religion and the public schools. Since undoubtedly we are 'a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being,' deep feelings are aroused when aspects of that relationship are claimed to violate the injunction of the First Amendment that government may make 'no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' " Americans regarded "the public schools as a most vital civic institution for the preservation of a democratic system of government. It is therefore understandable that the constitutional prohibitions encounter their severest test when they are sought to be applied in the school classroom. Nevertheless it is this court's inescapable duty to declare whether exercises in the public schools of the states, such as those of Pennsylvania and Maryland questioned here, are involvements of religion in public institutions of a kind which offends the First and Fourteenth Amendments." ¥ ¥

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The role of Earl Warren's Supreme Court in establishing a particular way of interpreting and applying the religion clauses of the First Amendment would win as many enemies as supporters. Such issues would play their role in the 1968 election, with supporters of Richard Nixon arguing that, after close to a decade of the Supreme Court handing out controversial decisions on a host of social and religious matters, there ought to be a move toward greater judicial restraint. Warren retired in 1969 and died in July 1974, a month before Nixon was forced to tender his resignation. Beyond doubt, the decisions of the Warren Court, perhaps preeminently its rulings on school prayer, did much to infuriate and, consequently, energize the Christian right, helping to galvanize those with ideals and agendas very different from those of Earl Warren. Warren has been touted as one of the most important chief justices in the Supreme Court's history, the man whose own curious political trajectory led him from advocacy of Japanese American internment camps during the Second World War to passionate support of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Talk of a Supreme Court "revolution" during his tenure, one that did much to pour oil on the flames of the so-called, and still-raging, culture wars, is neither uncommon nor unreasonable. It was during his tenure as chief justice that one of the most fraught legal discussions in American history once more came into the sharpest relief. What was the precise role of the Supreme Court within the nation's constitutional settlement? Was it the place of the Court to show initiative in tackling

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pressing social and political issues, or did that responsibility reside with other branches of government? Advocates of judicial self-restraint (including Felix Frankfurter) were part of a tradition that dated back to the earliest days of the republic and the bickering between Jeffersonians and the Marshall Court. Was it not better for the Supreme Court to avoid constitutional issues where possible, to deem laws invalid only when they infringed specific constitutional rules, and to adopt the default position of upholding laws where there was room for reasonable disagreement about whether or not they were constitutional? It was such strategies that the Warren Court flatly rejected, and the unabashed pursuit of judicial activism was the source of much of the criticism it had to endure. As Warren remarked at his retirement, the court was obliged to "exercise the functions of the office to the limit of its responsibilities." In the decades since the Warren Court, arguments about the role of religion in public schools and colleges have rumbled on. Indeed, such arguments have a pedigree dating back to at least the eighteenth century (see the entries on John Hughes [pp. 141-45], Isaac Mayer Wise [pp. 178-79], and William Livingston [pp. 63-68], and the minor biography of John Purcell in the appendix). In the 1960s, politicians (Congressman Frank Becker of New York and Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois) were militating for an amendment that made voluntary prayer and Bible readings in public schools constitutional: in 1984 such a school prayer amendment won a vote in the Senate by 56 to 44 votes, although this failed to achieve the two-thirds majority needed for a legislative victory. In 1985, the constitutionality of moments of silence in Alabama schools, for the purposes of meditation or voluntary prayer, was discussed in Wallace v. Jaffree. In 1992, in Lee v. Weisman, the spotlight was turned on Providence, Rhode Island, and the constitutional rectitude of clergymen opening and closing graduation ceremonies with prayers was called into question. Eight years later, in Santa Fe v. Doe, the issue of student-led prayers at Texan school football games came before the Supreme Court (they were deemed a breach of state/church separation). Nor is the debate about religion and the schools limited to the issue of prayer and religious readings. Just as the twentieth century was characterized by questions of government aid (the provision of, for instance, textbooks, specialist teachers, and transportation) to parochial schools, so the burning issue of the early twenty-first century (from the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris decision of 2002 forward) looks likely to be the constitutionality of school voucher schemes. Debates also continue, especially in the wake of the Good News Club v. Mil ford Central School decision of 2001 (where the club was successful in securing access to school facilities) about the use of school and university property by religious organizations and student-organized religious societies. Old issues—the teaching of creationism, for instance—are still with us, and newer issues—including the question of how far schools ought to accommodate the deeply held religious beliefs of Muslim students—are gathering momentum.

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SUGGESTED READING David Ackerman, ed., Prayer and Religion in the Public Schools (New York, 2001); Robert Alley, Without a Prayer: Religious Expression in Public Schools (Amherst, NY, 1996); Richard Funston, Constitutional Counter-Rev olution?: The Warren Court and the Burger Court: Judicial Policy Making in Modern America (Cambridge, MA, 1977); H. C. Hudgins, Jr., The Warren Court and the Public Schools: An Analysis of Landmark Supreme Court Decisions (Danville, IL, 1970); Leo Katcher, Earl Warren: A Political Biography (New York, 1967); Arnold Rice, The Warren Court, 1953-1969 (Milwood, NY, 1987); Bernard Schwartz, ed., The Warren Court: A Retrospective (New York, 1996); and G. Edward White, Earl Warren, A Public Life (New York, 1982).

JOHN COURTNEY MURRAY (1904-1967) An American Thesis John Courtney Murray, one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, was born in New York City in September 1904. The son of the Scottish-born lawyer Michael John Murray, and Margaret Courtney, he entered the novitiate of the New York province of the Society of Jesus in 1920, aged sixteen. After studies at Weston College, where he earned his BA and MA in 1926 and 1927, respectively, he spent the years 1927-1930 teaching at the Ateneo de Manila in the Philippines. He returned to the United States in 1930 and studied for four years at the Woodstock Seminary, was ordained in June 1933, and took his STL degree in 1934. From there he proceeded to Rome and earned his STD at the Gregorian (specializing in issues around the Trinity) in 1937. He returned to Woodstock, where he served as a professor of theology from 1937 until his death. He combined this role with stints as associate as editor of America between 1945 and 1946 and as editor of Theological Studies from 1941 to 1967. Murray's would be a controversial career, during a fecund period for Catholic theology and social thought. While he wrote and meditated on a host of issues, it would be his musings on the issue of religious freedom that attracted most attention (admiring and otherwise). Some saw him as the champion of a sophisticated, innovative Catholic approach to the religious dynamics of the United States. Others perceived him as a rebel. From the mid-1950s, he would be prevented from writing on the subject of religious freedom by both the superiors of his own order and the censorship apparatus in Rome. His career cannot be understood without an appreciation of the two traditions to which he was heir: the Catholic Church's effort, from the nineteenth century onward, to understand and react to the prevailing trends of modern Western thought; and the complex, sometimes turbulent, history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.

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The Catholic Church, faced with the legacy of Enlightenment and the Revolutionary era, would struggle over the course of the nineteenth century to come to terms with the theories, aspirations, and political realities of the modern world. Many of the old certainties—established churches, and the partnership of thrones and altars—had vanished. The church would be accused of being anachronistic, mired in outmoded philosophies and social attitudes, at odds with the liberal democratic impulses of the age, and unable to come to terms with new trends in scholarship, science, and politics. Rome, of course, had its response. First came a concerted effort to reassert papal authority, to make sure that the worldwide Catholic communion (a far from monolithic entity) realized that the center of its church resided on the banks of the Tiber. Nuncios would be sent around the world, bishops would be encouraged to make their visits to Rome, and with a dogmatic flourish the church would be invited to accept the controversial doctrine of papal infallibility in 1870. It also seemed important, faced with so many critics and crises, to express Catholic uniqueness at every opportunity. Particular aspects of Catholic spirituality—devotion to the Sacred Heart, for instance—were stressed, the doctrine of the immaculate conception was promulgated in 1854, and at the Vatican Council in the years 1869-1870 the cornerstones of Roman Catholic faith were reiterated and the church's response to the modern world was further defined. Throughout the nineteenth century, and well into the twentieth, efforts were made to quash dissent and theologizing that struck the church's hierarchy as too radical. Above all, the church was eager to pass judgment on modern civilization, to criticize those aspects of contemporary life that it found difficult to accept. The high water mark of this policy came with the production of the famous Syllabus of Errors in 1864. There was to be no accommodation with modish trends and philosophies; the notion that political and social life could be properly conducted without reference to God was pilloried. Extreme rationalism, materialism, and indifferentism were denounced; it was averred that salvation outside of the Catholic faith was an impossibility; and scorn was poured on the idea that absolute liberty of speech or worship was some kind of inalienable right. What modern commentators often referred to as liberty was, Rome insisted, more often than not, license. Bluntly put, the idea that the pope "can and ought to reconcile himself with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation" was flatly rejected. Of course, there was much more (some of it progressive) to the nineteenthcentury Roman Catholic Church than papal posturing and pronouncements, but it was a document such as the Syllabus of Errors that forged an image in the popular imagination of Catholicism as the sworn adversary of progress. This was not entirely fair, but it was entirely understandable. As for the American Church, it was reminded at the very end of the nineteenth century of Rome's sensitivity to controversial theorizing.

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Church leaders such as John Ireland and Cardinal James Gibbons had been so bold as to encourage American Catholics to embrace the possibilities offered by the nation's freedoms and constitutional settlement. The response to this so-called Americanist crisis came first from Catholic leaders such as Archbishop Michael Corrigan of New York and Bishop Bernard McQuaid of Rochester, and then it came from Rome. In the papal encyclical "Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae" of 1899, it was explained that Catholic teaching was the same in all places at all times, and could not be manipulated to suit the tastes of a particular community. American Catholics suggesting that the First Amendment and the separation of church and state might actually be things of value were far beyond the papal pale. The encyclical was sent, so Leo XIII explained, as a "renewed expression of that good will which we have not failed during the course of our pontificate to manifest frequently to you and to your colleagues in the episcopate and to the whole American people, availing ourselves of every opportunity offered us by the progress of your church or whatever you have done for safeguarding and promoting Catholic interests." There was a need, however, to "call attention to some things to be avoided and corrected," although this should only be taken as "another proof of our love; the more so because it is intended to suppress certain contentions which have arisen lately among you to the detriment of the peace of many souls." There were dangerous new opinions in circulation that suggested that "in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions." Some were even arguing that such concessions should touch not only "ways of living" but also doctrinal matters that belonged to the deposit of the faith. They advocated omitting "certain points of [the Church's] teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them." But this risked making Catholic doctrine into a "philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity," rather than a set of dogmas infallibly declared. The church's teachings, it ought to be remembered, were appropriate to "all times and all nations." Certainly, "in regard to ways of living she has been accustomed to so yield that, the divine principle of morals being kept intact, she has never neglected to accommodate herself to the character and genius of the nations which she embraces." And the church would doubtless continue this tradition: although it was down to the church hierarchy, not private individuals, to make such choices. There was an ever-present danger of "confounding . . . license with liberty," of assuming that there was a "right to hold whatever opinions one pleases upon any subject and to set them forth in print to the world." The church had "no thought of rejecting everything that modern industry and study has produced," but the wisdom and authority of the church had to be always recognized.

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The duty to lead people to the church was manifest, but this was best done by offering shining examples of authentic Catholic living, not by reaching for compromise. Many in the United States were "separated from Catholic truth more by ignorance than by ill-will," and they might "more easily be drawn to the one fold of Christ if this truth be set forth to them in a friendly and familiar way." It was of absolutely no benefit to fuel the suspicion that "there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world." This was the troubled legacy—one that confused American Catholics and disturbed American non-Catholics—that John Courtney Murray inherited. He was also heir to a century's worth of anti-Catholic propaganda, suspicion, and, on occasion, violence: indeed, his desire to convince non-Catholic America that it had nothing to fear from the Catholic Church was at the heart of his meditations on religious freedom. Following on from the nativist politicking and rabble-rousing of the mid-nineteenth century, anti-Catholic sentiment had never really faded in the American imagination. Eventually, the old prejudicial laws would be overturned—it was even possible for a Catholic to hold office in New Hampshire after 1876—but new militant organizations would spring up. Members of Henry Bowers's short-lived American Protective Association, founded in Iowa in 1887, would pledge not to hire, vote for, or strike alongside a Catholic. In 1915, a revived Ku Klux Klan emerged and, along with other antiCatholic pressure groups, would do much to hinder the public career of the Catholic Al Smith (1873-1944), playing a role in preventing him from gaining the Democratic presidential nomination in 1924. When Smith secured the nomination four years later, his stance on prohibition and the fact that he was a New Yorker did not help his cause, but much of the criticism he received was rooted in the fact that he was a Roman Catholic, and a Roman Catholic, so the mantra went, was not fit to serve in high public office. He belonged to a faith that supposedly stood for everything the democratic, liberal spirit of the United States rejected. Smith's commitment to public service was hardly in doubt. As a member of the Albany Assembly and as governor of New York, he had emerged as a politician of national importance, committed to a progressive agenda. This did not prevent Charles C. Marshall from launching an attack in the pages of the Atlantic Monthly in 1927, in which he argued that Smith's Catholicism was entirely at odds with the United States' political tradition. In the May issue, Governor Smith, writing in collaboration with friends, offered a bullish reply. As the editor explained, "this is a historic incident, historic for the country and for the Church." For the first time, "under a constitution which forever forbids religious tests as qualifications for office," a presidential candidate had been made to endure public questioning about how he could square allegiance to the state with allegiance to his church. It raised the question of whether "the principle of religious tolerance . . . which every schoolboy has

