57-1 - Act for religious freedom recited.
§ 57-1. Act for religious freedom recited.
The General Assembly, on January 16, 1786, passed an act in the followingwords:
"Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts toinfluence it by temporal punishment, or burthens, or by civilincapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and area departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who, being Lordboth of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either,as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption oflegislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, beingthemselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over thefaith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as theonly true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others,have established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of theworld, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions ofmoney for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful andtyrannical, and even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of hisown religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty ofgiving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would makehis pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, andis withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards which, proceedingfrom an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitementto earnest and unremitting labors, for the instruction of mankind; that ourcivil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than ouropinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizenas unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of beingcalled to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce thisor that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privilegesand advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a naturalright; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it ismeant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors andemoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though,indeed, those are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet, neitherare those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civilmagistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrainthe profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their illtendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religiousliberty, because he, being of course judge of that tendency, will make hisopinions the rules of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments ofothers only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is timeenough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers tointerfere, when principles break out into overt acts against peace and goodorder; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail, if left to herself;that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing tofear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her naturalweapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it ispermitted freely to contradict them:
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled tofrequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, norshall be enforced, restrained, molested or burthened, in his body or goods,nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief;but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, theiropinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish,enlarge or affect their civil capacities.
"And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for theordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts ofsucceeding assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that,therefore, to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect inlaw; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights herebyasserted are of the natural rights of mankind; and that if any act shall behereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such actwill be an infringement of natural right."
(Code 1919, § 34; 1985, c. 73.)