# Newport World Heritage Committee Response

To National Park Service letter of May, 2007

 

The Newport World Heritage Committee would like to respond to the
opinion of the National Park Service staff in regard to the application
for World Heritage status for Colonial Newport. We respectfully suggest
that this application exceeds the qualifications for placement on the
U.S. Tentative List. We are committed to developing this important
nomination with the understanding that it will continue to be refined in
the months to come in cooperation with the NPS.

  

This document will address NPS staff concerns. We will begin this
discussion by briefly stating the thesis and position of our
application:

 

1)  Newport holds an exceptional place in world history as the nexus of
    North American colonial interest in the separation of church and
    state and the idea of liberty of conscience, and as an example of
    the economic prosperity that results from establishing such freedoms
    in the form of civic government.

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1)  Newport is additionally unique among North American colonial cities
    in that a great many of the buildings that housed the various
    congregations, governmental bodies, activities and individuals
    relevant to the above are still standing. An exceptional group of
    these buildings has been chosen in the Newport Colonial nomination
    and sufficiently represents the religious, civic, residential and
    commercial life of the colony as it achieved prosperity during the
    period of significance exemplifying the success of the idea of
    liberty of conscience.

2)  Considerable value is added to this constellation of buildings in
    that most of them are also significant to the history of
    architecture.

 

We believe that these three elements are a clear indicator of
outstanding universal value (OUV). We have considerable evidence that
others agree, based on the comments of our external reviewers
(recognized American history scholars who have familiarity with the
program), and the comments of other experts familiar with the WH
program. Their comments are included in the following documents.

 

***We believe that if there is OUV, this application can and should go
forward.***

 

In your letter last month communicating the decision of your office, and
in subsequent communications, you have expressed concerns that are
paraphrased and listed below. The concerns expressed by the NPS staff
are both intellectual and procedural in nature. We seek to respond to
each concern, and have endeavored to ensure that this response is both
accurate and objective.

 

**[The main intellectual concern]{.underline}** expressed by NPS staff
regarding this application has not been that the application has no
merit when compared to the standards of World Heritage, but rather that
the application pushes the envelope for World Heritage by basing the
case for OUV primarily on an intangible idea rather than specifically
architectural importance.

 

Supplementary concerns have also been expressed:

-   The application uses only a small number of buildings to support the
    OUV

-   The links between the buildings and between the grouped buildings
    and the OUV is weak in the existing application

-   A number of the buildings are unlikely to satisfy the World Heritage
    Committee's stringent standards for authenticity and integrity

-   The application does not make sufficient comparisons with other
    American Colonial cities which might make similar claims

#  

# **Response to the main intellectual concern**

-   Current and former World Heritage staff members and staff at US
    ICOMOS have not indicated to us the hesitancy that you have
    suggested regarding applications based on ideas and values. In fact,
    it has been suggested to us that applications based on great
    universal developments and ideas are likely to be the "way of the
    future" for World Heritage and indeed that may be the safer approach
    rather than applying based purely on architectural substance.

-   There is an excellent precedent for success: Weimar, Germany was
    inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1998 and like the Newport
    application represents the use of a variety of dissimilar sites
    grouped to successfully represent an idea or concept, in their case
    the 19^th^-century flowering of German art and culture.

 

In addressing the supplementary concerns, we recognize that the
application may not have made the strongest case possible to support its
thesis. We see this, however, as readily addressable during a process of
refinement and improvement that we understood would follow placement on
the Tentative List, and precede the submission of any application to
World Heritage. In summary response to the concerns as listed above:

-   The number of buildings is in line with other grouped applications.
    Indeed we received advice from a panel of experts we convened at the
    US ICOMOS conference that larger groups of buildings were more
    difficult to defend in serial nominations and that exceeding 12
    buildings was not advisable.

