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The Meaning of Religious Liberty in the Other Southern States

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Abstract

Other southern states followed Virginia’s lead in rejecting establishments of religion, although in not quite as decisive a manner. Thus, one of Maryland’s constitutional provisions authorized the government to tax persons to support all Christian churches equally, but when such a bill was proposed in 1785, after widespread debate, it was decisively defeated, for the same reason such a bill was defeated in Virginia—government has no jurisdiction over religion. North Carolina’s constitution prohibited ministers and non-Protestants from holding public office. South Carolina’s constitution officially established Protestantism, but it provided no financial support for churches, and its 1790 constitution removed all vestiges of that establishment. Georgia’s guarantee of religious freedom was very similar to Virginia’s, but it prohibited non-Protestants and ministers from holding office.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Quoted in James O. Lehman, “The Mennonites of Maryland during the Revolutionary Way,” Mennonite Quarterly Review, 50 (July 1976): 205, 209.

  2. 2.

    Id., 205–29.

  3. 3.

    See below, p. 137.

  4. 4.

    Thomas J. Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment (N.Y.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986), 153. Also see Albert W. Werline, Problems of Church and State in Maryland During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (South Lancaster, MA: College Press, 1948), 162.

  5. 5.

    “Maryland Declaration of Rights” (Nov. 3, 1776), Art. 33, in Sources of Our Liberties [hereafter cited as SOL], ed. Richard L. Perry (Chicago: American Bar Foundation, 1959), 349.

  6. 6.

    Id.

  7. 7.

    William G. McLoughlin, “The Role of Religion in the Revolution: Liberty of Conscience and Cultural Cohesion in the New Nation,” in Essays on the American Revolution, ed. Stephen G. Kurtz & James H. Hutson (Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1973), 222.

  8. 8.

    “Maryland Declaration of Rights,” Art. 33, in SOL, 349.

  9. 9.

    Id., 349–50. Also see John C. Rainbolt, “The Struggle to Define ‘Religious Liberty’ in Maryland, 1776–1785,” Journal of Church and State, 17 (1975): 445.

  10. 10.

    “Maryland Declaration of Rights,” Art. 34, in SOL, 350. Also see Thomas O. Hanley, The American Revolution and Religion: Maryland 1770–1800 (Washington, DC: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1971), 60–61.

  11. 11.

    “Maryland Declaration of Rights,” Articles 35–36, in SOL, 350, and Maryland Constitution (11/11/1776), Articles 43, 38, 50, 52, & 37, in America’s Founding Charters: Primary Documents of Colonial and Revolutionary Era Governance, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), 3:766–69.

  12. 12.

    Quoted in Hanley, American Revolution, 69, and also see 52, 56, 62.

  13. 13.

    Id., 53–56. Hanley argues that the provision requiring office-holders to be Christians was intended to prevent Deists and infidels, not Jews, from holding office, because they were considered to be a threat to Christianity and the public virtue that it promoted.

  14. 14.

    Werline, Problems, 160–62; Hanley, American Revolution, 61–64; and Curry, First Freedoms, 154–55.

  15. 15.

    Hanley, American Revolution, 36, 136–38. Allison was also a leader in the national Presbyterian Church. Id., 139–41.

  16. 16.

    Vindex [Patrick Allison], “Candid Animadversions on a Petition, Presented to the General Assembly of Maryland,” (Baltimore, MD: Goddard & Angell, 1793 reprint of 1783 edition), 3–4.

  17. 17.

    Vindex, “To the Citizens of Maryland, No. I” (11/5/1792), in “Candid Animadversions,” 19.

  18. 18.

    Vindex, “Candid Animadversions,” v, 3 (“unequivocal and universal equality”), v, 4 (“particular countenance, distinction, and protection”), v, 5 (“peculiar honours and emoluments”), v, 8 (“dealing the same measure to all denominations without distinction”), and v, 9 (“partiality and unequal dealing”). The reason Allison did not address whether all religions should be treated equally is that he was interpreting Art. 33, which explicitly applied only to Christians.

  19. 19.

    Vindex, “Candid Animadversions,” 3, 4, 9. In a later essay, Allison repeated this equation: “The only way to prevent every denomination from oppressing, and from being in turn oppressed, is to oppose and prevent every departure in the smallest instance, from the constitutional equality provided for.” “To the Citizens of Maryland, No. VI” (11/24/1792), in Candid Animadversions, 45 (emphasis added).