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repeated for one hundred and fifty years" was "mere platitudinous vaporing." Was it really possible for men of different faiths to work together for the republic's advancement, or was "the United States of America based on a delusion?" Smith had little doubt as to the answer. Marshall had imputed to American Catholics views that seemingly questioned their "loyalty and devotion to this country and its Constitution." But the simple truth was that "these convictions are held neither by me nor by any other American Catholic, as far as I know." Smith was keen to stress that he would be "a poor American and poor Catholic alike if I injected religious discussion into a political campaign." Rather—and this was an astute move—he was answering Marshall "not as a candidate for any public office but as an American citizen" whose integrity had been impugned. The moral high ground was thus secured. Smith explained that he had taken expert advice on the relevant theological issues, and quite a patriotic expert at that. Father Francis Duffy might have been a Catholic, but he also "wears upon his breast the Distinguished Service Cross of our country, its Distinguished Service Medal, the Ribbon of the Legion of Honour," and even honors from France. With these canny salvos out of the way, Smith turned to the substance of Marshall's letter. The core accusation was that "there is conflict between religious loyalty to the Catholic faith and patriotic loyalty to the United States." The simple fact was, as all the evidence of a long career had made clear to Smith, this was just not true. He had taken nineteen oaths to defend his nation, and his religion had never once threatened to undermine such declarations. It also ought to be remembered, Smith added, that he had been a very vocal, controversial political figure, involved with numerous social initiatives—if conflicts were going to emerge, they would surely have emerged during such a career. The charge that his Catholicism made Smith a threat to the public school system was especially galling. "I regard public education as one of the foremost functions of government," as his funding of schools made entirely clear. Smith had maintained good relations, he explained, with clerics of all denominations. He was committed to avoiding squabbles over dogmatic principles, and to working together to inculcate obedience to the commandments of God, which, he suggested, were the building blocks for the nation's laws. There was nothing sinister about religion—it was a font of morality— but the way to promote it was to "stop bickering among our sects." Marshall was also ignoring some important lessons from history. Did he not remember that there had been two Catholic chief justices, that tens of thousands of Catholic men had given up their lives for their nation in wartime? Nor had there been any lack of American Catholics who supported the nation's protection of religious freedom. "The American prelates of our Church stoutly defend our constitutional declaration of equality of all religions before the law." Cardinal O'Connell had lauded the "blessed inheritance of civil, political and religious liberty safeguarded by the

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Constitution." Archbishop Ireland had regarded the First Amendment as "a great leap forward on the part of the new nation towards personal liberty and the consecration of the rights of conscience." Religious freedom, he had also remarked, was "the basic life of America, the cement running through all its walls and battlements, the safeguard of its peace and prosperity." It was "with these great Catholics" that Smith stood "squarely in support of the provisions of the constitution which guarantees religious freedom and equality." Protestant America, Smith explained, had nothing to fear. Church leaders had constantly argued that any efforts of the church to dominate the secular estate would be offensive to Catholic consciences: "Let the Pope and the Cardinals and all the powers of the Catholic world . . . make the least encroachment on [the] constitution," one of them had thundered, and "we will protect it with our lives." In his own career, Smith had made all appointments "on the basis of merit and . . . never asked any man about his religious opinions": his present cabinet consisted of two Catholics, thirteen Protestants, and a Jew. Smith merely begged the same impartial treatment. "I summarize my creed as an American Catholic," Smith concluded. He believed in a certain form of worship, but he did not think that the institutions of his church had any right or ability to interfere with the operation of the U.S. Constitution. "I believe in absolute freedom of conscience for all men and in equality of all churches, all sects and all beliefs before the law as a matter of right and not as a matter of favour." He believed in "the absolute separation of church and state. . . . I believe in the support of the public school as one of the cornerstones of American liberty." Smith's was a courteous, sophisticated reply. It hardly silenced his critics, and his final wish—that "never again in this land will any public servant be challenged because of the faith in which he has tried to walk humbly with his God"—would not be fulfilled. A quandary remained for those who came after Smith: how was a Catholic to negotiate two traditions—the inherent conservatism of Rome, which made radical thought about America's religious milieu very difficult to accomplish, and the inherent anti-Catholic sentiment within much of American culture, which made it very difficult to convince anyone that a Roman Catholic could have anything worthwhile to contribute to the nation's debate about religious freedom? It was a quandary that John Courtney Murray managed, some would say triumphantly, to solve. ¥ ¥

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Over the course of his career, Murray would write over sixty articles dealing with issues of religious freedom and church/state separation. What follows is merely a synthesis of that body of work. From the outset, he confronted a Catholic intellectual tradition that seemed to be entirely unsympathetic to the ideals enshrined in the religion clauses of the First Amendment.

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For centuries, European Catholics had pursued the ideal of an established, privileged church. Good Catholic rulers were expected to serve the interests of the church and to stamp out all forms of dissent and heresy. Catholics were free to practice their religion unfettered: all other sects were to be outlawed. Though such an ideal had been increasingly undermined by the political turmoil of the nineteenth century, it was still possible for an American Catholic such as John Ryan to declare in 1940 that it remained a Catholic's duty to seek the establishment of Catholicism as a state religion: although Ryan was careful to tell non-Catholic America that, as this was very unlikely to happen, there was little for it to worry about. At first, Murray expressed dissatisfaction with the state of American society. He regarded it as decadent and suggested that any worthwhile reform would only come to pass once Catholic truths such as the Incarnation, the Trinity, and the Cross had been embraced. Very soon, however, his appreciation of American freedoms would be much enhanced. At the heart of Murray's theorizing (and at the heart of the criticism that he endured) was the belief that Catholic ideas about something like religious freedom could change over time. Catholicism was to be seen as a historical faith; it had its eternal truths, certainly, and these were to remain inviolate, but the church also had a duty to react to changing political realities. With the emergence of liberal democracy there was obviously such a need, but the church had thus far failed to acknowledge it. There was, Murray insisted, an emerging modern consensus about religious freedom: "In the sphere of religion no-one is to be compelled to act against his conscience. Nowadays, this principle is one upon which all persons of judgement agree, unshakeably." The church had a duty to accept this premise. The modern era had also seen a blossoming faith in the potential and human dignity of individuals. These individuals joined together in civil society, and this was the place where moralities were to be forged. Both the church and the state were expected to serve civil society and, crucially, they both had their separate spheres of competence and influence. The "American thesis," as Murray termed it, insisted "that government is not juridically omnipotent. Its powers are limited, and one of the principles of limitation is the distinction between state and church, in their purpose, methods and manner of organisation." It was the job of government to keep peace by enacting and enforcing laws. Beyond making sure people could worship freely, the state's active role in religious affairs was negligible. The basis of Catholic integralism, the notion that Catholic religious truth was a social good and, therefore, it was the role of the state to promote it, was rejected by Murray. This notion of separation had, Murray believed, been ably articulated by the First Amendment. Murray insisted that this was not a "religious" document: rather, it was a statement of legal principles. It was, to an extent, rooted in pragmatism, in the acknowledgment that America was destined to have a pluralistic religious landscape, home to any number of competing

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sects. But it also had a philosophical motivation. It did not "say there is no distinction between true and false religion, good and bad morality. But it does say that in American circumstances the conscience of the community . . . does not give government any mandate . . . to repress religious opinions or practises, even though they are erroneous and false." From a Catholic perspective, it offered freedom of worship in what was plainly a de facto Protestant culture, and that was surely a boon. Under the protection of the First Amendment, the church's spiritual autonomy was recognized. The inherent dualism of the individual—as both a citizen and a creature of God—was fully acknowledged. Murray was especially keen to demonstrate that he and other Catholics were not advocating religious freedom for purely selfish, opportunistic reasons. Rather, they had their own theological reasons for so doing. Murray sought to demonstrate that the idea of separating church and state was, in fact, a Catholic invention, dating as far back as the thought of Gelasius (a fifth-century pope) and the medieval theologian Jean de Paris. "The dualism of mankind's two hierarchically ordered forms of social life," Murray suggested, "had been Christianity's cardinal contribution to the western political tradition." This all contributed to Murray's other urgent task: to convince America that Catholics were not a threat to Republican ideals. Removing such distrust struck Murray as especially important in the era of the new nativism. Throughout his career Murray challenged any efforts to suggest that Catholicism was somehow un-American. He despised the generalizations that commentators often resorted to when discussing his church. As he explained during one debate in 1949, picking out this or that stereotype was reminiscent of "the bone or two out of which the Sunday-supplement archaeologist constructs the museum piece prehistoric monster." Murray was always conscious of the scale of the task confronting him: "it is always a bit difficult," he admitted, "to convince anyone that a bogey-man does not exist." It is vital to stress that Murray's thought on church/state issues developed over a lengthy scholarly career. One constant, however, was the amount of controversy his ideas provoked. As early as 1948, a speech on church/state relations at the meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America had raised eyebrows, and the society's president had felt obliged to remark that Murray's ideas seemed to be "out of harmony with the traditional belief and attitude of the Church for many centuries." Murray would be repeatedly censured by leading Catholic theologians, especially Joseph Fenton, in the pages of the American Ecclesiastical Review. Matters reached crisis point in 1954 following Murray's lectures at the American Catholic University. It once more fell to Fenton to criticize Murray's theorizing, especially what he perceived as the suggestion that, regarding issues of religious freedom, "authoritative pontifical teaching on this and other subjects has changed or

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'developed.'" Long-standing critics in Rome—notably Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani—seized their moment, and Murray was instructed to desist from any further public utterances, in either speech or print, on matters concerning religious freedom. Murray continued to send articles to Rome in the hope that he might be allowed to publish them, but with no success. Such a setback did not herald the end of Murray's public career, however. He had always been involved in a host of other activities. In 1943 he had served as a representative of the U.S. Catholic bishops and helped to draft an interfaith document on postwar reconstruction. In 1950 he had served as a consultant to the Allied High Commission and, interestingly, recommended the forging of strong links between church and state in postwar Germany. The following year, he had taken up a visiting professorship in philosophy at Yale: the first Catholic to enjoy such an honor. This much-varied public career was destined to continue in the years after Murray was silenced. Between 1958 and 1962 he served at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, applying just-war theory to the cold war conflict with the Soviet Union. In 1964, when Massachusetts was considering changing the law to end the imposition of fines and jail terms on those who sold contraceptives, Murray urged the state's Catholics to support the amendment. Two years later, Murray was working on a presidential commission set up to review the selection procedure for the military draft. The year 1960 proved to be something of a high point in Murray's public life. As well as composing his influential study We Hold These Truths, he was even consulted over the phone about a speech the presidential candidate John Kennedy was proposing to give to a meeting of Protestant ministers in Houston (a speech, along with Kennedy's address to the Society of American Newspaper Editors in April 1960, that served to reassure many Americans that his Catholicism did not diminish his devotion to the Constitution and the religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment). Such was Murray's profile that he graced the cover of Time magazine in the very year that the first Roman Catholic was elected to the office of president of the United States. if if if

The 1960s would also reveal that, in spite of everything, Murray had not spoken his last words on the issue of religious freedom. The Second Vatican Council, held in Rome between 1962 and 1965, represented an attempt, in pope John XXIII's words, at aggiornamento, at bringing up-to-date. Among the many issues discussed, a rethinking of the church's position on religious freedom was a chief priority. Murray was not invited to the council's first session (he was still much distrusted by many in Rome), but thanks to the efforts of Francis Cardinal Spellman, he was invited to the second session and contributed to various drafts of the council's declaration on religious freedom. Civil religious freedom was to be protected, the document (Dignitatis

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humanae personae) explained, against both civil coercion and those more subtle varieties of coercion that often led to social and educational disadvantage: A sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man, and the demand is increasingly made that men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by a sense of duty. The demand is likewise made that constitutional limits should be set to the powers of government, in order that there may be no encroachment on the rightful freedom of the person and of associations. . . . This Vatican Council takes careful note of these desires in the minds of men. It proposes to declare them to be greatly in accord with truth and justice. It is important to stress that Murray was far from satisfied with this document, not least because, by his calculations, it lacked sufficiently robust theological underpinnings. Over the coming years, he would continue to insist that the church still needed to produce "better arguments" in favor of its belief in religious freedom. But for all that, the document that emerged from Vatican II did mark a sea change and an undoubted triumph for Catholics like Murray who had long been arguing for the church to embrace the modern consensus on the need to protect civil religious freedoms. Indeed, it was surely the relatively happy experience of American Catholics, living under such protection, that made the conciliar document possible in the first place. Murray's theorizing has continued to be debated down to the present day. He has his supporters and his critics. What is beyond question, however, is the energy and commitment Murray brought to Catholic thinking about religious freedom. Murray approached religious freedom as a scholar might be expected to: it was always to be defended on different levels—the theological, the ethical, and the political. But he also saw the issue from a particularly American perspective, rooted in the idea that, while extreme individualism was to be shunned, "the people" did not require the tutelage of the state in matters of religion and morality. His theory was a response to the reality of a pluralistic society, and from as early as 1942, Murray had been a strenuous advocate of cooperation and dialog between all people of good will, not simply between Catholic and Catholic. Vitally, though, Murray did not want religion to desert the public sphere. Schools, for instance, were the place where church, state, and family met and, as such, they were an ideal forum for people to talk about how their religion influenced their political and social choices. Murray would always argue that religions should be sympathetically taught in public schools and universities—by believers. Denying government's competence in religion,

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Murray explained, "is not an assertion of indifference to the values of religion to man and society." Perhaps Murray's greatest achievement was to provide a uniquely Catholic answer to the riddle of American pluralism. This pluralism, as he explained in We Hold These Truths, involved the "coexistence within the one political community of groups who hold divergent and incompatible views with regard to religious questions." As such, it implied disagreement and dissension within that community. But it also "implies a community within which there must be agreement and consensus." There was, Murray suggested with a nice measure of understatement, "no small political problem here." But perhaps America had solved it; perhaps there was a mechanism by which individuals could contribute to the "oneness" of society without having to compromise their faith or lose their unique spiritual identities. The United States "was unique in the modern world" because pluralism, from the outset, "was the native condition of America," and it had enshrined that uniqueness in the First Amendment—"a great act of political intelligence." It remained true, of course, that striking the balance between one's duty as a citizen and one's duty as a believer still had "a special sharpness to the Catholic intelligence." There was always a need for a Catholic to "reckon with his own tradition of thought, which is wider and deeper than any that America has elaborated," and with a history "which is longer than the brief centuries that America has lived." It was Murray's gift to be able to respond to that duty and challenge with compassion and aplomb. SUGGESTED READING Jay Dolan, In Search of an American Catholicism: A History of Religion and Culture in Tension (Oxford, 2002); Robert Hunt and Kenneth Grasso, eds., John Courtney Murray and the American Civil Conversation (Grand Rapids, MI, 1992); John McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York, 2003); Richard O'Connor, The First Hurrah: A Biography of Alfred E. Smith (New York, 1970); Keith Pavlischek, John Courtney Murray and the Dilemma of Religious Toleration (Kirksville, MO, 1994); and Donald Pelotte, John Courtney Murray: Theologian in Conflict (New York, 1976).

