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14 

TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH OF COLUMBIA, INC. v.
COMER 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
 

“oppressive.”  Curry  156,  157  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted); see also Copy of Petition [to General Assembly],
Maryland  Gazette,  Mar.  25,  1785,  pp. 1,  2,  col.1  (“[W]hy 
should  such  as  do  not  desire  or  make  conscience  of  it,  be 
forced  by  law”).    When  the  legislature  next  met,  most 
representatives  “had  been  elected  by  anti-assessment 
voters,” and the bill failed.  Curry 157.  In 1810, Maryland 
revoked  the  authority  to  levy  religious  assessments.    See 
Md.  Const.,  Amdt.  XIII  (1776),  in  3  Federal  and  State 
Constitutions 1705 (F. Thorpe ed. 1909) (Thorpe).

In New England, which took longer to reach this conclu-
sion,  Vermont  went  first.  Its  religious  assessment  laws
were accommodating.  A person who was not a member of
his  town’s  church  was,  upon  securing  a  certificate  to  that
effect, exempt.  See L. Levy, The Establishment Clause 50 
(1994) (Levy).  Even so, the laws were viewed by many as 
violating  Vermont’s  constitutional  prohibition  against 
involuntary  support  of  religion  and  guarantee  of  freedom 
of  conscience.  See,  e.g.,  Address  of  Council  of  Censors  to 
the People of Vermont 5–8 (1800) (“[R]eligion is a concern
personally  and  exclusively  operative  between  the  individ-
ual  and  his  God”);  Address  of  Council  of  Censors  [Ver-
mont] 3–7 (Dec. 1806) (the laws’ “evils” included “violence
done to the feelings of men” and “their property,” “animos-
ities,” and “the dangerous lengths of which it is a founda-
tion  for  us  to  go,  in  both  civil  and  religious  usurpation”).
In  1807,  Vermont  “repealed  all  laws  concerning  taxation 
for religion.”  Levy 51.

The  rest  of  New  England  heard  the  same  arguments
and  reached  the  same  conclusion.  John  Leland’s  sus-
tained  criticism  of  religious  assessments  over  20  years
helped end the practice in Connecticut.  See, e.g., Esbeck, 
Dissent  and  Disestablishment:  The  Church-State  Settle-
ment  in  the  Early  American  Republic,  2004  B.  Y.  U.
L. Rev. 1385, 1498, 1501–1511.  The reasons he offered in 
urging opposition to the State’s laws will by now be famil-