  20. 20.

    Vindex, “Candid Animadversions,” 2–5, 8.

  21. 21.

    Id., 3.

  22. 22.

    Id., 8.

  23. 23.

    For a copy of the bill, see “By the House of Delegates, December, 31, 1784,” Maryland Journal [hereafter cited as MJ], 12 (Jan. 21, 1785): 2–3. For a copy of the appeal made to the voters, see “By the House of Delegates, January 8, 1785,” MJ, 12 (Jan. 18, 1785): 2.

  24. 24.

    William Kilty, History of a Session of the General Assembly of the State of Maryland (Annapolis, MD: 1786), 10–11; Werline, Problems, 178–80; Rainbolt, “Struggle,” 447–49; Curry, First Freedoms, 155–56; and McLoughlin, “Role,” 213, 223–24.

  25. 25.

    William H. Williams, The Garden of American Methodism: The Delmarva Peninsula, 1769–1820 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1984), 94–95, 175–76; Hanley, American Revolution, 66–67; McLoughlin, “Role,” 224–26; and Curry, First Freedoms, 156–57. A surprisingly large number of Episcopalians also objected to the bill, perhaps because they thought it gave too much power to their clergy. Hanley, American Revolution, 67–68.

  26. 26.

    Kilty, History, 11 (emphasis added).

  27. 27.

    Werline, Problems, 178.

  28. 28.

    Civis, “For the Maryland Journal, etc.,” MJ, 12 (Jan. 11, 1785): 2 (second emphasis added). Also, see Civis, “Mr. Goddard,” MJ, 12 (Jan. 21, 1785): 3–4.

  29. 29.

    An Inhabitant of Maryland, “Messrs. Printers,” MJ, 12 (Feb. 18, 1785), 2. Also, see A Voter, “To the Independent Electors of Maryland,” MJ, Aug. 23, 1785), 1; Eastern Shore Baptists, “A Remonstrance,” MJ, 12 (Jan. 28, 1785): 2; Philo, “To the sincere Friends of Liberty and Religion,” MJ, 12 (Feb. 4, 1785): 2–3, & (March 15, 1785): 2; “Impartial Instructions, addressed to … Esquires,” MJ, 12 (Feb. 8, 1785): 2; An Inhabitant of Maryland, “Messrs. Printers,” MJ, 12 (Feb. 18, 1785): 2; Aristides, “To the Freemen of Maryland,” MJ, 12 (March 29, 1785): 3; and Sidney, “Political Reflections,” MJ, 12 (April 15, 1785), 2. A few years after its defeat, Bishop John Carroll described the bill as a “surrender made by the Church to the State of the independence, it derives from God, and the nature of its destination.” Quoted in Hanley, American Revolution, 67.

  30. 30.

    Robert E. Curran, Papist Devils: Catholics in British America, 1574–1783 (Washington, DC: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2014), 276.

  31. 31.

    Philo, “To the sincere Friends of Liberty and Religion,” MJ, 12 (Jan. 28, 1785): 2. Philo added that the clergy bill “entirely subjects all persons and things spiritual . . . to their [legislature’s] spiritual direction, superintendence and control.” Also see Philo, “To the sincere Friends” MJ (March 15, 1785), 2 (“. . . no one can undertake to set bounds to the principles whereon the law is founded.”).

  32. 32.

    “Letter to Charles Plowden” (2/27/1785), in The John Carroll Papers, ed. Thomas O. Hanley (Notre Dame, IN: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1976), 1: 168 (emphasis added). Also see Philo, “To the sincere Friends,” (Jan. 28, 1785), 2 (Feb. 4, 1785), 3, & (Feb. 25, 1785), 1; Impartial, “Mr. Goddard,” MJ, 12 (Jan. 18, 1785): 4; Simon Pure, “To the Marylander,” MJ, 12 (March 1, 1785): 1; A Marylander, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” MJ, 12 (March 22, 1785): 2; A Christian, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” MJ, 12 (May 17, 1785), 1; A Marylander, “To all Christians,” 2; A Voter, “To the Independent Electors,” 2; and “Impartial Instructions,” 2.

  33. 33.