-   While it is possible that we did not articulate, comprehensively,
    the connections between each building and the thesis of the
    application, we are prepared to enhance and expand this aspect of
    the application. Furthermore, we recognize that we failed to
    emphasize that all of the structures are within ¼ mile radius --
    often within sight -- and all are within the historic downtown of
    colonial Newport. An issue that has been raised by NPS staff is the
    comparability of this nomination to the failed Savannah nomination.
    We contend, and our advisors agree, that this application is
    *substantially* different from that earlier application and that our
    application poses none of the flaws inherent to Savannah.

-   The World Heritage Committee defines "integrity" in a very different
    manner from those definitions outlined in the US Secretary of the
    Interior's standards for historic preservation. We feel comfortable
    that the buildings in our nomination meet all the standards defined
    by the World Heritage Committee based upon our own inquiries and
    responses from our advisors. Furthermore, for the one building that
    has a significantly altered exterior appearance (the Seventh Day
    Baptist Meeting House), plans are underway to prepare to remove the
    brick cladding and reveal the original façade. Finally, the state of
    the preservation and appearance of the chosen structures compares
    favorably with other historic structures selected for WH inclusion.
    All of the resources described in the Newport Colonial nomination
    are in exceptional states of preservation, all are protected by
    local historical zoning and most are given further protection with
    existing preservation easements.

-   In an effort to keep this application to a manageable size, the
    application did not provide extensive comparisons between Newport's
    significance and other Atlantic colonial cities. We are, however,
    prepared to demonstrate both the unique significance of Newport's
    early commitment to separation of church and state, and the
    spectacular and unusual profusion of surviving associated
    structures.

 

**[The main procedural concern]{.underline}** expressed by the NPS was
that the White House seeks to forward a World Heritage nomination to the
World Heritage Committee before the end of this Administration in 2008.
Therefore the NPS staff have decided to place on the tentative list only
those nominations which are ready or nearly ready to be submitted, are
uncontroversial and seem likely to be approved. (Telephone conference
with NPS staff in 6/07, confirmed during a meeting in Congressman
Patrick Kennedy's office on 6/12/07)

# **Response to the main procedural concern**

It is accepted by Newport World Heritage that our Colonial Newport
application may be more complicated to evaluate than one based on the
value of a single structure or on the architectural importance of a site
or series of sites. We further understand that the NPS is working
concurrently to prepare a nomination of several sites for the Tentative
List, and to prepare to forward one application to the WHC before
January, 2009. For whichever application they choose for that first
nomination, time is in fact, very short.

 

While the Newport Colonial application will need further work, we are
committed to preparing a strong, well-supported application for World
Heritage status, and believe that the resources are available to assist
with this in the months to come. Indeed, previous conversations with
staff at US ICOMOS have indicated that this is a role in which they,
amongst others, are prepared to assist. Added to this is widespread
community support, enhanced by the strong support of our elected
officials, and a lot of local excitement.

However, this application cannot be improved and strengthened if it is
not placed on the list now, as it has been announced that placement on
the Tentative List will be closed for 10 years after this summer. It is
assumed that subsequent formal nominations in the years to come will be
derived from the tentative list created this summer, and for these
applications, there is time to strengthen proposals. If there is
agreement that the Newport Colonial application has OUV, placing the
nomination on the Tentative List now allows us to continue to improve it
so that it can move forward, as appropriate, in the foreseeable future.
If not, it will be difficult to sustain the efforts of a volunteer
committee for ten years until such time as the list is once again
opened.

**Addendum to the Colonial Nomination for Newport, Rhode Island**

**Proposed course to expand and refine the application in coordination
with the NPS in preparation for application to the World Heritage
Committee.**

**[Introduction]{.underline}**

In no sense does the Newport World Heritage Committee regard this
application as a finished document, ready for presentation to the World
Heritage Committee. It is our belief that this is an early draft in
which all applicants should be judged on the soundness of their ideas
and the strength of the overall concept. We are guided in this belief
both by our own fairly exhaustive study of the world heritage process
and the World Heritage Committee's international standards as well as
the National Park Services' own comments during preparation of our
nomination that shorter answers are better, not longer. (Jim Charlton to
Jo Yellis 3/07) (see comments by Herb Stovel)

