corridor there is a historical painting by C. F. Grant, picturing
“The return of Roger Williams with the first charter for the Colony in
1644.”
RHODE ISLAND IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
Rhode Island was the first to strike a blow for civil liberty as she
was the first in the struggle for religious liberty. She was last,
however, to adopt the Constitution of the United States. She hesitated
to surrender to the federal government the liberties enjoyed under her
charter, the most liberal ever granted to a colony. She has a right to
be proud of her record, before, during, and after the Revolutionary
war. E. Benjamin Andrews opened his case for Rhode Island’s recognition
with these words:
States are great or small according to their miles, and as the little
birth town of the Christ, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, was not
least among the princes of Judah, so Rhode Island, diminutive as she
is physically, is far from least among the princely Constituents of
this republic.
The history of Rhode Island proves that the best compatriot political
liberty ever had was absolute religious liberty.
Rhode Island was the first to strike the name of king from the charter
of her liberties, thus becoming the first sovereign independent State
in all the New World.
Rhode Island was the first to recommend the permanent establishment of
a Continental Congress, in town meeting assembled, May 17, 1774, and
in General Assembly, June 15, 1774, she appointed Samuel Ward and Ezek
Hopkins her first delegates thereto.
Rhode Island was also the first, by overt act, to renounce allegiance
to George III of England. She was first to instruct her officers to
disregard the Stamp Act and to ensure them indemnity for so doing. In
1765, she explicitly declared that in herself alone was vested the
right of local taxation.
Rhode Island was first to fire a gun against the dominion of England.
The first blood of the Revolutionary war was spilt in Narragansett
Bay. Lexington was fought April 19, 1775; the Boston Tea Party was on
December 16, 1773; Providence men, after perfecting their plans at the
Sabin Tavern, Planet and South Main Streets, rowed down the river, and
on June 10, 1772, sent up the Gaspee in flames.
On July 19, 1769, the men of Newport sunk His Majesty’s sloop, Liberty.
Rhode Island was the first to establish an American navy. She gave the
command to Abraham Whipple, who forthwith captured the first war prize
(the tender of the frigate Rose, then off Newport). After the war of
independence was under way, Rhode Island was the first to recommend
and urge upon Congress the establishment of a Continental navy.
Congress chose a Rhode Islander to work out the plans. Ezek Hopkins, a
Providence man, was appointed commander-in-chief. Three-fourths of all
the officers were from Rhode Island. These men were the vikings of the
American Revolution. Ezek Hopkins’ home is still preserved on Admiral
Street. There is a monument to him at his grave in Hopkins Square,
corner Branch Avenue and Charles Street.
In proportion to her size none of the other States can compare with
Rhode Island in the amount given to the Continental loan. Her citizens,
unlocking their purses, freely furnished the sinews of war. She
contributed seven times as much as South Carolina, whose population was
three times as large; one and a half times as much as Maryland, whose
population was four times as great; twice as much as Virginia, with a
population eight times larger.
Rhode Island contributed proportionately her share of men to the great
struggle. Rhode Island men were in every great battle under Washington.
Rhode Island has been greatly criticized for not quickly adopting the
Constitution. She was the last to adopt it. Her conception of religious
and civic liberty in combination was such that she was not willing to
lose easily the liberty which she had obtained for herself and which
she freely advocated for others. Her part in the great struggle was so
great that her motive for delay in adopting the Constitution should
never be questioned. Her ideal of liberty, unique to Rhode Island then,
is the generally accepted one now throughout America and back of every
great politicial reform in lands beyond our borders.
Ex-Governor Russell Brown, on Rhode Island Day at the World’s Columbian
Exposition, said:
The history of our State is a birthright which neither lands nor gold
can buy, for full as it is of stirring and passionate events, there
is not an incident in our annals that can bring the scarlet of shame
to the cheek of civilized man. Roger Williams the first settler, the
thrice-exiled friend of the weak and oppressed, by his revolt against
Puritan intolerance and his sacrifice for soul liberty, baptized Rhode
Island’s early days with glory sufficient for any State.