    A Mechanic, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” MJ, 12 (Jan. 28, 1785): 3, & (June 17, 1785), 2; Eastern Shore Baptists, “Remonstrance,” 2–3; Philo, “To the sincere Friends,” (Feb. 4, 1785), 3, & (March 15, 1785), 2; “Impartial Instructions,” 2; Inhabitant of Maryland, “Messrs. Printers,” 2; Maryland, “The Voice of Maryland, to her Contending Children,” MJ, 12 (March 4, 1785): 3; Aristides, “To the Freemen,” 3; and Tacitus, “The Honourable Assembly of Maryland,” MJ (April 1, 1785), 2.

  34. 34.

    Eastern Shore Baptists, “Remonstrance,” 2–3.

  35. 35.

    Civis, “Mr. Goddard,” 4. Also, see Civis, “For the Maryland Journal,” 2; Philo, “To the sincere Friends” (Jan. 28, 1785), 2, & (March 15, 1785), 2; Worcester County, “To the Inhabitants,” 1; A Marylander, “To all Christians,” 2; Inhabitant of Maryland, “Messrs. Printers,” 2–3; Simon Pure, “To the Maryland,” 1; Maryland, “Voice of Maryland,” 3; A Marylander, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 2; Tacitus, “The Honourable Assembly of Maryland,” 2; Sidney, “Political Reflections,” 2; A Christian, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 1; and M. “Messrs. Goddard and Langworth,” 2.

  36. 36.

    Abdallah, The Turkish Spy, “For the Maryland Journal, etc.,” MJ, 12 (Jan. 25, 1785): 2; A Mechanic, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 3; Inhabitant of Maryland, “Messrs. Printers,” 2–3; Maryland, “Voice of Maryland,” 3; Philo, “To the sincere Friends” (March 15, 1785), 2; and Sidney, “Political Reflections,” 2.

  37. 37.

    Civis, “For the Maryland Journal,” 2; Eastern Shore Baptist, “A Remonstrance,” 3; “Impartial Instructions,” 2; Sidney, “Political Reflections,” 2; Aristides, “To the Freemen,” 3; Philo, “To the sincere Friends” (March 15, 1785), 2; A Marylander, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 2; A Christian, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 1; and M, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 2.

  38. 38.

    See, e.g., Impartial, “Mr. Goddard,” 4; Philo, “To the sincere Friends” (Jan. 28, 1785), 2, & (Feb. 25, 1785), 1; Aristides, “To the Freemen of Maryland,” 3; Sidney, “Political Reflections,” 2; Tacitus, “The Honourable Assembly of Maryland,” 2; A Christian, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 1; A Citizen, “To the worthy Patriots and Defenders of Religious Liberty, in the State of Maryland,” MJ, 12 (June 7, 1785), 2; and Civis, “For the Maryland Journal,” 2.

  39. 39.

    Philo, “To the sincere Friends” (Feb. 4, 1785), 3.

  40. 40.

    A Citizen, “To the worthy Patriots,” 2.

  41. 41.

    Barry A. Shain, The Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994), 202.

  42. 42.

    M., “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 2, quoting Richard Price, Observations on the Important of the American Revolution (Boston, MA: Powars & Willis, 1784), 21–24, 31 (first two emphases added).

  43. 43.

    Simon Pure, “To the Marylander,” 1; Tacitus, “The Honourable Assembly of Maryland,” 2; and A Marylander, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 2.

  44. 44.

    A Marylander, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 2.

  45. 45.

    For an explanation and history of the “benefit of clergy,” see Marci A. Hamilton, “Religious Institutions, the No-Harm Doctrine, and the Public Good,” Brigham Young University Law Review, 2004 (2004): 1122–35.

  46. 46.

    A Marylander, “For the Maryland Journal,” 2 (emphasis added). In a later submission, the same person used the word “Becketism” to make it clear what he was opposed to: “a desire to emancipate the Clergy and all ecclesiastical affairs from secular jurisdiction.” It is a tenet, he wrote, “subversive of all order and good Government,” which has “been both avowed and defended (at least by implication) during the present controversy.” A Marylander, “Messrs. Goddard and Langworthy,” 2.

  47. 47.

    Simon Pure, “To the Marylander,” 1.

  48. 48.

    Maryland, “The Voice of Maryland,” 3.

  49. 49.

    Sidney, “Political Reflections,” 2.

  50. 50.