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JERRY FALWELL (1933The Religious Right Jerry Falwell was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1933. He joined a Baptist church at the age of twelve, although he seems to have undergone a more significant conversion experience at age eighteen. Falwell's father, a heavy drinker by all accounts, was not a churchgoer, although his mother was apparently an avid listener of the evangelist Charles Fuller's Old Fashioned Revival Hour. After studies at Lynchburg College, Falwell moved on to the Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, to pursue his dream of being ordained as a minister. After graduating in 1956, he was approached by a group recently separated from the Park Avenue Baptist Church, who asked Falwell to serve as minister for their new congregation. Thus was born the Thomas Road Baptist Church. By the early 1980s, the church would have a membership of 20,000 with as many as 8,000 congregants attending its five weekly services. Falwell was destined to become one of the leading figures of the so-called New Christian Right. This movement, for all its variety and internal squabbling, sustained a number of unshakable goals and ideals. The United States, a divinely instituted nation, was thought to be suffering from a moral and spiritual decline. Any number of intellectual and philosophical trends— secular humanism, theological liberalism, atheism, and communism—were blamed for transforming American culture for the worse. There was a need to return to the primary truths of the Bible, to cherish the institution of the family, and to make sure Christian morality could exert its influence on America's schools. The failure of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential race had done inordinate damage to the organizations of the Christian Right. Nonetheless, from the mid-1960s onward, Christian bookshops, magazines, and media stations had witnessed something of a renaissance. There was obviously more potential to be tapped. Three landmark events are traditionally seen as

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punctuating the rise of the New Christian Right. In 1973, the Supreme Court's legalization of abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision seemed to confirm conservatives' worst fears about the legacy of the 1960s sexual revolution. Three years later, with the arrival of bicentennial celebrations, there was an ideal opportunity to publicly call for a return to the supposedly Christian heritage of the nation's founders. In 1980, President Ronald Reagan's electoral success seemed to demonstrate just how efficient and influential the Christian Right's political mobilization had become. It is important to stress that the Religious Right has a history (one that has had an enduring influence on debates about religious freedom and church/state relations) that stretches much further back than the 1970s. Revivalist preachers such as Billy Sunday, politicians such as the three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, early fundamentalist coalitions (such as the World's Christian Fundamentals Association and the Baptist Bible Union), institutions such as the Moody Bible Institute (which had trained almost 70,000 students by 1930), and the American Council of Christian Churches (founded by Carl Mclntire in 1941), all had a profound influence on the nation's religious landscape in the first half of the twentieth century. In these years, the Christian Right was already proving adept at making use of the opportunities provided by new media and technology: a trend that has continued all the way through to Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. There were, to be sure, less than edifying aspects of the Christian Right's activities during this period. Gerald Winrod and his Defenders of the Christian Faith, founded in 1925, would launch into anti-Semitic rhetoric, blaming Jews for everything from the First World War and the Russian Revolution to the Depression. It was a tradition continued by figures such as the Shreveport pastor Gerald L. K. Smith and the Catholic priest Charles Coughlin. By the 1950s, however, the mainstream Religious Right had emerged as an influential, charismatic (in the nontheological sense of the word) presence in American public life, and its stature and confidence were perhaps best epitomized by Billy Graham, veteran of endless rallies and crusades, who would feel emboldened to declare, in the run-up to the 1952 presidential election, that "the Christian people of America will not sit idly by during the [campaign]," but would "vote as a block for the man with the strongest moral and spiritual platform." There had always been a trend in some sectors of the evangelical community to remain separate from the sinfulness of the secular world, but by the middle of the century there had already been much evidence of the religious estate's willingness to engage in the nation's political life. Just as clerics became embroiled in the debate over prohibition, so they would be instrumental in the campaign to insert the phrase "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. On two issues, the Religious Right began to flex its political muscles with

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particular vigor. The 1950s, the era of McCarthyism, saw a flowering of anticommunist rhetoric, and, several decades earlier, on the issue of Darwinian theory, the Fundamentalist branches of American Protestantism had proven eager to defend their cherished belief in biblical literalism. As well as mounting many rallies and debates, they also tried to convince leaders in state politics to take up their cause: some thirty-seven antievolution bills were introduced in twenty state legislatures, and, while many of these failed, bills to limit the teaching of Darwinian theory did pass in Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi. It was because of one such measure that the year 1925 saw Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan arguing their respective corners in the Scopes trial in Tennessee. It was this tradition of political activism that Jerry Falwell would inherit and enhance. if *f if

The early 1960s were good years for Falwell's Lynchburg church. Congregations grew, building projects were launched, and youth camps were set up. Falwell began appearing on radio and later on television, and in time he would secure a presence on almost 600 radio and television stations nationwide, with his Old Time Gospel Hour attracting audiences in the millions at its peak. There were moments of tension too, not least when Falwell entered the civil rights debate with his 1965 sermon on ministers and marches and his criticism (later renounced) of Martin Luther King, Jr., his colleagues, and the northern clergy in general. Eyebrows were also raised when Falwell announced his plans for a new Lynchburg Christian Academy at the very moment when major efforts were being made by government to enforce racial integration in all public schools. It is important to stress, however, that Falwell has insisted that the Lynchburg News was in error when it reported that the institution was planned as "a private school for white students," and, beyond question, black students were being admitted within two years of the school's opening. At heart, Falwell was probably chiefly motivated by his opposition to what he regarded as the secularization of the public school system—epitomized by the Supreme Court decisions of the early 1960s that had seemingly outlawed officially sponsored prayer in state schools (see pp. 208-10). Indeed, what with a Catholic running for president, the communist menace apparently gaining in potency, and the growing use of birth control pills, the 1960s was undoubtedly a time when many conservative Christians felt obliged to flex their political muscles. It was in the 1970s, however, that Falwell's presence in the political arena truly began to make itself felt. Falwell accompanied his 1976 "I Love America" rallies and the subsequent "Clean Up America" campaign with a series of publications and public pronouncements. Some of these were certainly controversial. Indeed, making provocative statements and gestures has been a hallmark of Falwell's career—from his support of Anita Bryant's crusade against a gay rights ordinance in Dade

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County, Florida, to his comments on the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, to his remarks in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City. By the end of the 1970s, Falwell had carved out an influential career in American public life to supplement his continuing pastoral duties back in Lynchburg and his leadership of Liberty Baptist College—founded in 1971, renamed as Liberty University in 1984, and envisioned as an evangelical equivalent to Harvard or Notre Dame. A watershed moment was still ahead, however. When an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposal to remove the tax-exempt status of Christian schools emerged in the late 1970s, the Religious Right was quick to denounce the idea. With the help of Paul Weyrich (founder of the Heritage Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation), Robert Billings formed Christian School Action (later known as the National Christian Action Coalition) to alert Christian leaders to the IRS threat. It was a campaign to which Falwell eagerly contributed, and, indeed, this battle has been seen as playing a vital role in uniting key figures on the Religious Right and paving the way for concerted, efficient political action. Sure enough, in May 1979, in a meeting at the Lynchburg Holiday Inn, along with Ed McAteer, Falwell, Weyrich, and Billings came to the epochal decision to establish an educational, fund-raising organization dedicated to lobbying for the Religious Right's political objectives: the Moral Majority. With its headquarters established in Washington, with Falwell on its governing board, and with Billings as its executive director, the organization set about its work. The Moral Majority had three principal aims. First came "registration" (making sure that "right-minded" individuals were entitled to vote). Next came "information," which involved letting people know about allegedly unwholesome practices and policies in Washington; motivating local and national lobbying against left-wing initiatives, pornography, homosexuality, and the advocacy of immorality in school textbooks; and campaigning for positive legislation, such as the establishment of a Family Protection Agency. Third came "mobilization," the duty to instill interest and involvement in the political process. In this last category, apparently mundane strategies such as direct mailing campaigns proved to be extraordinarily effective. Any number of citizens were stirred into action upon the receipt of questionnaires that typically asked provocative questions about whether they were happy to see their tax dollars being used to support abortion, whether they thought it right that the courts should be protecting "smut peddlers," or whether they believed that voluntary prayer should be banned in public schools. Falwell emerged as an energetic ambassador for the Moral Majority, traveling thousands of miles in some weeks, delivering sermons and speeches. The activities of the Moral Majority had potentially serious implications for the debate about religious freedom. Most obviously, Falwell and his supporters were insisting that American morality and American public life

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ought to be permeated by Christian ideals: this, it was averred, was what the founders of the Republic had envisaged even if, over time, this cause had been betrayed. There was also an issue of state/church separation: was it appropriate, some commentators wondered, that ordained ministers should be so very entangled with the political process (although, as the abolitionism and prohibition movements had long ago proven, this was a far from unusual phenomenon)? These concerns reached fever pitch when, with the election of Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority seemed to prove just how effective it could be at mobilizing and influencing public opinion. That victory (replicated four years later) appeared to demonstrate the influence of Falwell's organization. Commentators had expected a very closely run election, but as things fell out, Reagan won with some considerable ease—and the Republicans gained control of the Senate for the first time in three decades. Falwell appeared endlessly across the television networks claiming that Reagan's success was down to the efforts of groups such as the Moral Majority to mobilize the votes of conservative Christians (Falwell stated that he had secured the registration of between 4 and 8 million voters). Almost certainly, Falwell was exaggerating the influence the Moral Majority had exerted. During the 1980s the organization would continue its moral crusade as well as making pronouncements on policy issues as diverse as nuclear disarmament, South Africa, and the Equal Rights Amendment. Huge hopes were pinned on President Reagan, and there were, undoubtedly, moments to be celebrated. During the early 1980s, there was much talk of a school prayer amendment: Falwell would bus students from Liberty University to Washington, where they formed a human chain between the Supreme Court and the Capitol. In May 1982, at a prayer breakfast at the White House, with Falwell in attendance, it was announced that the president was recommending such an amendment to Congress. As the proposed amendment emerged, it stated that "nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools," carefully adding that "no person shall be required by the United States to pray." The amendment failed to secure the necessary two-thirds majority in the Senate (it fell eleven votes short), but it did demonstrate just how influential the Christian Right had become in the corridors of political power. Unfortunately, for Falwell and his supporters, there was a growing sense, as the decade progressed, that this influence was waning. Falwell continued his frenetic work, traveling around the country, cultivating contacts, making speeches, and overseeing the establishment of local Moral Majority chapters, but back in Washington there was increased grumbling about levels of access to the president, about the failure of the administration to address the abortion issue, and about unwelcome decisions such as the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor (hardly a darling of the Religious Right) to the Supreme Court. The Right also suffered from increased internal tensions, and by the time Reagan's second term began, it seemed increasingly likely that the glory

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days of the Moral Majority were at an end. Falwell resigned the presidency in 1987 and, two years later, dissolved the organization. It was part of a general demise in the fortunes of the Christian Right, hastened by the Southern Baptist minister Pat Robertson's failed presidential bid (Falwell had lent his support to George Bush) and by the scandals that grew up around a variety of TV evangelists. Crucially, though, the obituaries were written rather too hastily, and the 1990s, not least due to an upturn in Republican fortunes in Congress, would see something of a resurgence of the Christian Right's fortunes and influence. It is difficult to gauge exactly how much support the Moral Majority gained. Certainly, the claim that chapters of the movement sprung up across the entire country was somewhat overstated. Similarly, membership numbers are hard to pin down, and the organization seems to have used rather too convenient criteria when defining precisely what membership consisted of. Nonetheless, Falwell's efforts helped create a climate in which future political organizations of the Christian Right could thrive. Men like Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, for all their differences with Falwell, surely owed him some kind of debt, and the Moral Majority can perhaps be seen as laying some of the groundwork for an organization such as the Christian Coalition, which has influenced any number of election contests since its inception in 1989. Undoubtedly, the Christian Coalition was a very different kind of organization to the Moral Majority. Indeed, it perhaps most benefited by learning from some of the mistakes Falwell's movement had made. It skillfully moved away from engagement with national issues and sought to establish itself as a determinedly grassroots organization, urging its adherents to pick battles at the local level. It distributed some 35 million voter guides in the 1994 election and could boast some 1.6 million members in 1995. In the same year, it lent its support to the Republicans' "Contract With America," producing its own "Contract with the American Family," in which familiar shibboleths of the Christian Right—school choice, parental rights, and opposition to pornography, among much else—were revisited. if if if

Moral Majority was not the only right-leaning Christian political group of the 1980s, nor, in terms of sophisticated theorizing, was Falwell necessarily the most important figure of the Christian Right. It is vital not to regard the Christian Right as a homogenous entity: above all, long-standing tensions between Fundamentalists (like Falwell) and charismatics and Pentecostals endured. What truly mattered, however, was that during those vital years the national media endlessly focused their attention on Falwell and his movement: in the public imagination, Falwell somehow came to "represent" the Christian Right. This, indeed, is why he ought to be regarded as a significant contributor to the debate on American religious freedom. By the end of the twentieth century, that debate had become less a matter of penning

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considered meditations on free exercise and religious toleration, and more a matter of grabbing headlines. Partly through his own efforts, and partly through the media's fixation with him, few public figures could grab headlines quite so readily as Jerry Falwell. Despite the demise of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell did not disappear from American public life. With the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, Falwell felt obliged to call on Americans to return to "the faith of our fathers" and to launch scathing attacks on the presidency and the Supreme Court, accusing them of raping the Constitution, raping the churches, and raping the Christian faith. Some of Falwell's pronouncements—complaining in 1999, for instance, that a character on a PBS children's show was gay—have met with derision, but his presence is still often felt in debates around issues of religious freedom and establishment. When the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held the Pledge of Allegiance (with its talk of the nation being "under God") to be unconstitutional in the summer of 2002, Falwell was among the most vocal critics of the judgment. In April of the same year, Falwell was victorious in a legal action that struck down a provision in the Virginia constitution that prevented religious organizations from being incorporated. That October he also secured a judgment that overturned an eighteenth-century statute limiting the amount of land a church could own. Falwell has also emerged as a key supporter of school voucher programs, believing that they offer one way toward achieving his much-advertised aim of entirely abolishing the public school system and returning education to the exclusive care of the churches. Time and again, however, it is the spectacle of a religious leader becoming embroiled in political life that has alarmed many commentators. In 1997 Americans United for Separation of Church and State criticized Falwell and other clergymen for using their pulpits to endorse Senator Mark Earley, and in 1980 the organization voiced similar qualms about Falwell's "People of Faith 2000" initiative, not least because Falwell's overtly political activity was being organized through his tax-exempt Liberty Alliance Institute. (Very similar qualms had earlier been raised about the tax-exempt status of the patently politicized Christian Coalition.) In July 2004, Americans United filed a complaint with the IRS after Falwell published a column supporting George W. Bush on his ministry's website: using a tax-exempt ministry as a means of such politicking was claimed to be a violation of federal tax law. As of the year 2005, Jerry Falwell continues to excite and divide opinion. Through his ministry and his Liberty Alliance, he continues to advocate the old mantra of the Moral Majority—to be pro-family, pro-life, pro-defense, and pro-Israel. For Falwell, America continues to be a place to be "saved," a place in need of a Christ-exalting revival, and a place that needs to reevaluate the moral content of its public life. It also remains a place inhabited by any number of threats and enemies to Christian truth and the vision (as Falwell interprets it) of the nation's founding fathers—the sanctity of the family

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and the value of the Bible are in jeopardy by Falwell's account, while indifferentism and moral relativism are in the ascendant. Debates about religious freedom and about the separation of church and state have inevitably been influenced by the rise of the New Religious Right, and arguments about the intentions of the framers of the nation's foundational documents have never been keener. Undoubtedly, the pronouncements of a Jerry Falwell have served to polarize such debates, but, then, such polarization has been a characteristic of the debate ever since the Cottons/Williams encounter of the seventeenth century. SUGGESTED READING Walter H. Capps, The New Religious Right: Piety, Patriotism, and Politics (C lumbia, SC, 1990); Jerry Falwell, Strength for the Journey: An Autobiography (New York, 1987); Susan Friend Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundame talist Language and Politics (Princeton, NJ, 2000); Michael Lienesch, Redeemin America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right (Chapel Hill, NC, 1993) William Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in Amer ica (New York, 1996); Leo Ribuffo, The Old Christian Right (Philadelphia, 1983) and Clyde Wilcox, God's Warriors. The Christian Right in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore, 1992).