VI
THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS UNTIL LIBERTY
ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD
I believe all our Baptist ministers in town, except two, and most of
our brethren in the country were on the side of the Americans in the
late dispute.... To this hour we believe that the independence of
America will, for a while, secure the liberty of this country, but
if that continent had been reduced, Britain would not have long been
free.--_Doctor Rippon, of London, England, to President Manning, of
Rhode Island College, written in 1784._
Nor need any one dream that Jefferson and Madison could have carried
this measure by their genius and influence. They were opposed by many
men whose transcendent services, or unequalled oratory, or wealth,
position, financial interests, or intense prejudices would have
enabled them easily to resist their unsupported assaults. Like a
couple of first-class engineers on a tender with a train attached, but
no locomotive, would Jefferson and Madison have appeared without the
Baptists. They furnished the locomotive for these skilled engineers
which drew the train of religious liberty through every persecuting
enactment in the penal code of Virginia.--_Wm. Cathcart, D. D., in
“The Baptists and the American Revolution.”_
The Baptists were the first and only religious denomination that
struck for independence from Great Britain, and the first and only
one that made a move for religious liberty before independence was
declared.... Of those who took part in the struggle for religious
liberty, the Baptists were the only denomination that maintained a
consistent record and held out without wavering until the end--until
every vestige of the old establishment had been obliterated by the
sale of the glebes.--_Dr. Charles James, in “Documentary History of
the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia.”_
THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS UNTIL LIBERTY
ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD
We have seen the early struggles of Roger Williams. We have seen the
halo of glory which clusters about the State he founded. We have seen
his place in the plans of a Divine providence. We have also seen his
place in the procession of heroes who held aloft the torch of religious
and soul-liberty throughout the ages. When by death, he was compelled
to drop that torch, others took it up and continued the procession
until the first amendment to our National Constitution became a fact
of history. The Baptists led the historic movement in all the colonies
which stood for this principle of “Religious Liberty.” Oscar S. Straus
says:
The Baptists ... had a much more enlightened and advanced view: they
held that Christianity should propagate itself by its own spiritual
force; that the civil government was entirely apart and distinct and
should have no control over conscience, or power to inflict punishment
for spiritual censures.
Professor Gervinus, professor at Heidelberg, Germany, about the year
1850, published a work, in which he referred to Williams and his ideal:
Roger Williams urged an entire liberty of conscience in Massachusetts.
He was obliged to fly from the country, and in 1636 he founded a small
new society in Rhode Island upon the principles of entire liberty of
conscience. It was prophesied that the democratic attempts to obtain
a general elective franchise and entire religious liberty would be
of short duration. But these institutions have spread from that
petty state over the whole union. They superseded the aristocratic
commencements of Carolina and New York, the High-church part of
Virginia, the theocracy in Massachusetts, and the monarchy throughout
America; they have given laws to one quarter of the globe; and,
dreaded for their moral influence, they stand in the background of
every democratic struggle in Europe.
For the publication of such sentiments, Professor Gervinus was tried
at Mannheim and sentenced to four months’ imprisonment and to have his
books publicly burned.
Back of political progress there must be spiritual strength. Back of
the final victory of religious liberty in America there was not only
the glorious example of Rhode Island as a political demonstration but
the persistent propagation of the ideals in all the States. This was
chiefly the task of the Baptists, many of whose churches could trace
their origin to settlers from Rhode Island.
During the Colonial period, the laws of Massachusetts and Virginia
relating to soul-liberty were most severe; those in Maryland and
Pennsylvania, the most lenient, outside of Rhode Island.
[Illustration: Order banishing the Founders of the First Baptist Church
in Boston.]
[Sidenote: 1644. Nov. 13.]
Whereas Thomas Gold (and others) obstinate and turbulent Annabaptists,
have some time since combined themselves wh others in a pretended
church estate xxxxx to the great griefe and offence of the godly
orthodox xxxxxxxx and about two years since were enjoyned by this
Court to desist from said practise and to returne to our allowed
Church Assemblies, xxxxxx this Court doe judge it necessary that
they be removed to some other part of this country or elsewhere: and
accordingly doeth order that (they) doe before the twentieth of July
next remove themselves out of this jurisdiccon.