    Joseph J. Casino, “Religious Freedom and the Early Catholic Experience,” in All Imaginable Liberty: The Religious Liberty Clauses of the First Amendment, ed. Francis G. Lee (Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America, 1995), 89–90.

  51. 51.

    From the outset, these provisions were most likely disapproved of by Charles Carroll, the state’s leading Catholic politician. Thomas O. Hanley, Revolutionary Statesman: Charles Carroll and the War (Chicago: Loyola Univ. Press, 1983), 176–77.

  52. 52.

    Maryland did not repeal the constitutional provision authorizing religious taxation until 1810, Gerard V. Bradley, Church-State Relationships in America (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987), 42, and did not give non-Christian theists the right to hold public office until 1828. Hanley, American Revolution, 60. Non-theists did not obtain the right until 1961, when the U. S. Supreme Court gave it to them in the case of Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961).

  53. 53.

    Address to the Legislature of Maryland on the Best System of Liberal Education, in Essays on Education in the Early Republic, ed. Frederick Rudolph (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1965), 279 (emphasis added).

  54. 54.

    The Colonial Records of North Carolina, ed. William L. Saunders (Raleigh, NC: Josephus Daniels, 1890), 10: 870d & 870g.

  55. 55.

    North Carolina Declaration of Rights (12/18/1776), in America’s Founding Charters, 3:775.

  56. 56.

    North Carolina Constitution (12/18/1776), Art’s 31, 32, 34, in America’s Founding Charters, 3:779 (emphasis added).

  57. 57.

    E. W. Caruthers (biographer of Caldwell), quoted in Leon Huhner, “The Struggle for Religious Liberty in North Carolina, with Special Reference to the Jews,” American Jewish Historical Society Publications, 16 (1907): 41, fn 10.

  58. 58.

    Curry, First Freedoms, 151–52.

  59. 59.

    Stephen B. Weeks, Church and State in North Carolina (N.Y.: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1973 rep. of 1893 ed.), 63, and Huhner, “Struggle,” 46. The repeated ignoring of Art. 32 was rationalized on various grounds. By 1835 the one that came to be “generally adopted” was that the article prohibited public officials only from denying the truth of Protestantism. In other words, to hold public office, one did not have to “affirm” the truth of Protestantism. So long as one did not publicly attack or question the Protestant faith, he could hold public office, even if he were a Catholic or non-Christian. Id., 46–54. Indeed, because of a colonial precedent, this could have been the way the provision was understood from its inception. In 1760, in order to make it possible for non-Anglicans to be vestrymen of a parish (and in a position to prevent any Anglican clergyman from being appointed as its minister), the colonial Assembly passed a law requiring prospective vestrymen to take an oath only to not oppose the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Church. The law was vetoed by the authorities in London; the Bishop of London said that such an oath could be taken even by a Jew or pagan. Paul Conkin, “The Church Establishment in North Carolina, 1765–1776,” North Carolina Historical Review, 32 (January 1955): 1, 3–4.

  60. 60.

    The First Laws of the State of North Carolina, comp. John D. Cushing (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1784), 505, 562–63, and Bradley, Church-State Relationships, 43.

  61. 61.

    Georgia Constitution (2/5/1777), Art. 56, in America’s Founding Charters, 3:787.

  62. 62.

    Joel A. Nichols, “Religious Liberty in the Thirteenth Colony,” New York University Law Review, 80 (2005): 1693, 1724–25.

  63. 63.

    The First Laws of the State of Georgia, comp. John D. Cushing (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1981), 234, 457, and Nichols, “Religious Liberty,” 1737, fn 241.

  64. 64.

    First Laws of Georgia, 301.

  65. 65.

    Printed in History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia, author unknown (Atlanta, GA: Jas. P. Harrison & Co., 1881), 260–61. Also see Nichols, “Religious Liberty,” 1726–27.

  66. 66.

    Curry, First Freedoms, 153.

  67. 67.

    Nichols, “Religious Liberty,” 1727.

  68. 68.

    The remonstrance was said to have been written by Silas Mercer. History of the Baptist Denomination, 263.

  69. 69.

    Quoted in id., 262–63.

  70. 70.

    Quoted in id.

  71. 71.

    Nichols, “Religious Liberty,” 1724–25, and First Laws of Georgia, 235, 301.

  72. 72.