APPENDIX 1: BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES Richard Allen (1760-1831). Born into slavery (he would later buy his freedom), Allen joined the Methodist movement after a religious conversion. He spent several years preaching in South Carolina, New York, Maryland, and Delaware, before becoming an influential member of the congregation at St. George's Church in Philadelphia. Black congregants suffered various indignities at this church, including various kinds of segregation, and Allen and others decided to leave. Along with Absalom Jones and others, Allen founded the Free African Society in 1787. Allen came to dislike the Quaker tendencies of this group, however, and in 1794, he helped to set up a separate congregation at the Bethel Church. Out of this and other black congregations, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was to emerge, with Allen consecrated as its first bishop in 1816. Robert Baird (1798-1863). Presbyterian minister, and a keen advocate of temperance and ecumenical cooperation within the Protestant fraternity. After working with the New Jersey Missionary Society—which had the avowed aim of providing every family in the state with a Bible—he served as an agent of the American Sunday School Union. In this capacity he toured much of the United States, reporting on the religious, social, and educational state of the nation. From 1834, his career took him to Europe and he proved to be an influential commentator on the religious climate in the United States, most famously through his 1844 book Religion in the United States of America, in which he lauded the "voluntary principle" in the Republic's religious life. He also argued passionately for the granting of toleration to Protestant groups in some Catholic countries in Southern Europe. Although his views shifted in later life, Baird was, for a long time, of the opinion that the separation of church and state was a boon to American religion.

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Antoinette Louisa Brown Blackwell (1825-1921). Minister, reformer, and writer. Having completed a literature degree at Oberlin College, she began her ministerial studies. Oberlin was a relatively forward-looking institution, not least in its policy toward both female and African American students. Nonetheless, Blackwell was prevented from enrolling in the usual way in the theology department and was assigned the status of "resident graduate" instead. Worse yet, when her studies came to an end, she was refused both her degree and a preaching license: traditional biblical texts about the need for women to remain silent in church were invoked. She embarked on a series of speaking tours in New England and the Midwest, campaigning for women's rights and abolitionism. At the World's Temperance Convention in New York in 1853, she was shouted down when she tried to speak. A watershed moment came in the very same year, however, when Blackwell took up a position at a Congregational church close to her hometown of Henrietta, New York: she was the first American woman to be ordained into a major Protestant denomination. James Blaine (1830-1893). Journalist, lawyer, and politician who sat in the House of Representatives from 1863 to 1876 and who, while serving as speaker, introduced the so-called Blaine Amendment to the Constitution in 1875. The proposal fell in the Senate, although similar measures, aimed at prohibiting the use of state funds to support "sectarian" schools, were enshrined in numerous state constitutions. It is crucial to stress that, although they can be seen as bolstering the separation of church and state, these measures often had their roots in nativist, anti-Catholic sentiment. Nonetheless, present-day opponents of entanglement between church and state are often helped in their cause by the existence of Blaine-like amendments in various state constitutions. Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876-1938), later known as Zitkala-Sa or Redbird. Sioux reformer, lobbyist, and writer who was unimpressed during her youth by the policy of placing Native American children in boarding schools and trying to impress Christian values upon them. She campaigned for Native American rights, notably through her involvement with the Society of American Indians (which she served as secretary from 1916) and the National Council of American Indians (which she founded in 1926 and served as president until her death). An advocate of Indian citizenship and selfdetermination, she was a sometimes fierce opponent of the Board for Indian Affairs. Notably, she was also a critic of peyote religion. William Cooper Brann (1855-1898). Journalist minister who, after moving to Waco, Texas, in critic of the administration of Baylor University, center of misinformation." Founded under the

and son of a Presbyterian 1894, emerged as a stern denouncing it as a "storm influence of the Southern

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Baptist denomination, Baylor was at this time much influenced by the activities of the American Protective Association (APA)—a group dedicated to exposing Catholic evils and misdemeanors. He opposed, and replied to, the scurrilous anti-Catholic lectures given at an APA rally by Joseph Slattery. For his troubles, he would be kidnaped by Baylor students in 1897 and made to renounce his anti-Baylor statements. In the following year, he would be shot dead by a still-aggrieved Baylor supporter. At the root of Brann's dislike of persecution and religious particularism was the notion of an overall commonality of beliefs: "the sacred books of all the centuries," he wrote, "are essentially the same. . . . I search them through, not to scoff, but to gather with reverent soul every gleam of light that since the birth of time has been vouchsafed to man." William Brennan (1906-1997). Supreme Court justice, nominated by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. Brennan was one of the lynchpins of the Warren Court (see the main essay on Earl Warren and introduction, pp. 203-12, xiv-xv), helping the court to reach its decisions in the pivotal First Amendment cases of the early 1960s, including Sherbert v. Verner in 1963, for which he wrote the majority opinion. In the post-Warren era, Brennan would frequently find himself arguing dissenting opinions, although he would score notable triumphs, including Aguilar v. Felton in 1985, in which the court sought to prohibit excessive entanglement between church and state. William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925). A staunch advocate of social reform and sometimes a stern critic of corporatism and the practices of the large national banks, Bryan made several unsuccessful presidential bids between 1896 and 1904, and served as secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson. A strict Protestant ethic lay at the heart of Bryan's vision and he believed that legislation could legitimately be used to instill Christian morality. Biblical ideas always guided his social thinking, and his dislike of theological liberalism made him an obvious campaigner against the spread of Darwinian teaching in the nation's schools, as witnessed in his involvement with the Scopes trial in 1925. Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore (1605-1675). Along with his father, George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, he was one of the principal architects of the tolerationist experiment in Maryland. Having made an avowal of his faith at Rome, and after marrying a daughter of the influential Arundell family, Cecil became closely identified with England's Catholic faction. Charles I granted a charter for the founding of Maryland in 1632, and in his capacity as grantee (his father had died earlier in the year) Cecil sought to establish a safe haven for English Catholics. Forced to defend his interests back in England, Cecil was obliged to appoint his brother Leonard, and then his son Charles, as governor. The colony's legal settlement, notably the Toleration Act of 1649,

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established the right to free exercise for all Christian believers. This dispensation was, however, short-lived, and by 1702, the Anglican Church had been officially established in Maryland. It is important to note that, alongside his desire to establish a tolerant religious environment in Maryland, Calvert—like any other seventeenth-century overseas adventurer—was also energized by the financial possibilities offered by the new colony. He was also conscious of the hostility his faith might provoke in the colonies and urged his fellow Catholics to maintain a relatively low profile. He also regarded the evangelizing efforts of Jesuit missionaries as potentially divisive. John Carroll (1736-1815). The first Catholic bishop in the United States. With the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Carroll returned to his native Maryland to work as a missionary in 1774. Over the coming decades Carroll sought to preserve the Jesuits' American possessions as well as their corporate identity: a goal achieved, in part, by the establishment of the Select Body of the Clergy. He also did much to organize the country's Catholic Church and was elected as bishop of Baltimore in 1789. Carroll was an advocate of both free exercise and church/state separation, and his educational, literary, and philanthropic efforts did much to convince Protestant America that a Roman Catholic could be a valuable, loyal citizen of the new republic. Thomas Bradbury Chandler (1726-1790). An Anglican minister who can perhaps best be understood as a supporter of the status quo during the religious ferment of the mid-eighteenth century. During his career he would refuse to allow the revivalist George Whitefield to preach in his parish and, in 1767, he would publish in favor of the establishment of Anglican bishops in the colonies: a suggestion that met with a furious response in many quarters. An ardent anglophile, Chandler would oppose the revolutionary movement, seeking exile in England between 1775 and 1785. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842). Minister of the Federal Street Congregational Church in Boston between 1803 and 1842, Channing was an outspoken critic of Calvinist orthodoxy. He emerged as a major spokesman for the Unitarian cause, most famously in a much-discussed sermon of 1819. He sought to replace the overly negative view of mankind's potential advocated by Calvinism and to stress humanity's moral nature, rational capacity, and, above all, possession of free choice in religious matters. He also argued, from a religious perspective, for the abolition of slavery, an institution he described as having been "founded in wrong" and "imbued with injustice." Charles Chauncy (1705-1787). A Congregationalist minister of the First Church of Boston for sixty years, Chauncy was troubled by the emotionalism of revivalist preaching during the Great Awakening and emerged as one of the leaders of the so-called Old Light theologians. He was unsympathetic

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to the theology and methods of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, and argued for the dominance of reason over the emotions in the process of discerning the truth of the Gospels. He was also, for twenty years, opposed to the notion of introducing Anglican bishops into the colonies. His prolific publishing efforts made him one of the most influential voices in prerevolutionary America, and during the struggle for independence he emerged as an impassioned critic of British rule. John Clarke (1609-1676). An early Baptist leader in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1651, Clarke traveled to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was promptly arrested along with two friends: Massachusetts had recently passed legislation against Baptists, which denounced them as "the incendiaries of commonwealths and the infectors of persons in main matters of religion." One of the men who had traveled with Clarke—Obadiah Holmes—was publicly whipped in a Boston street, and back in Rhode Island, Roger Williams launched a bitter attack on the way the colony had treated the men. Clarke was also involved in securing a royal charter for Rhode Island and, in 1652, published his defense of liberty of conscience, III News from New England. (See above, in the essay on Roger Williams, pp. 34-35.) Charles Coughlin (1891-1979). Roman Catholic priest based in Royal Oak, Michigan, whose radio broadcasts, begun in 1926, were taken up by stations across the country, culminating in a contract with CBS in 1930. As well as attacks on President Franklin Roosevelt (whose election he had earlier supported), Coughlin's addresses began to take on an increasingly antiSemitic complexion and, as the decade progressed, his audience began to fall away. In 1942, Coughlin's bishop offered him the stark choice between leaving the priesthood and remaining silent on political and social issues: he chose the former option. Clarence Darrow (1857-1938). A veteran of Chicago city politics, Darrow is perhaps best remembered as the defense attorney in the famous Scopes trial of 1925. The biology teacher John Scopes was brought to trial in Dayton, Tennessee, for breaking a state law that forbade the teaching of evolutionary theory. In the courtroom battle with William Jennings Bryan, the (still raging) battle between Darwinian theory and creationism was joined and the case attracted national media attention. So far as Bryan was concerned, the case represented a "battle royal between unbelief. . . and the defenders of the Christian faith." It is often forgotten that, although he put on a bravura performance, Darrow actually lost the case. John Davenport (1597-1670). Davenport had gradually been won round to the Puritan cause by men such as John Cotton and Thomas Hooker. After a period in exile in Holland, he traveled to New England in 1637. He was an

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advocate of an intimate relationship between religious and political life, and in New Haven, only church members were entitled to vote or hold public office. He was a fierce critic of efforts to relax standards of church membership (such as the Half-Way Covenant). Samuel Davies (1723-1761). Preacher, poet, and educator who sought toleration for Virginian Presbyterians under the terms of the 1689 Toleration Act. He also made the pragmatic point that the colony's religious needs were simply not being fully met by the ministers of the officially sanctioned Anglican Church. As matters stood, a preacher such as Davies was prohibited from sermonizing, celebrating marriages, and even moving freely between Presbyterian communities. He oversaw a major expansion in his church's numbers and (especially through his trip to England with Gilbert Tennent in the mid-1750s) did much to raise funds for the establishment of the College of New Jersey, where he was elected president in 1757. Mary Dyer (died 1660). A supporter of Anne Hutchinson in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Dyer famously took Hutchinson's hand during her trial. John Winthrop ordered the exhumation of her stillborn child, which led to an outpouring of sensational accounts about the supposedly monstrous birth of a half-human/half-animal creature. Dyer, along with her husband William, followed Hutchinson to Rhode Island, and in 1650 Mary returned to England, where she became a Quaker. She came back to America in 1657 and was arrested in Boston and banished because of her religious beliefs. Undeterred, she twice returned to Massachusetts to console imprisoned Quakers. In October 1659, along with fellow Quakers William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, she was sentenced to death by the General Court. The two men died on the gallows but Dyer was reprieved at the last moment. She returned to Rhode Island but was back in Boston by May 1660. This time the authorities were sure to carry out the death sentence and on June 1, 1660, she was hanged on Boston Common: the last but one Quaker to be hanged in the town. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). Minister of the Congregational Church at Northampton, Massachusetts, from 1726 to 1750, and the leading light of the so-called Great Awakening, the revivalist movement that transformed the religious landscape of eighteenth-century America. A skilled theologian and preacher, Edwards made a major contribution to debates about the nature of religious faith, stressing the importance of the emotions in the individual's personal encounter with God, and insisting on strict obedience and orthodoxy from his flocks. He was elected to the presidency of the College of New Jersey in 1757. Edwards's achievement was to revitalize older Calvinist orthodoxies through reference to the ideas of thinkers such as John Locke and Newton.