In Massachusetts the Baptist sentiment did not die out with the
banishment of Roger Williams. In 1640, Rev. Mr. Chauncey advocated the
immersion of believers and also of infants. Later President Dunster,
of Cambridge College, went further and denounced the whole system
of infant baptism. About the same time, Lady Moody, of Lynn, denied
infant baptism. In 1644, a poor man by the name of Painter, reaching
the same conclusion, refused to have his child baptized. The court
interfered and the man was tied up and whipped. On November 13, 1644,
two months after Williams arrived in Boston, en route to Providence,
with the charter, the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law against
the Baptists, in which they were described as “The incendiaries of
commonwealths, the troublers of churches.” They ordered that all who
“openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants shall be sentenced
to banishment.” The General Court issued an order in 1644 banishing the
founders of the Boston Baptist Church. In 1651, Obadiah Holmes, John
Clarke, and John Crandall came to Lynn, Massachusetts, from Newport,
Rhode Island. They were holding a service in Mr. Witter’s house, about
two miles out from Lynn. Mr. Clarke was preaching from Revelation
3:10. The service was broken up by the arrival of two constables, who,
with clamorous tongues, interrupted the discourse and arrested the
preachers. The prisoners were held in Lynn until the morning, when they
were taken to the Boston prison. Two weeks later, they were sentenced
to pay heavy fines. The fines of Clarke and Crandall were paid by
friends. Holmes refused any assistance in paying his fine of thirty
pounds and was publicly whipped with thirty lashes from a three-corded
whip. Thirteen others, who sympathized with these brethren, were
arrested and were ordered to pay a fine of forty shillings each or
take ten lashes. John Hazel, an old man from Rehoboth, was whipped
and died a few days afterward. Clarke published the story of this
incident in “Ill Newes from New-England”--an original copy is in the
John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R. I. Cotton was the religious
leader in Boston, back of this persecution. In 1680 the doors of the
Baptist meeting-house in Boston were nailed up by the authorities.
Finally the Baptists in Boston won some freedom, which, however, was
denied to other Baptist churches throughout the State. Isaac Backus
was the leader among the Massachusetts Baptists for soul-liberty. With
President Manning, he appealed to the Massachusetts delegates at the
Continental Congress to provide in the Constitution for separation
of Church and State. John Adams replied to them: “They might as well
turn the heavenly bodies out of their annual and diurnal courses as
to expect they would give up their establishment.” This spirit of
opposition was continued until 1833, in which year the last vestige of
oppressive religious intolerance was removed from the statute-books of
Massachusetts.
[Illustration]
ILL
NEWES
FROM
NEW-ENGLAND
OR
A Narative of _New-Englands_
PERSECUTION.
WHEREIN IS DECLARED
That while old _England_ is becoming new,
_New-England_ is become Old.
Also four Proposals to the Honoured Parliament and Councel of State,
touching the way to _Propagate the Gospel of Christ_ (with small
charge and great safety) both in Old _England_ and New.
Also four conclusions touching the faith and order of the Gospel of
Christ out of his last Will and Testament, confirmed and justified
By JOHN CLARK Physician of Rode Island in _America_.
_Revel._ 2. 25. _Hold fast till I come._
3. 11. _Behold I come quickly._
22. 20. _Amen, even so come Lord Jesus._
_LONDON_,
Printed by _Henry Hills_ living in _Fleet-Yard_ next door to the
_Rose_ and _Crown_, in the year 1652.
In Virginia, the opposition to the Baptist movement was bitter and
unrelenting. The early settlers of Virginia left England, when their
church, the Established Church of England, had won a complete victory
over all other persuasions. The Virginians sought to duplicate in the
new land the spirit of the victors across the sea and make religion
uniform in their colony. Laws were passed against popish recusants as
early as 1643. Other laws were passed by their assembly between the
years 1659 and 1663 against those who failed to have their children
baptized. The Quakers especially found these laws most severe. The
early Baptists of Virginia were of the common people; their ministers
were illiterate; and for a while they escaped notice. The first
imprisonment of Baptists was in the county of Spottsylvania, Va., June
4, 1768. Three Baptists, John Waller, Lewis Craig, and James Childs,
with others, were arrested for disturbing the peace. (There was no
law against preaching.) The opposing lawyer in the court-room made this
charge:
May it please your worships, these men are great disturbers of the
peace; they cannot meet a man on the road, but they ram a text of
Scripture down his throat.