There is little doubt that this is a complex nomination that focuses on
philosophy and ideas rather than a straightforward presentation of
outstanding architecture (which it certainly contains). While it is more
difficult to make the connections in an application of this type, most
historic sites make their greatest impact in the stories they tell and
therefore in the greatly expanded history that they may interpret. In a
private meeting last year at the US ICOMOS conference World Heritage
expert Herb Stovel commented to us "I think in the eyes of the World
Heritage Committee that such \[thematic\] nominations are the way of the
future, highlighting as they do themes of strong human importance more
than just collections of buildings."

Given this understanding, our answers and our essays are summary in
nature and it is our intention to expand on the ideas and the concept
considerably during the next phase of writing this application. In the
following pages we will lay out an outline for the expansion and
amplification of this application as we envisioned it from the
beginning, and incorporating all recent comments.

**[Basic thesis]{.underline}**

Newport was the largest and most active town in Rhode Island, a colony
whose early focus of religious and intellectual freedom is
well-documented. As the driver for the colony in terms of both economics
and population, Newport became the de facto laboratory for the concepts
that were brought here by Roger Williams. It was Newporter John Clarke
who wrote and engaged the King of England to sign the first legal
document in English history that offered full religious freedom of
worship in the King Charles Charter of 1663. Through the civic practice
during the 17^th^ and 18^th^ centuries Newport offered proof positive
that separate faiths could not only coexist but seek great prosperity
together.

A group of buildings selected after much debate represents a wide range
of the faiths then practiced in the colonies and also comprises the
majority of the houses of worship then present in the colonial city.
They are also some of the finest pieces of architecture from the
American colonies at that time and remain heavily studied by
architectural historians today. Together they form a tight portrayal of
the concepts in the thesis described in the above paragraph. The group
includes every 17^th^ and 18^th^ century house of worship still
retaining historical and architectural integrity. It includes the two
best examples of merchant's houses still intact. It includes the
earliest public lending library in America and as examples of government
and public discourse it includes the seat of legislature, the
marketplace and the only two intact colonial taverns.

**[Changes and additions:]{.underline}**

> A\) The support for liberty of conscience, and the resulting
> toleration of difference in colonial Newport was not, of course,
> seamless and perfect. Some faiths were more easily and completely
> integrated than others. Relationships with the Native population of
> the area swung between cautious coexistence with toleration and active
> hostility combined with demonization. Newporters of many faiths held
> slaves, and participated in the slave trade. In general, the
> difference between tolerance and equality must be explored in Newport
> and a comparative structure established for the other colonies. This
> complexity will be incorporated in to the application.
>
> B\) The application will provide a greater comparative framework for
> the Rhode Island colonial experience. This is an area of discussion
> that was not fully explored in order to limit the expanding size of
> the application. The new world was a multi-faceted and almost endless
> complex of ambitions, motivations and ideas, many brought from Europe
> and then explored here, and influenced by the colonial experience and
> contact with Native populations. The comparison between Rhode Island
> and the other colonies, and a fuller discussion of the context for
> local ideas about liberty of conscience and separation of church and
> state, will be essential components of an expanded application.
>
> C\) The buildings chosen represent within our local history an
> extraordinarily tightly knit group that has proved to be a remarkably
> illustrative way to relate the history of religious and intellectual
> freedom within Newport and the American colonies and has been used as
> such by several of Newport's cultural institutions. The application
> apparently did not do enough to support and illustrate these
> connections, perhaps because it is a concept that local historians
> take for granted. The buildings illustrate in three separate areas the
> role that Newport played in religious and intellectual history.
>
> 1\) Newport established the first place of legally sanctioned freedom
> of conscience in America, and did so with deliberation and
> forethought. Included in the application is every extant house of
> worship from the 17^th^ & 18^th^ centuries. The only exceptions are
> two congregational churches, judged to be too far altered to
> communicate their past effectively. We substituted the Samuel Hopkins
> House which was a rectory for one.  
>
> 2\) Socially, the various groups that made up Newport not only
> coexisted but actually engaged in spirited social discourse and formed
> mutually useful alliances. The Redwood Library which is the oldest
> lending library in the United States is included, as well as the only
> extant 18^th^ century taverns as places of public gathering and
> discourse*.*
>
> 3\) Unlike many other social and religious experiments that met with
> varying degrees of success, Newport thrived economically. Included in
> the application are the sites of government and commercial interest --
> The Colony House, The Old Brick Market, and the two finest extant
> merchant's residences.