    Nichols, “Religious Liberty,” 1733–34, and Curry, First Freedoms, 153.

  73. 73.

    Harvey T. Cook, editor & supplementor, A Biography of Richard Furman (Greenville, SC: Baptist Courier Job Rooms, 1913), 53–54, and John W. Brinsfield, Religion and Politics in Colonial South Carolina (Easley, SC: Southern Historical Press, 1983), 64, 105–08.

  74. 74.

    Quoted in Newton B. Jones, editor, “Writings of the Reverend William Tennent, 1740–1777,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine, 61 (October 1960): 189, 194–95 (emphasis added).

  75. 75.

    Colonel William Hill, quoted in Brinsfield, Religion, 111, and also 115–17. Anglican supporters included Charles Coatesworth Pinckney (see Cook, ed., Biography, 59) and Christopher Gadsden (see Samuel C. Smith, A Cautious Enthusiasm: Mystical Piety and Evangelicalism in Colonial South Carolina (Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2013), 158–59).

  76. 76.

    “Mr. Tennent’s Speech on the Dissenting Petition” (January 11, 1777), in “Writings of Tennent,” 196–98.

  77. 77.

    Id., 196–202.

  78. 78.

    Id., Speech,” 202 (emphasis added). Also see James L. Underwood, “The Dawn of Religious Freedom in South Carolina: The Journey from Limited Tolerance to Constitutional Right,” in The Dawn of Religious Freedom in South Carolina, ed. James L. Underwood & W. Lewis Burke (Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 2006), 29–30.

  79. 79.

    “Tennent’s Speech,” 202–03 (emphasis added).

  80. 80.

    Id., 203–05. For a similar summary of Tennent’s speech, see Brinsfield, Religion, 117–20.

  81. 81.

    Brinsfield, Religion, 120–21.

  82. 82.

    Id., 120–26.

  83. 83.

    Underwood, “Dawn,” 31.

  84. 84.

    South Carolina Constitution (3/19/1778), Art. 38, in America’s Founding Charters, 3:695–96. Also, each person, “when called to make an appeal to God as a witness to truth,” was “permitted” to do so “in that way which is most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience.” Id., 3:696.

  85. 85.

    Id., 3:696.

  86. 86.

    John K. Wilson, “Religion Under the State Constitutions, 1776–1800,” Journal of Church and State, 32 (Autumn 1990): 756, and Curry, First Freedoms, 150–51. William McLoughlin writes that “there is no record of any attempts being made to levy a general-assessment tax in South Carolina.” “Role,” 217.

  87. 87.

    Art. 21, in America’s Founding Charters, 3:693. Also see Howe, Garden, 41–43, and Underwood, “Dawn,” 32.

  88. 88.

    Thomas S. Kidd, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (N.Y.: Basic Books, 2010), 180, and Brinsfield, Religion, 126–27. Because Tennent died on August 11, 1777, before the law was passed and perhaps even drafted, his views of its various provisions are unknown. Before he died, however, he wrote that he did not object to the establishment of Christianity or to all churches being able to incorporate. “Tennent’s Speech,” 203.

  89. 89.

    Underwood, “Dawn,” 33–35.

  90. 90.

    Quoted in Brinsfield, Religion, 134.

  91. 91.

    Id. The earlier provision prohibiting ministers from holding state office, however, was not eliminated.

  92. 92.

    This is the explanation given by McLoughlin, “Role,” 232–33.

  93. 93.

    See below, pp. 147–48, 151.

  94. 94.

    James L. Underwood, “‘Without discrimination or preference’: Equality for Catholics and Jews under the South Carolina Constitution of 1790,” in Dawn of Religious Freedom, 61. Underwood also points out that Pinckney favored giving Congress the power to establish a national university, “in which no preference or distinctions should be allowed on account of religion,” and that he criticized the English government for depriving “a part of its subjects the equal enjoyment of their religious liberties.”

  95. 95.

    Id., 62, 64.

  96. 96.

    Id., 80, and also 66–79.

  97. 97.

    A Pastoral Letter (Fayetteville, NC: Sibley & Howard, 1790), 7–9.

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  1. Department of Political Science, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA

    Ellis M. West

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West, E.M. (2019). The Meaning of Religious Liberty in the Other Southern States. In: The Free Exercise of Religion in America. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06052-7_5

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