Religious Liberty in the United States
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. With this simple, elegant statement, the authors of the Bill of Rights made a stand against millennia of worldwide religious persecution and the abuses of state-sponsored religion. These founding fathers created what Thomas Jefferson called a wall of separation between church and state. And, they eliminated the ability of the Federal government to pass laws designed to curtail or interfere with the relationship one had to God (or absence thereof).
The story of this miracle of democracy is complex. It begins with the Puritans, who left England for the new world to escape the restrictions of the official Church of England. However, the Puritans, ignoring the persecution they experienced in England, banned dissenters from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and established a state-sanctioned religion. Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, cast out of Massachusetts by the Puritans for his liberal ideas on religion, designed his new community to be a model of religious diversity. In Rhode Island, individuals did not have to follow a particular religion and the government had no control over religious beliefs; separation of church and state. Newport founder John Clarke persuaded King Charles II to codify these concepts in the Rhode Island Charter of 1663. William Penn, George Mason, and James Madison also wrote basic concepts of religious liberty into Pennsylvania and Virginia laws. In the Declaration of Independence and other writings, Thomas Jefferson incorporated philosopher John Locke’s ideas about individual rights in matters of conscience. Finally, George Washington, a brilliant political strategist, led the campaign in this new country to accept religious individualism and the separation of church and state as unique American values.
Rhode Island’s “Lively Experiment”
Rhode Island and its creation as a haven for dissenters of one particular state religion served as an example for the development of these values nationwide. Under the terms of its founding Charter, Rhode Island stood alone among the colonies in its desire to “hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained, with a full liberty of religious concernments.”
Roger Williams and his followers were convinced that religion was a matter of conscience between an individual and his God, not the government. The founding documents for Providence, Rhode Island indicate a clear division between the public, civil realm, and the private world of belief:
We, whose names are here under, desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves, in active or passive obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good of the body in an orderly way, by the major assent of the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a town-fellowship, and such others whom they shall admit unto them, only in civil things. 1
“Only in civil things.” This phrase, assumed to be from the pen of Roger Williams himself, established the principle of religious liberty that was to become the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Rhode Island, only matters of civil interest were to be considered by the town fellowship. Matters of theology, doctrine and religious practice were to be considered apart from the realm of civic discourse and within the confines of the individual consciousness or “soul-thought.”
The Rhode Island Royal Charter, negotiated for twelve years by Newport founder John Clarke was finally granted in 1663 by King Charles II of England. The Royal Charter demonstrated that religious freedom was primary to the colony’s existence. This charter, which served as the state constitution until 1842, included this unique provision:
No person within the said Colony, at any time hereafter, shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinion, in matters of religion, who does not actually disturb the peace of our said Colony; but that all and every person and persons may, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoy his own and their judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments, throughout the tract of land heretofore mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly and not using this liberty to licentiousness and profaneness, nor to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others. 2
Religious Liberty in Newport
As a city, the town of Newport developed within the framework of the Rhode Island Royal Charter and set an example for the uniquely American concept of separation between church and state. The founders of Newport, like Roger Williams, were cast out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for what the Puritans considered to be heresy. Thus, after the mistreatment they had experienced in Massachusetts, they were adamant about maintaining freedom of religious choice as a core tenet in their new community. Newport, therefore, became home to Anglicans, Quakers, Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, Baptists, and others. (During the Revolutionary War era, there was still no separate house of worship for the Catholics who had arrived with French troops in 1780.) The Irish philosopher George Berkeley, writing from Newport in April of 1729, noted, “Notwithstanding so many differences, here are fewer quarrels about religion than elsewhere, the people living peaceably with their neighbors of whatsoever persuasion.” 3
As a physical testimony to the steadfast belief in the separation of church and state, no church was built directly on the town square or opposite the public courthouse. In Newport, unlike typical New England towns, houses of worship were situated on land behind the seat of government and the town square. Furthermore, Touro Synagogue, the Quaker Meetinghouse, and many early churches bore no outward symbols of their denomination or faith.