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Oliver Ellsworth (1745-1807). Jurist and second chief justice of the Supreme Court. As the representative from Connecticut at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, he argued strongly for the prohibition of tests for public office that would be enshrined in Article VI of the Constitution. This article was unpopular in some anti-Federalist circles, who believed it would lead to the encouragement of anti-Christian public officers and the ruination of the nation's morality. Along with other representatives, he was also one of the molders of the so-called Connecticut Compromise whereby representation in the House was derived from population and representation in the Senate was equal among all the states. Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875). After spells as a schoolteacher and a lawyer, Finney proved himself to be an influential and charismatic revivalist preacher in New York during the 1820s and 1830s. After various ministerial appointments in New York, he served as theology professor and (from 1851) president at Oberlin College, Ohio, and as minister of the town's First Congregational Church from 1835 onward. His evangelical methods (especially his allowing women to pray in public) caused some consternation among other leading figures of the Second Great Awakening. Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965). Only the third Jewish Supreme Court justice, Frankfurter was a political liberal who earnestly believed in the exercise of judicial restraint. This led to some conflict with his fellow justices, notably Hugo Black, and this rivalry was evidenced in the two Jehovah's Witnesses flag salute cases in the 1940s: Frankfurter's position was vindicated in the Gobitis decision of 1941, but overturned two years later in the Barnette case of 1943 (see pp. 187-89). Famously, in his dissenting opinion in that case, Frankfurter stressed that, whatever his legal stance, he was anything but insensitive to the plight of a religious minority. He was, he reminded the court, a Jew and as such a member of the "most vilified and persecuted minority in history." Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). Statesman, printer, and scientist. Franklin was ever suspicious of an overly authoritarian Calvinist establishment, and in the 1730s came to the defense of the Presbyterian minister Samuel Hemphill. Having taken up an appointment in Philadelphia in 1734, Hemphill was accused by the Philadelphia Synod of preaching heterodox sermons and was brought to trial in April 1735. Franklin published defenses of the minister, refuting the notion that Hemphill had been preaching in error, and condemning the "overweening" assumption of powers by the church authorities. Isaac Thomas Hecker (1819-1888). Baptized as a Lutheran, Hecker underwent an interesting spiritual odyssey—including a spell at Brook Farm— before embracing the Catholic faith. The founder of the Missionary Priests

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of St. Paul, he strove to reconcile the ideals of American liberal democracy with the Roman Catholic tradition. An advocate of limited government, he believed that the church, while avoiding entanglement with the political process, was the ideal agent for social reform. He regretted the pronouncement of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council, though he accepted the teaching once it had been introduced. Patrick Henry (1736-1799). Eminent Virginia politician, famous orator, and early, passionate supporter of America's quest for independence. Henry was of orthodox Anglican beliefs and regarded Deism as "another name for vice and depravity." He won considerable acclaim in his late twenties through his defense of taxpayers' interests in the "Parsons' Cause" during which, through a well-publicized legal action, he stood out against the efforts of the Anglican clergy to take financial advantage of a poor tobacco crop in 1755. Virginia's clergy, who were paid with 17,280 pounds of tobacco, benefited when tobacco prices tripled. The legislature sought to change the way rectors were compensated, the measure was canceled in London, and various ministers sued for arrears, including the case in Louisa County in which Henry was involved. In the 1780s, after playing a key role in the struggle for independence, Henry proposed a religious settlement in Virginia according to which Christianity would "be deemed and held to be the established religion of this Commonwealth," but that would also allow an individual's tax dollars to go toward supporting the church of his choice. It was in opposition to this plan of "general assessment" that James Madison penned his Memorial and Remonstrance. Edward Hyde, third Earl of Clarendon (1661-1723). Governor of New York and New Jersey, and zealous supporter of the Anglican establishment. Hyde's devotion to the Church of England had been signaled in 1688 when he had been the first English officer to defect from James II to the invading William of Orange. Arriving in New York in 1702, he did much to strengthen the colony's defenses, although the factionalism of New Jersey provoked serious attacks on his moral and financial probity. On the religious scene, many congregations suffered prosecution under his regime, including the Presbyterians (see the entry on Francis Makemie) and the Dutch Reformed Church, whose ministers, having arrived from Holland, were routinely refused preaching licenses. Replaced as governor in 1708, he went on to a successful political career back in England. John Ireland (1838-1918). Chaplain in the Union army and bishop, then archbishop, of St. Paul. Ireland was a dedicated advocate of reform in social affairs who engaged in debates about, among much else, race relations, the family, and the just wage. Seen as a key spokesman for theological liberalism, Ireland, along with James Gibbons, attracted much criticism from

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Rome. He consistently argued that American Catholics should seize the potential offered by the republic's political and philosophical ethos. He also insisted that the nation's public school system ought to include an element of religious instruction. Absalom Jones (1746-1818). Born into slavery in Delaware, Jones bought his freedom in 1784 and became a lay preacher at St. George's Methodist Church in Philadelphia. In 1787, along with Richard Allen, he founded the Free African Society. In 1794, Jones established the St. Thomas Church, with Allen becoming the first black Episcopal priest in 1802. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963). Notable as the first Roman Catholic president of the United States, elected in 1960. The religious issue was much debated during his presidential campaign, and Kennedy repeatedly came up against familiar and unfortunate anti-Catholic sentiments. In front of the Society of American Newspaper Editors in April 1960, and before the Houston Ministerial Association in September of that year, Kennedy sought to reassure his audiences that his Catholicism did not in the least diminish his devotion to the Constitution and the religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. Isaac Leeser (1806-1868). Rabbi, born in Westphalia, who emigrated to the United States In 1824. His educational and publishing initiatives (including the influential periodical, the Occident and American Jewish Advocate) did much to shape American Jewish identity in the nineteenth century. His main ambition was to bring unity to the Jewish community, and he emerged as the chief proponent of modern Orthodox Judaism, regularly criticizing the growing Reform movement within the faith (see pp. 179-80). John Leland (1754-1841). Massachusetts Baptist who played a significant role in securing the passage of Jefferson's religious freedom bill in Virginia and in the campaign to formulate a Bill of Rights. A vocal critic of the Anglican establishment in colonial Virginia and an impassioned advocate of religious freedom throughout his career, Leland believed that officially establishing churches represented "turnpiking the way to heaven by human law" (see pp. 81-83). John Locke (1632-1704). English philosopher and author of four "Letters on Toleration," the first of which, published in 1689, laid the theoretical groundwork for the English Act of Toleration, which much improved the lot of dissenting groups including the Baptists and the Quakers. This act was also applicable in the American colonies, but perhaps Locke's greatest legacy was the body of sophisticated theorizing on issues of pluralism and religious

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toleration that much influenced the later thought of figures such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (see pp. 96-97). Francis Makemie (1658-1708). After spells as a missionary in North Carolina, Virginia, and Barbados, Makemie reduced his itinerant activities on getting married in 1698. On one trip to Boston in 1707, he was stopped in New York and charged with preaching without a license. Makemie and his traveling companion John Hampton claimed protection under the 1689 Toleration Act but the governor of New York, Edward Hyde, claimed that this act was not operative in New York. A jury trial followed a six-week spell in prison, and, although Hyde made the judge direct the jury to reach a guilty verdict, Makemie was in fact acquitted. Deborah Moody (1585-1659). An early advocate of religious freedom who moved to the Bay Colony in around 1639. She was granted lands near Lynn in 1640, in which year she joined the congregation at Salem. Having rejected the practice of infant baptism, and having refused to be admonished by the Congregational clergy, she and her family moved to Dutch territory in New Netherland in 1643. Next, Moody took up a patent for settlement at Gravesend on Long Island. She secured a town charter that promised "free liberty of conscience according to the custom and manner of Holland," although this did not extend to freedom of worship. She later sheltered Quakers during troubled times for members of that faith in New Netherland, and in 1655 she voted, as a householder, in an election: the first European woman to vote legally in North America. Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826). Traditional Boston Congregationalist who stood out against the rise of Massachusetts Unitarianism, and sought to sustain Calvinist orthodoxy. Through his often truculent pronouncements, he was partly responsible for making a doctrinal split within the New England religious establishment all but inevitable. He famously fumed against the appointment of a nontraditionalist to the Harvard Divinity professorship in 1805 and contributed, along with Leonard Woods, to the founding of the Andover Seminary in 1808. Founder of the New England Tract Society and the American Bible Association, Morse was also appalled by the rise of the Shakers with their "leaping, clapping their hands, falling on their knees, and uttering themselves in groans and sighs." Samuel Morse (1791-1872). Famous as the inventor of the first workable electric telegraph, Morse was also a fervent opponent of rising levels of immigration and growing Catholic influence in the United States. These antiCatholic sentiments were honed during trips to Europe, and back in the United States, Morse claimed that the papacy was deliberately sponsoring a campaign to flood the country with missionaries and immigrants. Such

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sentiments were brought to the public's attention through the New York Observer newspaper and the American Protestant Union, founded for the "protection of our civil and religious institutions." Morse also ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York in 1836. Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975). The son of a Baptist minister from Georgia, Elijah Muhammad was leader of the Nation of Islam (founded in 1930 by Wali Fard) from 1946 until his death, during a period of growing membership and reputation (epitomized by Malcolm X's joining the movement in the late 1950s). Famous for preaching in favor of black separatism, he argued that Christianity was an agent of white oppression and that black Americans ought to find their true spiritual home in Islam. Richard John Neuhaus (1936- ). A Lutheran convert to Catholicism (ordained as a priest in 1991), Neuhaus established himself as an influential commentator on the role of religion in public life, especially through his roles as president of the Institute for Religion and Public Life, his editorship of First Things magazine, and a series of publications in which he wrote about the phenomenon of the "naked public square" in contemporary America. Leo Pfeffer (1910-1993). Born in Hungary, from where he emigrated at the age of two, Pfeffer was one of the most influential legal minds of the twentieth century. He was involved in many significant legal processes, providing an amicus curiae brief in most of the major religious freedom cases to come before the Supreme Court from the 1948 McCollum case onward. A believer in strict separation between church and state, Pfeffer would make a major contribution to the debate about the role of religion in American public life, as a teacher and author, and through his involvement with organizations such as the ACLU and the American Jewish Congress. Books such as Church, State, and Freedom (1953) provoked much discussion. John Baptist Purcell (1800-1883). Archbishop of Cincinnati. Born in Ireland, Purcell immigrated to the United States in 1818 and did much to shape the future of Catholicism in the western territories, not least by striving to ease tension between the Irish and German immigrant communities. One lengthy campaign concerned the role of religion in Ohio's public schools, with Purcell unhappy with the use of the Protestant King James Bible in these institutions. In 1869, after prolonged lobbying, the Cincinnati Board of Education prohibited readings from the King James Bible. There was outrage within the Protestant community, and a local court ruled that the board had overstepped its authority. This decision was appealed, however, and in 1872 the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the board's original decision.

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William Rehnquist (1924- ). An influential member of the U.S. Supreme Court since 1972, and chief justice since 1986. Since his appointment as chief justice, the court has undoubtedly taken on a more conservative complexion (with old certainties such as the compelling state interest test coming under fire) and Rehnquist has emerged as a leading apologist for nonpreferential governmental involvement with religion, arguing that the establishment clause was intended to prevent the establishment of a national religion and to stop the government from offering preferential aid to one religion at the expense of others. He has also proven to be a talented popular historian of the court's past. Pat Robertson (1930- ). Broadcaster, religious leader, and author, Robertson is an influential figure of the New Religious Right. A past presidential candidate, Robertson heads the Christian Broadcasting Network based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, whose programs are seen worldwide in some seventy languages. He was the founder of Regent University and the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal and educational organization of pro-life, pro-family sympathies, dedicated to protecting the First Amendment rights of "people of faith." He also helped to found the Christian Coalition in 1989, which has had a marked impact on hundreds of local elections. Alfred Smith (1873-1944). The first Roman Catholic to be nominated by one of the major parties for the presidency of the United States. Smith had enjoyed a successful political career prior to 1928, serving as governor of New York and as a member of the state's legislature. When his name was associated with the presidency in 1928, however (he had failed to secure the nomination four years earlier), there was an outbreak of anti-Catholic, nativist sentiment that bore comparison with the worst years of the midnineteenth century. Although his position on prohibition and the fact that he was a New Yorker also damaged his campaign, there is no doubt that the endless stream of sermons, pamphlets, and newspaper articles attacking Smith's Catholicism played a major role in his defeat (see pp. 216-18). Peter Spencer (1782-1843). Founder of the Union Church of Africans. As a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Asbury, Spencer grew dissatisfied with the treatment of black congregants—they were, for instance, confined to segregated seating—and in 1805 helped to organize the Ezion Methodist Episcopal Church. He would continue to promote the religious freedoms of the African American community and saw the Union Church of Africans (founded in 1813) spread out from Maryland through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902). A campaigner for women's rights, and one of the organizers of the epochal Seneca Falls Convention of 1848,

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Stanton developed a rationalistic religious viewpoint that criticized the use that had been made of the Bible to sustain the suppression and submission of womankind. The existing American churches were, she suggested, one of the principal causes of women's religious slavery. She served as president of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1869-1890, and in her biblical commentaries (published in 1895 and 1898) she urged American women to embrace the secular state and reject traditional, "masculine" theology. Josiah Strong (1847-1916). A Congregationalist pastor who in his 1885 book, Our Country, warned against the perils of modern, urban civilization but also suggested that there was still an opportunity to make the nation an ideal Christian (i.e., Protestant) republic. He urged his fellow Protestants to embrace reform and evangelism and make the United States a model for the rest of the world to follow. Organizations such as the Evangelical Alliance and the League for Social Service were established to help in this work. However, Strong believed that his project faced obvious obstacles that had to be overcome or simply removed: among these were immigration, Catholicism, secularism in the schools, Mormonism, and intemperance. He insisted that Christianity offered the means by which new and urgent social problems could be addressed. Billy Sunday (1862-1935). Former baseball player and popular revivalist (ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1903) who did much to improve the fortunes of the evangelical movement in the early decades of the twentieth century, especially during the period of the First World War. His intense, "muscular" preaching style, with its attacks on liberalism, alcohol, and Darwinian theory, was revealed to audiences (regularly made up of tens of thousands of people) across the country and over the radio airwaves. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859). French politician and writer who visited the United States in the 1830s to survey the nation's penal system. Far extending his remit, de Tocqueville provided an influential analysis of the new republic's ideals and institutions in his two-volume work, Democracy in America. He famously recalled that "upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention," and that the Americans he encountered "attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of church and state." Muhammad Alexander Russell Webb (1846-1916). While serving as consul in the Philippines between 1887 and 1892, Webb was introduced to, and subsequently converted to, the Islamic religion. At the World's Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in 1893, he represented the Islamic faith and went on to establish the short-lived American Islamic Propaganda Movement.

