1. The Settlers of North America—Martyrs for the Rights of Religious Conscience. Religious Exclusivity and Intolerance of the Puritans. Their Relation to Quakers and Catholics. The State Character of Religion. Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The Disabilities of the Latter. Anti-Catholic Legislation. The Proclamation of Freedom in Maryland and its Consequences. The Religious Intolerance of Congress

North America within the bounds of the present territory of the United States owes its settlement chiefly to the Reformation. When a succession of bold religious reformers proclaimed new principles in the sphere of religion, the rights of religious conscience, and personal responsibility, their voice thundered through the European peoples, languishing under the despotic oppression of the papacy. The popular masses were stirred; the new principles collided with the old; and this collision produced that era of political and religious upheaval which followed the Reformation. Struck with horror, Catholicism sought salvation from the flood of reform ideas in an even greater adherence to the old principles; Protestantism, for its part, irresistibly moved in the opposite direction and in its extreme sects fanatically rejected everything that could remind one of Catholicism. The difference between old and new penetrated so deeply into the social and religious life of humanity that there could be no middle ground reconciling them. If by the law of equilibrium such a middle ground was necessarily to form, it appeared not as a reconciling force but as hostile to both extremes. This fact manifested itself with particular force in England, to which North America owes its settlement in the first place.

The Reformation in England found expression in a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism, and was more a state than a religious act. Henry VIII, rejecting papal supremacy, remained at the same time a zealous Catholic, and saw the significance of the Reformation solely in more fully subjecting the church to the state and making it the support of the throne. This view received full development in the subsequent reigns. The Anglican Church became thoroughly a state religion. But it could not find general acceptance among the population, which included both pure Catholics, who continued to regard the Pope as head of the church, and pure Protestants, who rejected all connection with Catholicism. Both of these parties equally rejected the new church, and the latter, in its capacity as a state religion, came to regard them as equally harmful to the state. From this arose those persecutions which characterize the relation of the Anglican episcopal church and the state to Catholics and Puritans as two extreme expressions of opinions at variance with the state religion. These persecutions served as a direct cause for the emigration of the persecuted to the soil of the New World. Catholics, Puritans, and Quakers—the three main religious parties which were to have special importance in the historical destiny of North America—in moving to the New World, sought before all else a land of religious freedom, and only then a land of earthly prosperity[1]. Catholics settled in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania, and Puritans in New England. Other parts of the continent were settled: the present state of New York by Dutch Protestants, Virginia by adherents of the Anglican Church, North Carolina by various nonconformists, and South Carolina by Huguenots[2].

Thus the first settlers of the United States were martyrs for their religious convictions, and in emigrating to America, they sought a land where they could freely profess their faith. It is therefore natural to suppose that they brought with them to the soil of the New World the principles of religious freedom of conscience and made them the foundation of their mutual relations. Reality shows something quite different. Having themselves fled persecution for their religious convictions, the settlers, at the first opportunity, displayed the same spirit of intolerance from which they had suffered and against which they had fought at home. The entire history of the colonial era of the United States presents such instances of religious intolerance as are scarcely matched even in the history of religious persecution in England. Particularly remarkable in this regard is the fact that those most intolerant toward freedom of religious conscience were precisely those who had suffered most and fought hardest for the rights of conscience—namely the Puritans—while Catholics found themselves among the persecuted. Religious freedom of conscience as it now exists in the United States did not come suddenly, but gradually developed through a slow process of historical development, and is rather a necessary result of historical and political circumstances than a voluntary act of consciousness of the justice of the principle of religious freedom of conscience.

