act that the property of ministers, which before had been exempted, should be taxed. The same year Rev. Dan Young, of Lisbon, a located Methodist minister, having been elected a member of the state senate, brought in a bill repealing the old obnoxious laws by which a town could vote to settle a minister and then pay his salary by taxes; and in place of that law offered a bill "by which all persons voluntarily associating to build a house of worship, or hire a minister of the gospel, should be held to the fulfilment of their contract, but no person should be compelled to go into such a contract." That year he was able to secure only three votes besides his own for the bill. The next year the same bill received exactly one half of the votes of the senate. The third year it went through by a large majority. Init was tied in the house. In 1819, having been sent up again from the senate, the house by a majority vote carried it, and thus the power was taken from the towns to assess taxes on all to support the ministry, and relegated to such as voluntarily entered the church or society.
Dr. Whipple, of Wentworth, in the house, seems to have had much to do in framing the bill and in its final success; so it is known in some authorities as the Whipple bill. By the bill any one, also, could separate himself from any such society or organization, or from obligations of the town, by leaving a written certificate with the clerk of such a purpose, and that he was of another persuasion. Men of the old regime deemed it all a repeal of the Christian religion, thinking it meant also an abolition of the Bible, and that they might as well burn that book. But experience soon convinced them of the great worth to both state and church to have them separate. Some slight changes were made a few years later in this act, but none affecting its purpose of corapletest religious freedom.
There still remained the obnoxious features in the form of government adopted in 1774, by which no one was eligible to the office of governor, state senator, or representative unless he was of the Protestant religion. As stated, an effort to have it expunged failed by vote of the people. Finally, in 1877, while the law had been treated as a dead letter, such amendment was made to the constitution that even this last relic of intolerance was obliterated, throwing open to all men all the offices of the state. Thus while the contest in New Hampshire in favor of completest religious liberty was not as deep and bitter as in some of the original states, it is a suggestive chapter, and instructive for the people to know.