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Paul Weyrich (1942- ). Since arriving in Washington in the 1960s, Weyrich has established himself as one of the most influential conservative commentators in the United States, making skilled use of the national media and contributing to the work of organizations such as the Heritage Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation. His stance on church/state issues has manifested itself throughout his career: from the early 1960s, when he tried to encourage Republican leaders to protest against the Supreme Court decisions against officially sponsored school prayer, through to his advocacy of a school prayer amendment. Frances Willard (1839-1898). Temperance reformer, writer, and lecturer. Willard served as president of Evanston College and as dean for women students at Northwestern University. She served as president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union between 1879 and 1898, and was a passionate advocate of women's right to vote and of fuller participation by women in the Methodist Church. John Winthrop (1588-1649). First governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Having grown dissatisfied with the religious situation in England, Winthrop immigrated to America in 1630. Winthrop was adamant that Massachusetts ought to see itself as having made a special covenant with God. As he explained on board the Arbella, the ship that carried him to America, the colony, with its divinely instituted social order, had the potential to be an ideal Christian commonwealth, a city on a hill: "the work we have in hand . . . is by mutual consent, through a special overruling providence and a more than an ordinary approbation of the churches of Christ, to seek out a place of cohabitation and consortship, under a due form of government both civil and ecclesiastical." John Witherspoon (1723-1794). Church of Scotland minister, and president of Princeton, who moved to America from Scotland in 1768. Witherspoon was a keen advocate of the notion that religion had a vital role to play in securing civic virtue. A signatory to the Declaration of Independence, Witherspoon's thought on political and religious liberty was extremely popular in the new republic, and he is credited with contributing to the education of many influential figures—twenty future senators, twenty-five congressmen, thirteen governors, and three Supreme Court justices, by one account, not to mention one president, James Madison.

APPENDIX 2: KEY SUPREME COURT CASES FREE EXERCISE 1879: Reynolds v. United States George Reynolds, a Utah Mormon, was convicted of breaching a federal statute that forbade bigamy. On appeal, the Supreme Court judged that Reynolds's right to the free exercise of his religion did not exempt him from this law. The unanimous decision, written by Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, sought to make a crucial distinction between religious beliefs (which were entirely beyond government's competence) and religious practices. In this instance, a compelling interest to sustain the nation's morals outweighed an individual's right to engage in a specific religious act. 1940: Cantwell v. Connectic A Jehovah's Witness from New Haven, Newton Cantwell engaged in doorto-door evangelism, proffering religious literature and sometimes playing a record that included attacks on the Roman Catholic religion. He was convicted of breaching the peace and for soliciting funds without a license. The Supreme Court ruled that the Connecticut law requiring the obtaining of a license represented an infringement of Cantwell's right to free exercise. Justice Owen J. Roberts, in a unanimous ruling, reiterated the mantra of the Reynolds case—that government could, for the protection of society, regulate religious practices. In this instance, however, the state law was adjudged an unreasonable restraint on free exercise. This was a watershed ruling as, for the first time, it applied the religion clauses of the First Amendment to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment.

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1943: West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette Early in 1942 the West Virginia Board of Education enacted a resolution that made it mandatory for all students under its care to salute and pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States. Those students who refused risked expulsion from their school. This, in turn, would result in those children being declared delinquents and their parents faced the possibility of a custodial sentence. Tellingly, this resolution was adopted only a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A group of Jehovah's Witnesses, including Walter Barnette, argued that their faith taught that the flag was a graven image and that making their children salute it represented an assault on their religious scruples. Overturning the Minersville School District v. Gobitis decision of three years earlier, the Supreme Court, basing its majority decision on the First Amendment's freedom of speech clause, argued that coercively promoting patriotism was unconstitutional. Justice Robert Jackson coined an enduring description of American religious freedom: "if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." An important dissenting opinion by Felix Frankfurter, however, argued that a flag-salute was a reasonable way to promote national unity and, by extension, national security. 1943: Murdoch v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania The Jehovah's Witness, Robert Murdock, and some of his fellow-religionists had distributed religious literature in exchange for financial contributions and, as a result, had been charged with breaching a law that forbade such solicitation without first acquiring an appropriate license. The Witnesses argued that the need to obtain such a license assaulted their right to freedom of speech, press, and religious free exercise. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld their argument. Again, Felix Frankfurter dissented, arguing that religious actions were not, per se, exempt from taxation, as well as stressing that the license tax was applied to all groups, not simply against the Witnesses in a discriminatory manner. 1944: United States v. Ballavd Two organizers of the "I Am" movement, Edna W. and Donald Ballard, were accused of employing the postal service to enact a fraud: they had distributed literature that included claims that they had the gift of curing diseases and that they were the messengers of Jesus Christ and St. Germain. When the matter came to trial, the jury had been instructed to decide not whether such claims were actually true, but whether the Ballards had acted

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in good faith, themselves believing that they were genuine. The Supreme Court was asked to decide whether this instruction to the jury was appropriate and, in a 5-4 ruling, it decided it was. The key point made by this decision was that it was no business of government to decide whether this or that religious belief was true. 1944: Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts A resident of Brockton, Massachusetts, Sarah Prince, had been arrested for permitting her nine-year-old niece (to whom she was acting as guardian) to join in with her evangelizing efforts—distributing Jehovah's Witnesses pamphlets. She was convicted for being in breach of a state law that forbade children (boys under twelve and girls under eighteen) from selling anything in public. On the grounds that this was an infringement of her right to free exercise, the matter came before the Supreme Court. The court argued that the state law was in fact constitutional. It was stated that, firstly, there were occasions when government could regulate religious activities in the public interest and, secondly, that, even though it limited (indirectly) the religious freedoms of some individuals, the law in question was a neutral law with a worthwhile secular purpose. 1961: Braunfeld v. Brown Various Orthodox Jewish businessmen, including Abraham Braunfeld, the owner of a clothing and furniture store, challenged a Pennsylvania Sunday closing law, in place since 1959. Their faith required that they close their stores on the Saturday Sabbath. In order to avoid financial disadvantage, they opened their businesses on Sundays instead and, thus, fell foul of the Pennsylvania law. Braunfeld argued that this represented interference with the free exercise of his religion. The Supreme Court upheld, with a 6-3 majority, the state law. In his majority decision, Earl Warren argued that the law was not intended to prohibit a religious activity but, rather, to achieve a secular purpose—the establishment of a uniform day of rest. He added, however, that such laws, which placed an indirect burden on religious freedoms, lost their validity if the "state may accomplish its purpose by means which do not impose such a burden." 1963: Sherbert v. Verner Adell Sherbert of South Carolina had been refused unemployment benefits on the grounds that she had failed to take on "suitable" work when it was offered. Sherbert had worked at the same company for more than thirty years before a new policy was introduced that required employees to work on Saturdays. As a Seventh-Day Adventist, for whom Saturday was the Sabbath,

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she refused to work, and this led to her dismissal. With a 7-2 majority the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state to withhold unemployment benefits from an individual who turned down work because of her religious scruples. The law (which countenanced withholding of benefits) was itself entirely valid, but Sherbert was entitled to an exception from it. In a phrase with a long future ahead of it, Justice William Brennan argued that the state had not shown a compelling state interest for withholding benefits in this case. 1972: Wisconsin v. Toder Laws in Wisconsin demanded the compulsory attendance of children at school until the age of sixteen. However, Jonas Yoder stopped sending his children to school beyond the eighth grade on the grounds that (as an article of his Amish faith) it was against his religious beliefs to send his children to high school. The state countered with the argument that, religious beliefs of parents notwithstanding, it had a duty to offer the benefits of education to all the children under its care. The Supreme Court turned again to the notion of a compelling state interest and argued that the law for compulsory attendance infringed Yoder's right to free exercise. Once more, an exemption to an otherwise legitimate law was called for. 1983: Bob Jones University v. United States Bob Jones University in South Carolina described itself as a college that placed special emphasis on Christianity and the ethical content of scripture. The college, in 1971, had begun to allow African American students to enroll, but it continued to refuse admission to those involved in (or known to approve of) interracial marriage. The IRS ruled that this called for the invocation of a policy by which any private schools that engaged in racial discrimination were stripped of their tax-exempt status. The university claimed that this was an assault on its religious freedom—it claimed that the Bible was the source of its position on interracial relationships. With a strong 8-1 majority, the Supreme Court backed the IRS's decision. 1988: Lyngv. Northwest Indian Protective Association

Cemetery

The Chimney Rock area of the Six Rivers National Forest in California had long been used by various American Indian tribes for religious rituals. In 1982, the U.S. Forest Service established a study to determine the impact of building a road through the area. The study determined that plans for the road should be abandoned as it would possibly damage the areas used by the American Indians for their rituals. This suggestion was rejected by the Forest Service and it drew up plans for a road that would stay as far away

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as possible from religious sites and areas of archeological interest. Simultaneously, the service adopted a plan to allow the harvesting of timber in the area, though with the provision that religious sites would, again, be protected. A group representing the several Indian groups claimed that this plan was likely to impact negatively on their right to free exercise of religion. The Supreme Court ruled that both of the Forest Service's plans—the road and the timber harvesting—were constitutional (see pp. 200-201). 1990: Employment Division, Department of Human of Oregon v. Smith

Resources

Alfred Smith, a member of the Native American Church, was fired from his job with a drug rehabilitation organization because of his sacramental use of the hallucinogen peyote. Consequently, he was denied unemployment benefits because he had been fired due to "misconduct." Smith claimed that this constituted an infringement of his right to free exercise. The court's majority decision, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, argued that a person's religious beliefs did not exempt him from a valid law that forbade behavior that the state is competent to regulate. Crucially, the ruling constituted a rejection of the notion that a compelling state interest had to be demonstrated before an infringement of religious liberty could be countenanced. Returning to an older standard, it was argued that a neutral, generally applicable law held sway over everyone's behavior, regardless of what effect it might have on an individuals' ability to practice his religion. 1993: Church of the Lukumi Bahalu Aye v. Hialeah This case involved practitioners of the Santeria religion whose rituals included animal sacrifice. The group wanted to set up a settled place of worship within the city of Hialeah, Florida, but the city council issued ordinances that forbade the sacrificing of animals. A District Court ruled that the ordinances were constitutional, a judgment confirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Supreme Court, by contrast, ruled that the ordinances were unconstitutional. In this case, because the laws were neither neutral nor generally applicable, it was indeed still necessary for the city council to prove that there was a compelling interest for enacting the laws and that there was no way that the interest could be achieved through less intrusive means. In his ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy argued that the council had failed in both of these objectives. 1997: City of Boer ne v. Flores Largely in response to the decision in Oregon v Smith, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in 1993, intended to restore the standard of the compelling state interest. The constitutionality of this act

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was challenged in the case of Boerne v. Flores. The archbishop of San Antonio applied for a permit to make extensions to a church in Boerne, Texas. The application was denied based on a statute intended to preserve historical areas in the city. The archbishop took his case to the District Court on the grounds that the denial of the permit had been a breach of the RFRA. The District Court dramatically ruled that Congress had outreached its authority when it passed the RFRA. This ruling was echoed by the Supreme Court in its ruling. 2002: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York v. Village ofStratton This case revisited the issue of Jehovah's Witnesses' evangelical efforts. In the village of Stratton, Ohio, it was forbidden for any "canvassers" to promote their cause in private residential areas without obtaining a permit from the mayor's office. The notion was that this measure would help prevent fraud and undue annoyance. The Supreme Court adjudged that this ordinance, with its extremely broad definition, represented an infringement of Witnesses' First Amendment rights. The court, while explaining how this case differed from earlier judgments revolving around door-to-door evangelism, nonetheless noticed that the Witnesses had, over fifty years, not only "struggled for their rights alone, but for those many [religious and nonreligious alike] who are poorly financed and rely heavily on this method of communication."

ESTABLISHMENT 1930: Cochran v. Louisiana Board of Education This case saw the first outing for what would come to be known as the child-benefit theory. The Supreme Court upheld a law in Louisiana that allowed public funds to be used to buy textbooks (dealing with secular subjects) for children in private parochial schools. It was deemed that the students, and not the institutions they attended, would benefit from such a program. 1947: Everson v. Board of Education ofEwing Township Echoing the decision in Cochran, Justice Hugo Black argued (for a slim 5-4 majority) that providing state funding to bus students to private schools did not represent a violation of the establishment clause. This countered the Ewing Township resident Arch Everson's suggestion that the 1941 New Jersey statute that provided such funds (for both parochial and public school

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students) was in fact aiding religious institutions. This was the first time the court applied the establishment clause to the state via the Fourteenth Amendment. Another crucial point made during the ruling was that it was the duty of government to maintain a neutral, but not adversarial, position in its relationship with religion. 1948: McCollum v. Board of Education In this case, the state of Illinois was adjudged to have violated the establishment clause by allowing religious groups to use classrooms in public schools to teach religious ideas during school hours. 1952: Zorach v. Clauson This case revisited the issue of "released time" programs whereby public school students were given time off from their regular classes to attend classes in religious instruction. One such scheme in New York granted students the chance to attend such classes during school hours but away from school grounds. The scheme was entirely voluntary and parents were able to choose which of the various religious groups involved would provide the instruction for their children. The constitutionality of the scheme was challenged by Tessim Zorach as violating the establishment clause. The court did not agree, however, and with a 6-3 majority Justice William O. Douglas drew a distinction between programs that took place within and outside of public schools. He argued against government demonstrating hostility to religion and for a need to "accommodate" the desires of a "religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." 1962: Engel v. Vitale This case brought the controversial issue of prayer in public schools before the court. Within the New York public school system, a prayer had been composed by the New York State Board of Regents and recommended to local school districts. The prayer read "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country." Along with nine other parents, Steven Engel was unimpressed when this prayer was adopted in his child's school district and, with the support of the ACLU, claimed that it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court concurred, with a 6-1 majority. In the majority decision Hugo Black declared that the prayer was undoubtedly a religious activity, that government had no business composing official prayers for public schools, and that the voluntary nature of the prayer was irrelevant in the face of coercive pressure to conform within the classroom.

