vision concerning religion. Article VI provided: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust in the United States." So far had the eyes of dissenters in Massachusetts been opened to dangers lurking in legislative measures that a large proportion of the Baptist delegates in the state constitutional convention voted against the adoption of the instrument. 1 Besides, their hearts were set on some broad and yet specific guarantee of religious freedom under which their liberties would be safe. The First Amendment to the Constitution, which Congress proposed in 1 789, seemed to fulfil their desire. It provided that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." With the adoption of this law by the majority of the states, the principle of full liberty of mind, conscience, and worship, had been written finally into the law of the land.
Yet this pronouncement of the national government could not bring to a full end the long struggle which had been waged. Only the sphere of the federal government was involved, and individual states were still free to deal with the institutions of religion and the rights of individuals as they might feel disposed, as long as the national welfare was not involved. 2 What actually happened in Massachusetts is well expressed by Isaac Backus: "The amendment about liberty of conscience is kept out of sight." 3 The goods of Baptists continued to be levied upon to meet the ministerial tax. 4 Dissensions continued to arise in parishes over the settlement and support of ministers, dissenting minorities
- 1 Backus, History of New England, vol. ii, p. 235. Cf. Burr age, History of the Baptists in New England, pp. 121 et seq.
- 2 Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, pp. 509-511.
- 3 Backus, History of New England, vol. ii, p. 341.
- 4 Ibid., pp. 351 et seq., 379.