What follows are documents and comments from unpaid consultants which we
hope will indicate the resources and sources that are available to
support the thesis of this application, and its expansion and
improvement in the areas outlined above.

**Appendix 1:**

**Comments from external reviewers recruited by Newport World
Heritage:**

**From Dr. Gordon Wood**

**History Department**

**Brown University**

I think the presentation concerning Newport's application to be a World
Heritage Site is excellent. Although a bit repetitious in places
(perhaps inevitable with such an application), it outlines the reasons
for Newport's importance with great force and clarity. The only thing I
might add would be the importance of localism that was expressed in RI's
lively experiment. Each of the towns, including Newport, jealously
guarded its autonomy, which of course made it difficult for the colony
even to agree on a capital. But this point of localism may not be
crucial for the application and may detract from it; it is however,
important for the development of American history. There's a word
missing on p. 12 six lines up from the bottom.  In the English
something?  Good luck, Gordon

**\
From Dr. Herb Stovel**

**Professor and Coordinator,**

**Heritage Conservation Program**

**School of Canadian Studies**

**Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada**

I find your application document very complete and well argued. I
personally find the arguments compelling and worthwhile.

The Colonial Newport nomination responds in many ways to the increasing
efforts of the World Heritage Committee to situate nominations within
their thematic (rather then typological or geo-cultural contexts). This
new approach has been in place since 1994 when the first Global strategy
meeting of the World Heritage Committee, convened to look at typological
and regional imbalances on the World Heritage List, essentially reversed
the emphasis on evaluating sites within their typological categories,
with an emphasis on recognizing the thematic contexts which sites
illustrate or exemplify.

 

The orientation given States Parties for future nominations is stated in
the Global Strategy document adopted by the World Heritage Committee in
1994, which notes that:

 

\"In order to ensure for the future a World heritage list that was at
the same time representative, balanced, and credible, the expert group
considered it to be necessary not only to increase the number of types,
regions, and periods of cultural property that are under-represented in
the coming years, but also to take into account the new concepts of the
idea of cultural heritage that had been developed over the past twenty
years. to achieve this it was advisable for there to be a process of
continuous collaborative study of the development of knowledge,
scientific thought, and views of relationships between world cultures.
Furthermore, the expert group identified certain types as having high
potential to fill gaps in representation. the proposed list should be
seen as a proposal to draw attention to themes that might not have been
given sufficient consideration in the past. these themes should be
considered in their broad anthropological context over time and the
definition of properties within these themes should be undertaken in a
holistic way, reflecting tangible as well as intangible qualities of the
properties, as the latter are, becoming increasingly important.

Human coexistence with the land

*• Movement of peoples (nomadism, migration)*

*• Settlement*

*• Modes of subsistence*

*• Technological evolution*

Human beings in society

*• Human interaction*

*• Cultural coexistence*

*• Spirituality and creative expression.\"*

   

 Since then, States Parties and ICOMOS (as cultural heritage  advisory
body) have been gradually exploring and promoting development of
nominations which could better illustrate the key themes of human
development on this planet and the many sub-themes associated with
these.  The ICOMOS \"gap analysis\" report of 2005 suggests three
complementary frameworks for evaluation, blending the typological and
geo-cultural frames already in use before 1994 with the thematic
approach. The focus on themes has encouraged many States Parties to
focus on cultural heritage expression which innovatively and creatively
responds to many of the key challenges confronting human societies on
the planet, rather than just seeking to notch up another French
cathedral (there are 7) or Mexican colonial historical towns (there are
a dozen). The Committee is encouraging more such nominations to assist
to continue  improving regional balance on the List, but to also
 portray the testimony of human existence on the planet in a more
comprehensive and balanced fashion. The Colonial Newport application
admirably serves these purposes and meets the Committee\'s challenge to
see our shared heritage in its broadest context.

