If this nation is great for one reason more than for any other, it is that its founders stood for religious liberty. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion, who, being Lord, both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercion on either, as was in His almighty power to do. Religion is essentially distinct from government and exempt from its cognizance. A connection between them is injurious to both. The stake, the gibbet, and the rack, thumbscrews, swords, and pillory have no place among the machinery of civilization.
Nature is diversified.
So are human faculties, beliefs, and practises. Essential freedom is the right to differ, and that right must be sacredly respected. What other nations call religious tolerance we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small. Despotic power may invade those rights, but justice still confirms them.