The principal role in forming the moral-religious, social, and political life of the United States undoubtedly belongs to the Puritans, who settled in that part of the country which became known as New England. They were exiles for the rights of conscience. But having found freedom for themselves, they did not consider it a right equally belonging to others. By its inner nature, Puritanism proved far removed from that breadth of outlook with which freedom of thought could be reconciled. Having rejected external forms, Puritanism enclosed itself in a narrow, rigid circle of ideas, beyond which everything was condemned as false and harmful. A dark, exclusive fanaticism became the foundation of the entire political and social system. The Puritan colonies were far more religious communities than political ones. At a commission appointed to draw up and frame laws for the community, one of the chief Puritan leaders, Cotton, declared that “the people of God must be governed by no other laws than those which God gave to Moses,” and insisted on establishing a theocracy, “God’s rule for God’s people”[3]. This law was not adopted in such exclusive form, but nevertheless the adopted code differed little in its exclusive severity from the system of Mosaic theocracy, and it excluded all that departed from the strict form of Puritanism. “The rock upon which this community was built,” says the historian, “was religion; a common faith had gathered these people together and held them united. They were exclusive because they had come to the edge of the earth to gain the privilege of living alone. And why should they open their refuge to their oppressors? Religious unity became a bulwark of the exiles against expected attacks from the Anglican hierarchy. The vast continent of America beckoned toward colonization; their own territory they held only for the brothers. Their religion was their life; they admitted only its followers; they could not tolerate a blasphemer, unbelief, or heresy; and all the people gathered at their own congregations. Such was the system, cultivated as a bastion of their freedom and their happiness. The order of churches and communities, wrote Cotton to his friends, has now with the general consent been established in New England in such a way that it resembles a new heaven and a new earth”[4]. As a result of such an organic connection between religion and society, the recognition of religion as a state institution became inevitable. The Puritan form of religion became part of the civil order; deviation from it came to be punished as a civil crime. “The state became a model of Christ’s kingdom on earth; crime against civil government was crime against Christ; and conversely, since the Gospel had equal standing, blasphemy, or what the court might call blasphemy, was the greatest crime in the list of offenses. Denial that any book of the Old or New Testament was the written and infallible word of God was punished by fine or whipping, and in case of obstinacy by banishment or death. Absence from “the preaching of the word” or church service was punished by fine”[5]. Extreme intolerance became the atmosphere of the community. “May God preserve us from such a cooling of our love of truth that we should tolerate error!” exclaimed old Puritan leader Dudley. “Better to tolerate hypocrites and tares than thorns and thistles,” confirmed Cotton. “Heresy,” echoed Ward, “is the greatest wickedness in the world. To say that people should have freedom of conscience is a wicked delusion”[6]. The principles were not slow in passing to action, and one of the first acts of the colonists was the expulsion from the community of two persons because they could not agree with the too-strict form of Puritanism[7]. But in expelling from their midst those who disagreed with their principles, the Puritan community came to treat other external religious communities with even greater severity, and considered the appearance of any member of the latter as worse than a harmful plague. To prevent the introduction of heretical infection into the Puritan community, in 1657 special legislation was enacted against Quakers. By it “every male Quaker, for a first offense (of breaking the law forbidding them to appear in the Puritan community), shall have one ear cut off and be kept at work in the house of correction until he can be sent out at his own cost; and for a second offense, he shall have his other ear cut off and be kept in the house of correction as aforesaid. And every female Quaker who comes under this law shall be severely whipped and kept in the house of correction until she can be sent out at her own cost. And any Quaker (male or female) who violates the law a third time shall have their tongue pierced with a red-hot iron and be kept in the house of correction until they can be sent out at their own cost”[8].

But if the Puritans regarded the Quakers with such fanatical intolerance—these who together with them had suffered persecution in England for the rights of personal religious conscience—they were even more intolerant toward Roman Catholics. Puritanism more than any other Protestant sect had grown out of radical rejection of Catholicism and lived by hatred toward it. The rank and authority of bishops, the sign of the cross, the observance of days in memory of the saints, the use of musical instruments in church, and the ecclesiastical vestments worn by the clergy—all of this was hateful to the Puritans because it was all connected with Catholic worship, and the chief crime of the Anglican Church in their eyes was that it retained certain doctrines and rites of the Roman Church. Religion and liberty, though understood in their own way, were the dominant principles of the Puritans, and since the Catholic Church in their eyes was the deadly enemy of both religion and liberty, their fanaticism, no less than their love of independence, filled them with the deepest hatred toward Catholics. They had the virtues and vices of the lower, uneducated classes of the English people, from which they had mostly come. If they were temperate and frugal, content with little, ready to endure hardship and suffer privation, stubborn in struggle with circumstances, at the same time they were narrow-minded, superstitious, awkward, and harsh; and these qualities hardened further from the cold, dark, and severe system of religious outlook. They were so superstitious as to hunt down and hang women on the charge of witchcraft[9], which led them to believe in the diabolism of Catholic priests. Although they did not entirely reject external expressions of their religiosity, fasting, appointing special annual days of public prayer, and in consequence of misdirected asceticism renaming and changing Sunday into an Old Testament Sabbath, nevertheless Catholic fasts and festivals were in their eyes superstition and idolatry, and although they claimed for themselves the right to declare what true Christian doctrine was and to compel acceptance of it, at the same time they indignantly rejected the authority of the church[10]. As a result of all this, the Puritans approached Roman Catholics with special intolerance and took all measures to keep them out of their midst. In 1631, eleven years after the arrival of the pilgrims on American soil, they seized and expelled from their colony one person on mere suspicion that he was a papist. In the same year, a priest was accused for expressing the opinion that the Roman Church is the true church. Three years later, the Puritan leader Roger Williams, who became famous for his struggle for freedom of conscience and was subsequently expelled from the community for this[11], together with the Puritans declared that the cross is “a relic of Antichrist, a papal symbol, smacking of superstition, and therefore should not be recognized by Christian people.” In proof of the sincerity of their views, the Puritans removed the cross from the English flag[12]. This hatred of Catholicism found expression in direct legislation aimed at protecting Puritan communities from the invasion of Catholics. The legislative assembly in Massachusetts decreed in 1647 that any Jesuits who appeared in the colony should be immediately expelled, and in case of a second return should be put to death[13]. The settlers of Connecticut adopted laws by which “no Catholic priest should reside in this territory; he should be expelled, and upon return suffer death. Priests may be arrested by anyone without any judicial authority”[14].