Limits of Tolerance in Colonial America
The ability to enjoy the free exercise of religious beliefs in Rhode Island was relatively unique among the colonies, and even there, restrictions on civic matters existed. In most of the other colonies, the situation for non-Christian and Catholic groups was far from idyllic. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony railed against the Quakers, the Baptists, and the Anglicans; Georgians distrusted Catholics, and all were suspicious of “Jews, Turks, and Infidels.” Morton Borden, in his 1984 book, Jews, Turks & Infidels, wrote:
… Many Americans defined the United States as a Christian nation. Jews, Turks, and Infidels (or any other exotic group), they believed, could worship as they pleased but had no right to participate in its government. Some of the same state constitutions that guaranteed religious liberty also contained provisions that restricted holding office to Christians or to Protestants. In several states, those restrictions were defended and maintained well into the nineteenth century. …Obviously, there was a gap between the rhetoric of religious liberty and the fact of religious bigotry; between the will of what some Christians claimed to be the opinion of the majority and the rights of the minority. 4
Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Vermont mandated all public officials to be Protestant Christians. Several states went further and required a sworn adherence to Christianity. In a slightly different twist, in Pennsylvania, only atheists were barred from political life. Article IX of the Pennsylvania State Constitution (1790), required “that no person, who acknowledges the being of a God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this commonwealth.” 5
Even in tolerant Rhode Island, a colony founded on religious and economic freedom, participating as full citizens in civic affairs was not open to everyone. Jewish residents of Newport were allowed to practice their religion freely, participate in trade and commerce, and purchase property and bequeath the property to their descendants. They were not, however, allowed to vote or hold public office, and therefore, occasional challenges to the restrictive laws of citizenship in Rhode Island did occur. In 1762, Aaron Lopez, a Jewish Newport merchant, was denied naturalization by a Rhode Island court. After his futile attempts to become a citizen in Rhode Island, he moved to Swansea, Massachusetts to become naturalized. Not until then was he able to be granted rights of citizenship in the colonies. In the 1740s, members of Congregation Shearith Israel became naturalized citizens in New York. Several of these individuals later became prominent members of the Newport Jewish community, including Moses Levy, Moses Lopez, Jacob Rodriguez Rivera, and Abraham Rodriguez. Although Rhode Island did not allow Jews to be naturalized at the time, they did recognize the status of those who had been granted citizenship in other states. 6
Colonial Jews, including those in Newport, thus lived within a complex, somewhat contradictory framework of laws and practices regarding religion. They were free to organize, worship, and practice their historic rituals. They could conduct business, travel, live freely in the community, and contribute to civic life, as long as their actions were deemed seemly and appropriate to community values. They were not, as stated above, always allowed to vote, hold public office or gain full rights as citizens.
Despite these limitations, Newport and its religious minorities served as a model of the free expression of religious faith in colonial society. The city served as an example to the rest of the country that a religiously diverse civil society is stronger than one that ignores the rights of the minority.
Touro Synagogue, standing as one such monument to this ideal, exemplifies the American story that religious liberty is a pillar of American democracy.
Endnotes and citations
1 Goddard, William G. Address To The People Of Rhode-Island, Delivered In Newport, On Wednesday, May 3, 1843, In Presence Of The General Assembly, On The Occasion Of The Change In The Civil Government Of Rhode-Island, By The Adoption Of The Constitution, Which Superseded The Charter Of 1663. Providence: Knowles And Vose, Printers. 1843.
2 Goddard, p. 19
3 Goddard, p. 19
4 Morton Borden, Jews, Turks, and Infidels (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), ix
6 Max J. Kohler, A.M., LL.B., “The Jews in Newport” (New York: The Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, No. 6, 1897), pp. 20, 62.
Congregation Jeshuat Israel