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1963: School District of Abington Township v. Schempp Entering similar territory to the Engel decision, this case concerned a Pennsylvania statute that enforced a daily reading from the Bible in the state's public schools. The law also insisted that students could be excused from the readings upon the written request of their parents. Roger and Donna Schempp attended a school in Philadelphia where these biblical verses were recited over the intercom at the start of the day and followed by a reading of the Lord's Prayer. Instead of having their children excused from these exercises (which they feared would damage the children's relationship with students and faculty), the Schempps's parents (both Unitarians) challenged the constitutionality of the statute on the grounds that such Bible readings violated the establishment clause. In an 8-1 ruling the Supreme Court agreed that such an exclusive religious exercise in the public schools clearly failed to meet the standard of neutrality in the state's relationship with religion. Justice Tom Clark, writing for the majority, also posited an important test by which such statutes ought to be measured against the establishment clause in future: a law would have to aim at a valid secular purpose and it should neither hinder nor advance religion. (The case of Murray v. Curlett was also decided under the title of this case.) 1968: Board of Education of Central School District No. 1 v. Allen A program in New York allowed state-approved texts to be lent, free of charge, to students in grades seven to twelve in both private and parochial schools. It was argued that, since only secular books were involved, the state was living up to the standard of neutrality and that the program was intended to benefit the children involved, and not the institutions they attended. The members of one school board did not agree, regarding the program as a violation of the establishment clause. However, they feared that if they did not comply with the program they would face dismissal by the commissioner of education, James E. Allen, Jr. They chose to challenge the constitutionality of the law. The Supreme Court, once more invoking the child benefit theory, ruled that the New York program was constitutional— it had a "secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion." 1970: Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York This concerned a practice whereby the New York City Tax Commission granted tax exemptions to religious groups for buildings used entirely for religious activities. Traditionally, New York had granted such exemptions to religious, charitable, and educational nonprofit groups. Frederick Walz argued that this breached the establishment clause, and that property owners

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who were not eligible for such exemptions were indirectly making contributions to religious groups. In a decision that continued the court's acommodationist trend, Warren Burger upheld the constitutionality of the exemption. He also introduced the idea of avoiding unnecessary "entanglement" between government and religion: in this case, he argued, removing the exemption would increase such entanglement. 1971: Jjemon v.

Kurtzman

This case centered on the constitutionality of statutes in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Since 1968, legislation had been operative in Pennsylvania whereby public funds could be used to reimburse private schools (religious ones included) to pay for textbooks, salaries, and other materials. It was made clear, however, that all books and materials had to be approved by the superintendent of public instruction and teachers were only to be reimbursed where they had been teaching secular subjects. One Pennsylvania teacher, Alton Lemon, claimed that the statute violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment by using public funds to support religious institutions. And in Rhode Island, a 1969 statute had allowed public funds to be used to enhance the salaries of teachers in private schools (the vast majority of which, in Rhode Island, were Catholic-run) for the teaching of secular subjects. Both laws were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Warren Burger once more turned to the notion of excessive entanglement and argued that the statutes were benefiting the institutions themselves rather than the students and parents they served. Famously, Burger offered a three-part test by which such cases ought to be judged in the future: to be regarded as constitutional, a law must have a secular purpose, it must have the effect of neither advancing nor inhibiting religion, and it must not produce excessive entanglement between government and religion. 1980: Stone v. Graham This case dealt with a Kentucky law enacted in 1978 that required a copy of the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom. These posters included a note that there was no religious intent behind their display, but that the Ten Commandments represented an integral part of the legal tradition of the nation. The Supreme Court, overturning earlier decisions in lower courts, argued that the law was unconstitutional. It had no secular purpose, and its main aim was of a religious nature. 1984: Lynch v. Donnelly The city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, maintained a Christmas display that included a nativity scene alongside other nonreligious items, including a

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Christmas tree, wishing wells, and a Santa Claus house. The court had to decide whether such a display, placed on public property, violated the establishment clause. With a 5-4 majority it ruled that it did not, and great emphasis was placed on the fact that other nonreligious items were included in the display. It was argued that, while the nativity scene undoubtedly had a religious message, the display as a whole aimed at a secular purpose by demonstrating the origins of a national public holiday. Warren Burger rooted his decision on a rejection of an absolutist reading of the establishment clause and the fact that there was "an unbroken history of official acknowledgment by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life from at least 1789." 1985: Wallace v. Jaffree Ishmael Jaffree, from Mobile County, Alabama, was an agnostic. His children attended a public school where, in accordance with a state statute, the day began with a moment of voluntary prayer. His children told him that, while the prayer was voluntary, their failure to participate had damaged their relationship with their classmates. Jaffree challenged the constitutionality of the Alabama statute, along with two earlier laws that had mandated moments of silence and mediation at the start of the school day. The Supreme Court found no fault with a statute that introduced a moment of silence in the public schools, but the addition of the call for voluntary prayer was deemed unconstitutional. Justice William Rehnquist provided an important dissenting decision in which he denounced the Jeffersonian idea of a wall of separation between church and state as being "based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging." 1985: Aguilar v. Felton This case from New York City concerned the sending of public school teachers and others (including guidance counselors and psychologists) to religious schools to provide remedial instruction. Various safeguards were put in place to limit the teachers' involvement with religion while in the schools. Betty-Louise Felton and five other New York residents claimed that the program breached the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Having journeyed through the lower courts, the case came before the Supreme Court in 1985 and it was decided, with a 5-4 majority, that the program was unconstitutional. 1987: Edwards v. Aguillard A Louisiana act called for the equal treatment of evolutionary and creationist theories in the state's public schools: it prohibited the teaching of evolution

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science unless "creation science" was also included in the curriculum. A group of parents, including Don Aguillard, an assistant principal at one of the state's schools, claimed the act was unconstitutional. In his majority decision, Justice William Brennan ruled that the act failed to meet one of the standards of the Lemon test—that an act should have a valid secular purpose: rather, the act in question sought to undermine evolutionary theory by "balancing" it with creationism, which was, essentially, a religious teaching. The notion that the law was intended to secure academic freedom was adjudged a "sham." 1989: County of Allegheny v. ACLU This case revisited the issue of religious displays on public property. The scenes in question were located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—a nativity scene (donated by a Catholic organization) in the Allegheny County courthouse (one that was not accompanied by other nonreligious items), and a display outside the City County building that included a menorah (owned by a Jewish organization) and a large Christmas tree. The Supreme Court ruled that the nativity scene was unconstitutional (because through it the county "sends an unmistakeable message that it supports and promotes the Christian praise of God") but that the display including the menorah was acceptable within the terms of the establishment clause—it simply recognized that Christmas and Hanukah were part of the nation's winter holiday season. 1990: Westside Community School v. Mergens At Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska, students were allowed to participate in various groups and clubs that met on school premises after school hours. Bridget Mergens sought to establish a Christian club as part of this initiative but, on the grounds that, as all groups required a faculty sponsor, this risked violating the establishment clause, the school board denied her request. Invoking the Equal Access Act of 1984, Mergens claimed that this was unjust and the court agreed. 1992: Lee v. Weisman When Merrith Weisman graduated from Nathan Bishop Middle School, Providence, Rhode Island, a Baptist minister attending the ceremony offered up an invocation of thanks to Christ for his role in the students' accomplishments. Merrith's father, Daniel Weisman, a Jew, complained to the school. Despite this, three years later, when Weisman's younger daughter was due to graduate, an invocation and a benediction were once more planned for the ceremonies. The school's principal contacted a local rabbi to carry out these duties, but Weisman sought restraining orders to prevent the invitation of

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any cleric from delivering a prayer at the graduation. The inclusion of a prayer was deemed unconstitutional by the Distinct Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and, with a 5-4 majority, by the Supreme Court. Statesponsored prayer at a public school's graduation ceremony was seen as violating the establishment clause, whether or not the prayer was sectarian. Also, since attendance at the ceremony was compulsory, the prayer represented a variety of indirect coercion on the part of the school authorities. 1993: Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District James Zobrest enrolled at the Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, Arizona. When his parents asked the local school district to provide James with a sign-language interpreter, their request was declined on the grounds that this would violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court held that the school district had acted wrongly, as the beneficiary of the Zobrests's request (which was directed at a "neutral government program": the provision of sign interpreters) would have been the child, not the school he attended. 1994: Board of Education ofKiryasJoel School District v. Grumet In the New York village of Kiryas Joel, the population was entirely made up of Hasidic Jews. The residents preferred to send their children to local religious schools rather than public schools under the auspices of the school district. Following the Aguilar decision in 1985, special services provided by the school district to disabled children in the village's religious schools came to an end, and the children in question were obliged to go to public schools outside Kiryas Joel to receive the services. In order to prevent the trauma that parents claimed was being inflicted on their children, the state legislature proposed to make Kiryas Joel a separate school district that allowed for the establishment of a public school in the village for children with special needs. Louis Grumet, executive director of the State School Boards Association, claimed that the new statute violated the First Amendment. Confirming earlier decisions, the Supreme Court ruled that the statute was unconstitutional because it gave power on the issue of public education to an electorate that was defined by a single religious faith, thus failing to meet the standard of neutrality: religion and one of the functions of government had been unacceptably fused. 1997: Agostini v. Felton This decision overturned the ruling in Aguilar v. Felton back in 1985 regarding the constitutionality of sending public school teachers to provide remedial education in private schools.

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2000: Santa Fe School District v. Doe This case asked whether a school district's policy of allowing student-led prayer at football games was constitutional. The court ruled that the practice was a violation of the establishment clause. There was no doubt that the speech in question was attributable to the state: it was delivered at a schoolsponsored event, over the school's public address system, and by an individual who was seen as representing the student body. There was also an issue of coercion, as some students were faced with the choice of missing the games or exposing themselves to religious practice that they and their parents found objectionable. 2 0 0 1 : Good News Club v. Milford Central School Two central and conflicting issues were at stake here. Firstly, whether (in the wider context of creating a limited public forum) denying a Christian group (the Good News Club) access to public school facilities represented a violation of its freedom of speech. Secondly, whether allowing access would be a violation of the establishment clause. The Supreme Court agreed to the first proposition but denied the second. It found that the public school in New York had violated the Good News Club's free speech rights when it denied the club access to the after-school limited public forum. It also found that the school's concern about an establishment clause violation did not justify the limitation of the club's right to free speech. 2002: Zelman v.

Simmons-Harris

This case addressed the controversial issue of school vouchers, asking whether such a program in Ohio, in which the vast majority of participants were attending religious schools, violated the establishment clause. The program offered scholarships to children, with preference given to low-income families. It allowed parents to send their children to private schools at reduced tuition fees. Forty-six of the fifty-six participating schools had a religious orientation. Doris Simmons-Harris led the challenge to the constitutionality of the scheme. The watershed decision of the Supreme Court was that the Ohio program was a neutral program, based upon private choice, that did not violate the First Amendment. It did not, at root, favor religious over nonreligious schools; it allowed children from impoverished backgrounds to improve their educational opportunities without any reference to religion. In his majority decision William Rehnquist explained, "that the program was one of true private choice, with no evidence that the state deliberately skewed incentives toward religious schools, was sufficient for the program to survive scrutiny under the establishment clause."

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2004: Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow This case sought to address the issue of whether the word "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance made for an infringement of the establishment clause. The court did not address the First Amendment issues in the case, but disposed of it on the standing grounds that Michael Newdow was not entitled to bring suit on behalf of his child. 2004: Locke v. Davey In this case mention was made of some "play in the joints" when legislatures sought to balance the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment. With a 7-2 majority it was judged that a state legislature could, as it saw fit, either provide or deny a scholarship to a student majoring in a degree in "devotional theology," even when that scholarship was also available to students pursuing degrees in nonreligious subjects. In this instance Washington state was entitled to deny a student such a scholarship, but this exclusion was not required by the establishment clause. * *

*

This is a far from exhaustive list of important Supreme Court decisions dealing with the issues of free exercise and establishment. For further details of these and other cases, readers are directed to two books that were heavily relied upon in compiling this appendix: Robert S. Alley, ed., The Constitution and Religion: Leading Supreme Court Cases on Church and State (Amherst, NY, 1999). John J. Patrick and Gerald P. Long, eds., Constitutional Debates on Freedom of Religion (Westport, CT, 1999).