 

**From Dr. Albert Klyberg**

**Director of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence, RI**

**(Retired)**

Thanks for sending me the World Heritage Nomination material.   I think
it is very well done.   I have a few thoughts.

page 5, \"the Setting\"   Some might challenge the statement that
\'Newport was the first city in the New World to operate freely and
successfully under a grant of freedom of religion  and the separation of
church and state.\'  Logically, whatever applied to Newport would apply
to Providence as well.   Providence comes before Newport with a \'city\'
charter.    **Having said that, however, I would agree with the thrust
of the application that Newport in the key colonial period is clearly
more important than Providence.   My revision in no way diminishes the
significance of Newport, but I wouldn\'t want nit pickers to start off
with a sense that the application was over blown.   Some simple
rephrasing should be able to remove the objection.**

*\[Ed. Note: Newport was over twice the size of Providence at the time
of the 1774 census)*

Secondly, you may want to consult the wordsmiths about the subtleties of
the distinctions between the phrases, \"freedom of religion,\" religious
liberty,\" tolerance,\" Soul Liberty,\" religious freedom.\"   Some of
my trustees at the RI Historical Society, namely the grand-daughter of
Prof. William Gammell, was always picking me up on the mis-use of the
term.  

Page 7, Seventh Day Baptist meeting house.   Mention is made over split
over theology without saying what the split involved.  The idea is
mentioned again on page 17, but not explained.

 

Page 8, The discussion of Trinity Church could be expanded to say that
the very presence of the Anglicans in Newport underscores the degree of
tolerance practiced there since it was this church\'s stands that drove
the original Newporters from England in the first place.

 

Page 12, middle paragraph.   Williams did indeed try to get legal
backing for the colony and its position of tolerance.   He went to
England in 1643 and brought back the Parliamentary Patent of 1644 which
gave RI official recognition and standing as an English colony, separate
from Mass. and Conn.

 

Page 13, re European Reformation.   Good point about the Reformation not
being tolerant to others\' dissent.   Although Geneva was well known as
a refuge and an alternate pulpit for the Protestant point of view, the
Geneva of John Calvin was theocratical to others.   It was only in
modern times that the statue to Roger Williams was erected there.  
During the Reformation he would have been reckoned there as a heretic.

 

page 14, I don\'t know that Roger \"fled\" to Plymouth on two occasions,
I thought his migration there was more voluntary and \'seeking.\'

 

Page 16, I am not sure the image of the \'melting pot\' is
appropriate.   It suggests a disappearance of distinctions.   I think
the boundaries and philosophical fences around the various groups
remained and were visible, but a notion of \'live, and let live\'
prevailed.   Other scholars may differ, but there is a suggestion by
Sydney James and others that 18th century commercial life in Newport was
more secular than sectarian and that religion had lost some of its
compelling forcefulness.  One point not raised, was that in the 1719
Digest of the RI Laws, Roman Catholics were barred from voting.

 

Bottom of page 18.   My understanding is that the Quakers in Newport did
not address the issue of slavery until Philadelphia native, John
Woolman, chastised them for their participation in the trade in the
1770\'s, something like 1774.

 

Page 23, intellectual thought.   Any chance to bring in here the stimuli
to the intellectual life of Newport supplied by Bishop Berkeley and Ezra
Stiles?