Mr. Waller so defended himself and his brethren that their enemies were
somewhat puzzled to know how to proceed against them. They offered
to release them on promise to refrain from preaching in the county
for a year and a day. The defendants refused the offer and were sent
to prison. Other Baptist ministers were arrested, and soon thirty
were under arrest. The prisons became Baptist pulpits, and multitudes
gathered around them to hear the preachers. Their opponents engaged
drummers to drown the preaching; high enclosures were in some cases
erected before prison windows, and suffocating materials were burned
near the prisons. Baptists from the beginning were unremitting in their
struggle to secure religious liberty. They secured the support of
Patrick Henry, a member of the Established Church, but a firm friend of
all who stood for liberty, civil and religious. He helped the Baptists
to win the complete victory.
The Baptist cause was destined to have a more congenial atmosphere
in Pennsylvania when we remember that William Penn, its illustrious
founder, had an English Baptist father and a Dutch mother, undoubtedly
of Anabaptist descent. He received his charter in 1681, forty-five
years after Roger Williams’ banishment from Massachusetts. Penn
possessed broad and liberal ideas and was opposed to any church
establishment. He provided
that all persons who confess and acknowledge the Almighty and Eternal
God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, ... should
in no ways be molested, nor compelled to frequent or maintain any
religious worship.
Yet only those confessing faith in Jesus Christ could become freemen in
Penn’s domain. The separate Quakers in the colony of Pennsylvania were
arrested, fined, and imprisoned for dissent.
[Illustration: John Clarke Memorial First Baptist Church of Newport, R.
I.]
[Illustration: Grave of John Clarke]
The first company of Baptists in this colony came from Rhode Island.
William Dugan came there in 1684, three years after Penn received
his charter. He settled at Cold Spring, in Bucks County. The first
church in Philadelphia was founded by John Holmes in 1686. The first
meeting-place was at the corner of Second and Chestnut Streets.
[Illustration: The Law in William Penn’s Colony. No Absolute
Soul-liberty in Pennsylvania in Those Days.]
[Sidenote: Two Thirds of the Members have the Power of a full House.
No Member to vote &c. in the House till qualified. The Qualification
of every Member of Assembly. Altered by an Act pass’d in the II Geo.
I, entitled An Act--prescribing the Forms of Declaration of Fidelity.
&c.]
AND if any County or Part of this Province shall refuse or neglect to
choose their respective Representatives as aforesaid, or if chosen, do
not meet to serve in Assembly, those who are so chosen and met shall
have the full Power of an Assembly in as ample Manner as if all the
Representatives had been chosen and met; Provided, they are not less
than two Thirds of the Whole that ought to meet.
AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED by the Authority aforesaid, That no
Person who shall be hereafter a Member of the Assembly, or House of
Representatives of this Province, shall be capable to vote in the said
House, or sit there during any Debate, after their Speaker is chosen,
until he shall make and subscribe the following Declarations and
Profession his Belief, _viz._,
_I_ A. B. _do sincerely promise, and solemnly declare before GOD
and the World, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to
Queen_ Anne. _And I do solemnly profess and declare. That I do,
from my Heart, abbor, detest and renounce as impious and heretical,
that damnable Doctrine and Position, That Princes excommunicated or
deprived by the Pope, or any Authority of the See of_ Rome, _may be
deposed or murdered by their Subjects, or any other whatsoever_.
_AND I do declare, That no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State
or Potentate hath, or ought to have, any Power, Jurisdiction,
Superiority, Preeminence or Authority ecclesiastical or spiritual,
within the Realm of_ England, _or the Dominions thereunto belonging_.
_AND I_ A. B. _do solemnly and sincerely, in the Presence of_ GOD,
_profess, testify and declare, That I do believe that in the Sacrament
of the_ LORD’s _Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the
Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of_ CHRIST, _at or
after the Consecration thereof, by any Person whatsoever; and that the
Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin_ Mary, _or any other Saint, and
the Sacrifice of the_ Mass, _as they are now used in the Church of_
Rome, _are superstitions and Idolatrous_.
_AND I do solemnly, in the Presence of_ GOD, _profess, testify and
declare. That I do make this Declaration and every Part thereof, in
the plain and ordinary Sense of the Words read unto me, as they are
commonly understood by_ English Protestants, _without any Evasion,
Equivocation or mental Reservation whatsoever and without any
Dispensation already granted me for this Purpose by the Pope, or any
other Authority or Person whatsoever, or without any Hope of any such
Dispensation from any Person or Authority whatsoever, or without
thinking I am or may be acquitted before_ GOD, _or Man, or absolved of
this Declaration, or any Part thereof, although the Pope, or any other
Person or Persons, or Power whatsoever, should dispense with or annull
the same, or declare that it was null or void from the Beginning_.