In addition, many of the Internet sites mentioned at the end of the introduction offer detailed analysis of key decisions. A helpful resource, detailing all such cases, is readily available on the comprehensive FindLaw website: http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/index.html

INDEX

Abington v. Schempp, xiv-xv, xix, 208-10, 254 Adams, Jasper, 130 Adams, John, 78, 79, 86, 93, 100 Adams, Samuel, 78 Agostini v. Felton, 258 Aguilar v. Felton, 256 Alien and Sedition Acts, 91, 106-7 Allen, Charles, 138 Allen, Richard, 233 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 190 American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), 199 American War of Independence, 69, 86, 101 Americanism, Catholic Church and, 215-16 Anglican Church and religious freedom, 62-63, 68-69. See also King's College controversy Anti-Defamation League, 181 Arnold, Benedict, 89 Arthur, Chester, 195 Backus, Isaac, 12-13, 34, 71-84; adult baptism and, 74-75; An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty, 77; First Continental Congress and, 78; incorporation and, 80; religious taxes

and, 76-77, 78; views on church/state separation, 77; views on religious freedom, 80-81 Baird, Robert, 233 Bapst, John, 138 Baptist Church and religious freedom, 72, 100. See also Backus, Isaac; Leland, John Barton, Thomas, 58 Beecher, Lyman, 113-22, 138; antiCatholic views, 120-21; charged with "heresy," 119; millennial ideas, 116-17; A Plea for the West, 120-21; Unitarianism and, 117-18; voluntarism and, 115-16 Bill of Rights, 82, 90, 105, 189 Black, Hugo, xxi, 110, 206-7, 239, 252, 253 Blackwell, Antoinette Louisa Brown, 234 Blaine, James, 143, 234 Board of Education of Central School District No. 1 v. Allen, 254 Board of Education of Kiryas Joel School District v. Grumet, 258 Bob Jones University v. United States, 250 Boggs, Lilburn, 164 Bonnin, Gertrude Simmons, 234 Boston, 7, 26, 35, 52, 117, 155-57

262 Bowne, John, 43 Bradford, William, 100-101 Brann, William Cooper, 234 Braunfeld v. Brown, 205-6, 249 Breckinridge, John, 139-40 Brennan, William, xiv-xv, xix, xxi, 206, 209, 210, 235, 250, 257 Bryan, William Jennings, 227, 235 Burke, Charles, 196-97 Calvert, Cecil, 135, 235 Calvert, George, 135 Campbell, Alexander, 114 Cantwell v. Connecticut, xvi, 186-87, 247 Carlyle, Thomas, 154 Carroll, John, 136, 236 Chandler, Thomas Bradbury, 68, 236 Channing, William Ellery, 117-18, 124, 150,236 Chaplains, in army and Congress, 83, 108,177,209 Chauncy, Charles, 72, 236-37 Chiniquy, Charles, 138 Christian Coalition, 230 Christian Right, 225-27. See also Falwell, Jerry Christianity as source of morality, 93-94, 102, 109, 114, 127-30 Church and state. See Establishment clause Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah, 251 Cincinnati, 119, 175 City of Boerne v. Flores, 202, 251-52 Clarke, John, 22, 30, 35, 237 Cochran v. Louisiana Board of Education, 252 Coddington, William, 22, 29 Collier, John, 193-202; American Indian Defense Association and, 197-98; Indian Reorganization Act and, 198-99 Compelling state interest test, xvi, 201, 207-8 Congregational Church and religious freedom, 76

Index Connecticut, disestablishment of the Congregational Church in, 83, 115 Cotton, John, 1-13; Anne Hutchinson and, 10-11, 16, 17, 1 9 , 2 1 ; The Bloudy Tenent, Washed and Made White in the Bloud of the Lambe, 12; debate with Roger Williams, 11-12, 26, 31-34; views on church/state relations, 7-9, 12; views on religious freedom, 10, 13, 33; views on women, 21 Coughlin, Charles, 237 County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 257 Cowdery, Oliver, 162 Danbury Baptists, 95 Darrow, Clarence, 227, 237 Davenport, James, 72, 73 Davenport, John, 237-38 Davies, Samuel, 72-73, 238 Dawes Act, 195 Declaration of Independence, 86-87 DeLancey, James, 62, 67 Dubois, John, 136, 137 Duffy, Francis, 217 Dutch Republic and religious freedom, 37-38, 109-10 Dwight, Timothy, 114 Dyer, Mary, 22, 53, 238 Education and religious freedom, xvii, xix, 132-33, 141-45, 178, 222, 234, 243. See also King's College controversy; School prayer; School vouchers Edwards, Jonathan, 71, 237, 238 Edwards v. Aguillard, 256-57 Einhorn, David, 173, 175, 178 Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, xviii, 260 Ellsworth, Oliver, 239 Emerson, Mary Moody, 149 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 149-60; The Conduct of Life, 158-59; Divinity School address, 152-55; Nature, 151, 158; Phi Beta Kappa oration, 152; Transcendentalism and, 150-52

Index Employment Division v. Smith, xvi, 201-2, 251 Engel v. Vitale, 206-7, 253 England, John, 136 Equal Access Act, xvii Establishment clause, 196; Supreme Court cases and, xvii-xviii, 206-7, 208-10,211,252-60 Everson v. Board of Education, xvi, 110,252-53 Evolutionary theory and Creationism, 211,227,235,237 Faith-based initiatives, xvii Faldo, John, 52 Falwell, Jerry, 225-32; Moral Majority and, 228-30; Thomas Road Baptist Church and, 225, 227 Faquier, Francis, 86 Feake, Tobias, 41 Fenton, Joseph, 220-21 Finney, Charles Grandison, 117, 239 First Amendment, xiv, 85, 105-6, 129-30, 219-20. See also Establishment clause; Free exercise, Supreme Court cases First Vatican Council, 214 Flag-salute, xviii, 187-89 Flushing remonstrance, 41-42 Fourteenth Amendment, xvi Fox, George, 31, 48-49, 51, 150 Frankfurter, Felix, 189, 211, 239, 248 Franklin, Benjamin, 86, 239 Free exercise, Supreme Court cases, xvi-xvii, 186-89, 200-202, 205-6, 207-8, 247-52 Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 211, 259 Gorton, Samuel, 34-35 Graham, Billy, 226 Great Awakening, 71-73 Green, John, 164 Half-Way Covenant, 9, 75 Hamilton, Alexander, 90, 105, 115 Harris, Martin, 162 Hart, Edward, 41

263 Hecker, Isaac Thomas, 239-40 Henry, Patrick, 101-2, 104, 240 Hodgson, Robert, 41 Holmes, Obadiah, 35, 78 Holy days/days of thanksgiving, 83, 94, 109, 178 Hughes, John, 135-47; debates with John Breckinridge, 139-40; defending Catholic interests, 139-40; lay trustees and, 137; public schools and, 141-45 Hutchinson, Anne, 10-11, 15-24; controversial theological positions, 16-18; sexual bias against, 19-22; trial and banishment, 19-21 Hyde, Edward, Lord Cornbury, 62-63, 240 Independent Reflector, 61, 64-67. See also Livingston, William Ireland, John, 218, 240-41 Islam and religious freedom, 211 Jackson, Andrew, 195 Jackson, Robert, 188-89 Jefferson, Thomas, 59, 82, 85-97, 124-25, 126-27; Alien and Sedition Acts and, 91; Notes on the State of Virginia, 89; religious beliefs, 92, 93-94; statute for religious freedom in Virginia and, 87-89; A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 86; wall of separation metaphor, xvii, 34, 95 Jehovah's Witnesses, 183-91; evangelism and, 186-87; flag-salute and, 187-89 Johnson, Samuel, 64, 67 Jones, Absalom, 241 Judaism and religious freedom, 37, 44-45, 172-73, 205-6. See also Wise, Isaac Mayer Keith, George, 58 Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 221, 241 Kent, James, 96, 127, 128, 173 King's College controversy, 62, 63-68. See also Livingston, William

Index

264 Laud, William, 4, 26 Law, Jonathan, 72 Lee v. Weisman, 211, 257-58 Leeser, Isaac, 175, 179-80, 241 Leland, John, 81-83, 104, 241 Lemon v. Kurtzman, xvii, 210, 255 Leo XIII, pope, 215-16 Levy, Asser, 45 Livingston, William, 61-70; Anglican bishops and, 68-69; King's College and, 63-68 Locke, John, 82, 96-97, 130, 241-42 Locke v. Davey, 260 Lynch v. Donnelly, 255-56 Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 200-201, 250-51 Madison, James, 82, 87, 91, 99-111; Alien and Sedition Acts and, 106-7; Bill of Rights and, 105-6; on difference between toleration and free exercise, 99, 101; Memorial and Remonstrance, 99, 103-4, 207; on persecution in Virginia, 100-101 Makemie, Francis, 63, 242 Marshall, Charles, 216-18 Marshall, John, 96, 123 Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 126 Maryland, Catholicism in, 135, 235-36 Mason, George, 101 Massachusetts: constitutional settlement in 1780, 79, 93; disestablishment of Congregational Church, 80, 83, 118 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 5; John Winthrop's vision of, 22-23; relationship between church and state, 7-10. See also Cotton, John; Hutchinson, Anne; Williams, Roger Mayflower pilgrims, 3 McCollum v. Board of Education, 253 McCulloch v. Maryland, 125 Megapolensis, Johannes, 40, 44 Miller, William, 113 Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 188 Moody, Deborah, 242 Mooney, James, 201

Moral Majority, 228-30 Mormonism, xvi; nineteenth-century criticism of, 165-67. See also Smith, Joseph Morse, Jedidiah, 242 Morse, Samuel, 138-39, 242-43 Moyle, Olin, 186, 190 Muhammad, Elijah, 243 Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 248 Murray, John Courtney, 213-23; First Amendment and, 219-20; John Kennedy and, 221; We Hold These Truths, 221, 223 Native American religious freedoms, 193-202, 234 Nativism, 138-39 Neuhaus, Richard, 243 New Amsterdam, 38-40, 43, 45-46. See also Stuyvesant, Peter New Haven, 7 New Haven Theology, 119 New Jersey, 53, 69 New York, xx, 141-45. See also Hughes, John; King's College controversy; Livingston, William; New Amsterdam Nixon, Richard, 210 Northwest Ordinance, 93 Norton, Andrews, 154 Oakes, Uriah, 7 Ohio, public school debates in, 143-45 Oneida community, 113 Parker, Theodore, 155-57 Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 58 Penn, William, 47-59; Pennsylvania and, 53-59; Trinitarian theology, 49; views on religious freedom, 50, 52 Penn, William, works of: The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience, 50; Innocency With Her Open Face, 49; No Cross, No Crown, 49-50; The Sandy Foundation Shaken, 49; A Serious Apology for the Principles

Index and Practices of the People Called Quakers, 52 Pennsylvania, 54-55, 56-59; Frame of Government, 55. See also Penn, William Peyote, xvi, 200, 201-2 Pfeffer, Leo, 181,243 Philadelphia, xx, 55, 57, 132-33, 140, 143, 233 Pledge of Allegiance, xviii, 226, 231 Plymouth, 26, 27 Pratt, Richard Henry, 195-96 Presbyterianism and religious freedom, 63, 67, 72-73 Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 249 Public schools and religious freedom. See Education and religious freedom Purcell, John Baptist, 144-45, 243 Quakers, 31, 41-43, 48-49, 52-53, 54, 67, 150. See also Bowne, John; Dyer, Mary; Flushing remonstrance; Fox, George; Penn, William Reagan, Ronald, 226, 229 Red Jacket, 194-95 Reformation, 1-2 Rehnquist, William, 95, 244, 256, 259 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), xvii, 202, 251-52 Religious tests for office, xiv, 128-29, 216 Reynolds v. United States, xvi, 168, 247 Rhode Island, 2 1 , 28-31, 35. See also Williams, Roger Robertson, Pat, 230, 244 Roe v. Wade, 226 Roman Catholicism and religious freedom, 37, 120-21, 135-36, 216-18. See also Hughes, John; Murray, John Courtney; Nativism Russell, Charles Taze, 183-84 Rutherford, Joseph Franklin, 183-91; The Finished Mystery and, 184-85;

265 flag-salute and, 187; separationism and, 185-86 Ryan, John, 219 Salem, 26-28, 124 Santa Fe School District v. Doe, 211, 259 Sargent, John, 156 Saybrook Platform, 73 Scalia, Antonin, 201-2 School prayer, 206-10, 211, 228, 229 School vouchers, xvii, 211, 231. See also Education and religious freedom Second Vatican Council, 221-22 Shakers, 113 Sherbert v. Verner, xvi, 201, 207-8, 249-50 Small, William, 86 Smith, Alfred, 216-18, 244 Smith, Joseph, 161-70; Book of Mormon and, 162-63; persecution and, 163-64, 165; polygamy and, 165, 167-69; visions, 162-63 Smith, William, 64 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 58, 63 Spencer, Peter, 244 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 244-45 Stone v. Graham, 255 Story, Joseph, xiv, 96, 123-33; on Christianity and the common law, 126-28; constitutional theory, 125-26, 128-30; rivalry with Thomas Jefferson, 124-25, 126-27 Strong, Josiah, 245 Stuyvesant, Peter, 37-46, 172; Jews and, 44-45; Lutherans and, 41; opposition to religious diversity, 40; Quakers and, 41-43 Sunday, Billy, 245 Sunday-trading laws, 178, 205-6 Syllabus of Errors, 214 Taxation and religious freedom, 76-77, 78, 79, 101-2, 240 Ten Commandments displays, xvii, xviii Tennent, Gilbert, 72, 238 Tennent, William, 72

Index

266 Terrett v. Taylor, 131-32 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 115, 245 Transcendentalism, 150-52 Tuck, William, 204 Unitarianism, 117-18, 150, 156, 236 United States v. Ballard, 248-49 Vane, Henry, 1 0 , 1 6 , 1 9 , 2 9 Vesey, William, 62 Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 132 Virginia, statute for religious freedom, 81, 87-89, 101-4 Waite, Morrison, 168 Wallace v. Jaffree, 95, 211, 256 Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, 254-55 Ward, Nathaniel, 10 Ward, Samuel, 4 Ware, Henry, 117 Warren, Earl, xxi, 203-12, 249; ethos of Warren Court and, 204-5, 211 Warren Baptist Association, 75, 76 Washington, George, 90, 93, 172 Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York v. Village of Stratton, 191, 252 Webb, Muhammad Alexander Russell, 245 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 188-89,248 Westminster Assembly, 29 Westside Community School v. Mergens, 257 Weyrich, Paul, 228, 246 Wheelock, Eleazar, 72, 73 Wheelwright, John, 10, 11, 18, 19 Whitefield, George, 62, 72, 236, 237 Whittelsey, Chauncy, 67 Wickenden, William, 41

Willard, Frances, 246 Williams, Roger, 3, 25-36; criticism of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 26, 27; debates with John Cotton, 11-13, 26, 31-34; Rhode Island Colony and, 28-31; views on church-state relations, 27, 29, 32-33, 34; views on nature of religious freedom, 30, 33-34 Williams, Roger, works of: The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody, 32, 33; The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, 32; George Fox Digged Out of His Burrows, 31; A Key into the Language of America, 27; Queries of Highest Consideration, 29 Williamsburg Charter, xiii-xiv Wilson, Joshua, 119 Winrod, Gerald, 226 Winthrop, John, 5, 26, 28, 34, 39, 238, 246; Anne Hutchinson and, 17, 19-21, 22-24 Wisconsin v. Yoder, 250 Wise, Isaac Mayer, 171-82; defending Jewish interests, 177-78; General Order 11 and, 177; public schools and, 178; Reform Judaism and, 171-72, 173-75; thanksgiving proclamations and, 178 Witherspoon, John, 100, 246 Woodruff, Wilford, 168 Wovoka, 196 Wythe, George, 86 Young, Brigham, 167, 169 Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, xvii, 211, 259 Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, 258 Zorach v. Clauson, 253

About the Author JONATHAN A. WRIGHT earned his doctorate from Oxford University in 1998, and has been a Thouron Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a Fellow at the Institute for European History in Mainz, Germany. He is now an independent scholar and has published on many aspects of both American and European religious history. Among his recently published works is God's Soldiers: Adventure, Politics, Intrigue, and Power—A History of the Jesuits (2004).