 

Page 27, Metcalf Bowler was a spy for the British, his identity wasn\'t
discovered until the 1930\'s, whereby the Metcalf Bowler chapter of the
Daughters of the American Revolution was forced to pick a new name.

 

On that serious note, I rest my case.  

Best wishes,

Albert T. Klyberg, L.H.D.

**Appendix 2**

**Excerpt from *The Rise of Religious Liberty in America***

The following is an excerpt from Number range CHAPTERSanford H. Cobb's
*The Rise of Religious Liberty in America* (New York: Macmillan, 1902)
From Chapter III: Colonial Beginnings. While an earlier text it remains
timely and is offered to buttress the ideas in the application. The
application makes no claim that Newport was the birthplace of religious
freedom and liberty of conscience in America, but rather that it was
codified by a Newporter and that the city became the leading and most
prominent social laboratory in colonial America for the concept.

**Chapter III**

**COLONIAL BEGINNINGS**

It is thus evident that, at the period when American colonization began,
the Church and State in Europe were substantially of one mind as to this
fundamental principle, that the prosperity of both depended upon a union
more or less intimate and vital. To but very few individuals had the
thought of true liberty occurred, while in no country had even a
grudging toleration of other than the State-Church been made the rule of
law.

We need not be surprised, then, to find the most of the colonists in
hearty sympathy with that principle. Some of them, indeed, had suffered
through its application; but in their view that suffering was a
consequence, not of a vicious principle, but of a wicked application of
a principle which was very right and necessary. These men had no doubt
as to the propriety of a legal insistence upon a prescribed form of
worship, supposing that form to be the true form of worship. The
impropriety and wrong of persecution were to be decided, not by any
inherent vice of persecution itself, but by the character of the
doctrine persecuted. If the doctrine were false then persecution of it
were justified. If the doctrine were true, persecution became wicked.
Thus, to the minds of the fathers of Massachusetts it was clear, both
that the English authorities were criminal in persecuting them, and that
they were right in their measures against the Brownes and Mrs.
Hutchinson; because they, both as persecuted and as persecutors,
represented the truth.^1^

It is very true that the Pilgrim fathers, landing on the

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  ^1^ Fisher, *Colonial Era.*

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**68**

"stern and rock-bound coast" of New England, sought and obtained
"freedom to worship God." But the usual understanding of Mrs. Heman\'s
famous lines, that they desired to establish anything like a general
religious liberty, is very far from the truth. Their conscious desire
was freedom for themselves, never dreaming of extending an equal freedom
to such as differed from them in religious opinion; though to the honor
of the Pilgrims it should be noted, that they were afterward far more
lenient and tolerant toward dissentients than were their neighbors of
Massachusetts, and that they never were guilty of great harshness.

To the early leaders of Massachusetts, especially the religious leaders,
toleration of dissent from the "established order" of religious worship
was as sedition in the state and sin against God. John Cotton declared
that "it was Toleration that made the world anti-Christian." There are
many choice specimens of this repressive spirit in Nathaniel Ward\'s
(1645) "Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America."^1^ "I take upon me," he
says, "to proclaim to all Familists, Antinomians (&c.), to keep away
from us; and such as will come, to be gone ; the sooner the better."
"Polipiety (a variety of sects) is the greatest impiety in the world."
One other specimen of the Cobler\'s spirit should not fail of quotation,
"He that is willing to tolerate any unsound opinion, that his own may be
tolerated, though never so sound, will for a need hang God\'s Bible at
the Devil\'s girdle."

This sentiment showed a marvellous tenacity, very slowly yielding to the
influences of more liberal thought ; and so late as 1673 President
Oakes,^2^ of Harvard College, said in an election sermon, "I look upon
unbounded Toleration as the first-born of all abominations."

There is to the mind of to-day something of amazement at the process by
which these men justified their harsh measures. When Sir Richard
Saltonstall, by far the broadest-minded

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  ^1^ Force, *Historical Tracts.*\
  ^2^ Felt, *Ecclesiastical History of New England,* II, 504-506.