_AND I_ A. B. _profess Faith in_ GOD _the Father, and in_ JESUS
CHRIST, _his eternal Son, the true_ GOD, _and in the_ HOLY SPIRIT,
_one_ GOD, _blessed for evermore; and do acknowledge the_ Holy
Scriptures _of the_ Old _and_ New-Testament, _to be given by divine
Inspiration_.
Lord Baltimore, the Roman Catholic proprietor of Maryland, was far in
advance of his Church. He came to the New World to secure religious
liberty for himself and his friends. The Maryland Act of Toleration,
issued in 1649, provided that
Blasphemy against God, and a denial of the Trinity should be punished
with death and confiscation of lands and goods, and blasphemy against
the Virgin Mary should first be punished by a fine of five pounds, and
if persisted in, by a forfeiture of all possessions and banishment
from the colony.
[Illustration: The Law Concerning Religious Toleration in Maryland
Colony. It is not Religious Liberty.]
[Sidenote: 1649.]
Acts and Orders of ASSEMBLY, assented to, enacted and made, at a
General Session of the said Assembly, begun and held at _St. Mary_’s
on the 2d Day of _April_ 1649, and ended the 21st Day of the same
Month.
WILLIAM STONE, Esq; Governor.
CHAP. I. [Illustration]
[Sidenote: Passed 21st of _April_ 1649.]
_An Act concerning Religion. Lib._ C _and_ WH. _fol._ 106. _Lib._ WH.
_fol._ 111. _and Lib._ WH _and_ L. _fol._ 1.
Confirmed among the perpetual Laws 1676, _ch._ 2.
_N. B._ By this Law, (1.) Blasphemy against GOD, denying our Saviour
JESUS CHRIST to be the Son of GOD, or denying the Holy TRINITY, or the
Godhead of any of the Three Persons, _&c._ was to be Punished with
Death, and Confiscation of Lands and Goods to the Lord Proprietary.
(2.) Persons using any reproachful Words or Speeches concerning the
Blessed Virgin _Mary_, Mother of our Saviour, or the Holy Apostles
or Evangelists, or any of them, for the 1st Offence to forfeit 5_l._
Sterling to the Lord Proprietary; or, in default of Payment, to be
publicly Whipped, and Imprisoned at the Pleasure of his Lordship, or
his Lieut. General. For the 2d Offence to forfeit 10_l._ Sterling,
or in default of Payment to be publicly and severely Whipped, and
Imprisoned as before directed. And for the 3d Offence to forfeit Lands
and Goods, and be for ever Banished out of the Province. (3.) Persons
reproaching any other within the Province by the Name or Denomination
of Heretic, Schismatic, Idolater, Puritan, Independent, Presbyterian,
Popish Priest, Jesuit, Jesuited Papist, Lutheran, Calvinist,
Anabaptist, Brownist, Antinomian, Barrowist, Round-Head, Separatist,
or any other Name or Term in a reproach-
The Baptist church at Chestnut Ridge was formed in 1742 by Henry
Sator, a layman of the General Baptist order, who had recently come
from England. He invited Baptist ministers to preach in his house. They
soon gathered a congregation; proselytes were gained, and a church
organized. This church appealed to the governor and was taken under the
protection of the toleration laws.
[Illustration: Puritan-Religious-Liberty! Facsimile of original laws.
From “Body of Liberties.” First legal code for the government of the
Bay Colony. Drawn up by Rev. Nathaniel Ward, Lawyer-divine of Ipswich.]
94. _Capitall Laws._
1.
[Sidenote: Dut. 13. 6, 10.
Dut. 17. 2, 6
Ex. 22. 20.]
[Sidenote: P. 14.
S. 1.]
If any man after legall conviction shall have or worship any other
god, but the lord god, he shall be put to death.
2.
[Sidenote: Ex. 22. 18.
Lev. 20. 27.
Dut. 18. 10.]
[Sidenote: S. 2.]
If any man or woeman be a witch, (that is hath or consulteth with a
familiar spirit,) They shall be put to death.
3.
[Sidenote: Lev. 24. 15, 16.]
[Sidenote: S. 3.]