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**69**

among the early Puritans, remonstrated against the Boston persecutions,
on the ground that by such proceedings "many are made hypocrites,"
Wilson and Cotton replied: "Better be hypocrites than profane persons !
There is a great difference between God\'s inventions and men\'s
inventions. We compel none to men\'s inventions." Cotton, answering
Williams\'s "Bloody Tenent," quite outdoes himself: "It is not right to
persecute any for conscience\' sake *rightly informed;* for in
persecuting such Christ Himself is persecuted in them. . . . For an
erroneous and blind conscience (even in fundamental and weighty points)
it is not lawful to persecute any, till after admonition once or twice.
. . .

The word of God in such things is so clear, that he *cannot but be
convinced* in conscience of the dangerous error of his way, after once
or twice admonition wisely and faithfully dispensed. . . . If such a
man, after such admonition, shall still persist in the error of his way
and be punished, he is not persecuted for cause of conscience, but *for
sinning against his own conscience.*" The arrogance of spiritual
inquisition and tyranny could hardly go farther than that in specious
defence of its principles.

The powerful presence of such principles has to be constantly noticed in
the early history of New England, operative with more or less strictness
and severity in all the colonies, except Rhode Island, the corner-stone
of which was the explicit denial of this very principle; indeed, without
the memory of this religious attitude of the New England colonies much
of their history through the first century will become an unconnected
and unmeaning jumble of events. To attempt to read into that history the
settled principles of a later day, or to apologize to posterity for
ancestral oppressions, is absurd and confusing. These men need no
apology. They stood in their lot, in their own age of the world, working
out their problem, blindly and blunderingly enough at times, but surely.
The issue, to the light and blessing of which their children came, was
quite other than their thought, and yet

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**70**

the Religious Liberty of a later day owed much to the sharp-cut
illustrations furnished by the New England Theocracy.

A similar thing may be said of the establishments in the colonies in the
South. In these, notably exhibited in the story of Virginia, the
attitude of the civil government toward the Church and religion was
solely due to a secular or political motive, quite different from the
Puritan, whose motive was purely religious. The Puritan insisted on
conformity because he wanted to make the state religious and to preserve
the true religion in its purity. The Virginian insisted on conformity,
because the Church was a department of the state, and all dissent was
indicative of civil disorder and insubordination. This contrast is very
marked; and it is among the things of special interest to note how from
these two diverse grounds the question of Church and State came to
simultaneous solutions in America, one religious and the other secular.
On the one hand, the Puritan experiment demonstrates that the effect of
the union is essentially irreligious; while on the other, the Virginian
makes it clear that the law of conformity is the fruitful mother of
disorder.

Indeed, there were three separate answers coming to speech and
exhibition at the same time. Massachusetts set up its theocratic state
with its chief interest centred in the Church; Virginia established its
civil state, with the Church as a subject member, a conformity to which
was the mark of a good citizen; while Rhode Island boldly denied the
purposes and premises of both, placing an impassable gulf between the
State and the Church, and relegating to the individual conscience and to
voluntary association all concern and action touching the Church and
religious matters.

These are the three extreme types about which all the other colonies may
be grouped with more or less of similarity to their several patterns. In
the one group with Massachusetts are Plymouth, New Haven, Connecticut,
and New Hampshire, with their Congregational establishments. Among these
it will be observed that theocratic Massachusetts and New

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**71**

Haven were more closely akin in the strictness of their religious
requirements; that Plymouth and Connecticut were more liberal in spirit
and enactments; while New Hampshire was organized so long after the
period of severity had waned that it furnishes few illustrations of our
theme.

In another group are Virginia and the two Carolinas, in which the Church
of England was established at their foundation and continued the
State-Church until into the era of the Revolution, displaying at times
strong and bitter feeling against all forms of dissent.

A third group is composed of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and
Georgia, in which occurred changes of attitude toward the Church.
Maryland began with religious freedom, under Roman Catholic auspices,
and was afterward dragooned into establishing the Church of England. In
New York and New Jersey, the violence of English officials endeavored to
force the same Church on a Dutch Reformed foundation, but never secured
for it a legal establishment. The charter of Georgia declared liberty of
worship, but on its abrogation the Church of England was established by
royal edict and legislative enactment, a few years before the
Revolution.

The fourth group comprises Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The
last-named, however, was for so long a time a part of Pennsylvania that
its history on the religious question is merged with that of the larger
colony. In these colonies no Church was ever established. More than
that, the impropriety of a religious establishment was explicitly
declared. Of the two, Rhode Island was far broader than Pennsylvania.
The Quaker, notwithstanding his voice for liberty of conscience, could
yet make no civic room for the infidel, and insisted on certain
religious restrictions. Strangely enough, even to-day, Pennsylvania, by
terms of its constitution, is unique among the United States, in that it
restricts its civic privileges to believers in "an Almighty and Eternal
God." Rhode Island from the beginning imposed no religious restrictions
whatever upon its citizenship, and allowed no

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question by the civil law as to the belief or unbelief of any one. The
civil law knew neither theist nor atheist, neither Jew nor Christian,
neither Romanist nor Protestant, neither Episcopalian nor Baptist,
neither Congregationalist nor Presbyterian. There has never been a more
perfect equality of religious beliefs before the law than was enacted in
Rhode Island at its very beginning---a revelation and pattern to all the
other colonies; by them for a long period despised and derided, but to
the likeness of which they were glad at last to come.

The stress of conflict was in Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, and New
York, because of exceptional enthusiasm on the part of religionists
meeting with exceptional determination of the civil power; or yet again
of peculiar historical developments with which religious questions
became mingled. Of the one the story of the Quakers in Massachusetts,
and of the other the change from Dutch to English rule in New York, may
serve as illustrations. For this reason our attention will be mainly
directed to the history of these four colonies.

In that study another and striking contrast will appear, arising from
the *origin* of the respective establishments. In Virginia was a Church
imposed on the colony by the civil authorities without any suggestion
that the people should be consulted in regard to it. It was simply a
branch plucked from the Church at home and planted in the soil of
Virginia, though afterward ratified by the colony. In Massachusetts was
a Church native to the soil, not owing descent from any establishment
across the sea, the choice of the people, by them organized and vested
with the powers of the civil magistrate. In both the religious
establishment was of positive character, while in Massachusetts the
union of Church and State was far closer, and its spirit more
inquisitorial, than in Virginia.

Yet again, in New York, after a half century of existence under the lax
superintendence of the Reformed Church of Holland, was a perverse
attempt---never legally successful---

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to force a foreign Church upon a people, nine-tenths of whom were
opposed to its policy and methods. In Maryland, also, will be seen a
unique situation. Begun under the notable tolerance of a Roman Catholic
proprietor with freedom not less than that of Pennsylvania, the
religious life of the colony was subjected to many troublesome
variations---some of them through the rivalry of Puritan and Cavalier,
and others through political changes in government.

One other thing to be frequently noted is that, so far as the direct
influence of the English government could affect the character of
religions institutions in the colonies, the judgment was almost
invariable that such institutions should be in vital relation with the
Church at home. This judgment appears in charters and in frequent
"instructions" to governors, often very peremptory in their terms. It
found practical effect in America in all places where a stronger adverse
religious sentiment of colonists did not oppose it.

With these preliminary observations we turn to the history of the
different colonies. The special peculiarities require that each
narrative should cover the entire colonial period without break,
inasmuch as each possesses distinctions peculiarly its own. One of the
most marked features of the history is in these distinctions,
pronouncing often the sharpest contrast between colonies, the borders of
which touched each other.

We may, however, on the line of a similarity already suggested, observe
the groups into which the colonies fall by reason of the general
character of their governmental attitudes toward religion and the
Church. As so classed we may consider their respective stories, without
rigid regard to the chronological succession in the planting of the
colonies.