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with which they had been vested in colonial times; and CHAPTER they obtained, besides, the additional prerogative of nominating the candidates to fill vacancies in their own body. The justices of the peace in all the states, besides their criminal jurisdiction borrowed from the English practice, seem also to have been invested with a jurisdiction, introduced during colonial times and peculiar to America, as judges in the first instance for the smallest class of civil cases.

By the Constitution of Georgia and the second Constitution of New Hampshire, the delegates to the Continental Congress were to be elected by the people. In all the other states they were appointed by the Legislatures.

The right of suffrage, upon the contraction or expansion of which the character of governments so greatly depends, was given in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and South Carolina, to all resident tax-paying freemen. In Pennsylvania, the eldest sons of freeholders, twenty-one years of age, could vote without payment of taxes a provision borrowed from Rhode Island. In the other states a pecuniary qualification was required, except that in North Carolina resident tax-paying freemen could vote for members of the House of Commons. In Virginia the old colonial practice remained in force; none could vote except possessors of a freehold of fifty acres or a town lot. A similar freehold was required in North Carolina as a qualification to vote for senators. In New York, none could vote for governor or senators who did not possess an unincumbered freehold worth $250, nor for members of Assembly unless they had a freehold worth $50, or paid $10 annual rent. In Rhode Island the old provision continued in force which confined the right of voting to freeholders possessing a clear landed property of the value of $134, or their eldest sons. In the other

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CHAPTER states, property, whether personal or real, of from $33 to $200, sufficed to qualify a voter-qualifications now almost entirely dispensed with.

The provisions of these early constitutions on the subject of religion betrayed a curious struggle between ancient bigotry and growing liberality. On the eve of the Revolution, Congregationalism still continued the established religion in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. The Church of England enjoyed a similar civil support in all the southern colonies, and partially so in New York and New Jersey. It was only in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Delaware that the equality of all Protestant sects had been acknowleged-an equality in the two latter colonies extended also to the Catholic relig ion, the public exercise of which was illegal in most or all the others, Catholic priests being liable, in Massachusetts and New York, to perpetual imprisonment, or even death.

The Constitution of Massachusetts seemed to guarantee entire freedom of religious opinions and the equality of all sects; yet the Legislature was expressly authorized and impliedly required to provide for the support of ministers, and to compel attendance on their services-a clause against which the people of Boston protested and struggled in vain. The Legislature also took upon itself to subject to heavy penalties any who might question received notions as to the nature, attributes, and functions of the Deity, or the divine inspiration of any book of the Old or New Testament-reviving, in fact, the old colonial laws against blasphemy. Similar laws remained in force in Connecticut, and were re-enacted in New Hampshire. Favored by the Legislature, and still more so by the courts, Congregationalism continued to enjoy in these three states the prerogatives of an established church, and to be supported by taxes from which it was not easy

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for Dissenters to escape, nor possible except by contribu- CHAPTER ting to the support of some other church on which they regularly attended. The ministers, once chosen, held their places for life, and had a legal claim for their stipulated salaries, unless dismissed for causes deemed sufficient by a council mutually chosen from among the ministers and members of the neighboring churches.

The Church of England, the great majority of whose members were Loyalists, lost by the Revolution the establishment it had possessed in the southern colonies, and the official countenance and the privileges it had enjoyed in New York and New Jersey. But it retained its parsonages, glebe-lands, and other endowments, which, in some of the states, and especially in the city of New York, were by no means inconsiderable.

By the second Constitution of South Carolina, the "Christian Protestant religion" was declared to be the established religion of that state. All persons acknowledging one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, were to be freely tolerated; if, in addition, they held Christianity to be the true religion, and the Old and New Testaments to be inspired, they might form churches of their own, entitled to be admitted as a part of the establishment. The election of their own ministers was secured to all the churches, which were to be entirely supported out of their own funds, and the voluntary contributions of their members.

The Constitution of Maryland contained an authority to the Assembly to levy a "general and equal tax" for the support of the Christian religion, to be applied to the maintenance of such minister as the tax-payer should designate, or, if he preferred it, to the support of the poor; but no attempt was ever made by the Maryland Assembly to exercise the authority thus vested in it.

CHAPTER

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The Constitutions of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia expressly repudiated the compulsory system by providing that no man should be required to attend any church, or pay any church rate or tax against his will.

No mention of the subject of religion was made in the Constitution of Virginia; but the question came up in the first Assembly. By the influx of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and other dissenters, especially Baptists, into the upper counties, the Episcopalians had become a minority of the people. But they still had a majority in the Assembly; and it was only after warm debates that Jefferson and George Mason procured the passage of a law re1776. pealing all the old disabling acts, legalizing all modes of worship, releasing Dissenters from parish rates, and suspending their collection until the next session-a suspension made perpetual in 1779, and the more readily, as most of the clergymen of the Church of England were Tories. By the Religious Freedom Act of 1785 all parish rates were abolished, and all religious tests abrogated. This act, of which the passage was procured by the earn est efforts of Jefferson and Madison, seconded by the Presbyterians, Baptists, and other dissenters from the late Established Church, seemed to them the more imperatively called for in consequence of an attempt the year before, supported by Washington and Henry, and nearly successful, to pass a law in conformity to the ecclesiastical system of New England, compelling all to contribute to the support of some minister.

By the Constitutions of New York, Delaware, and Maryland, priests, or ministers of any religion, were disqualified to hold any political office. In Georgia, they could not be members of Assembly. All gifts to pious

uses were absolutely prohibited by the Constitution of

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Maryland, except grants of land, not exceeding two acres CHAPTER each, as sites for churches and church-yards.

In several of the states religious tests were still kept up, and they were even to be found in some constitutions which, in other respects, were among the most liberal. The old prejudice against the Catholic religion could not so easily be got rid of. In New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, the chief officers of state were required to be Protestants. In Massachusetts and Maryland, all office-holders must declare their belief in the Christian religion; in South Carolina they must also believe in a future state of rewards and punishments; in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, they were required to acknowledge the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments; and in Delaware, to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. Though somewhat softened from the harshness of former times, religious bigotry and intolerance were by no means extinct. The French alliance had, however, a powerful effect in diminishing the deep-seated prejudices against Catholicism, and Rhode Island presently set an example of liberality in this par- 1784. ticular by repealing the law, so contrary to the spirit of her charter, by which Catholics were prohibited from becoming voters. The old colonial laws for the observation of Sunday continued in force in all the states.

Only the Constitutions of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and the second Constitution of New Hampshire, made any mention of the all-important subject of education; and the clauses on that subject in the Constitutions of Pennsylvania and North Carolina, by which the Legislature was required to establish schools for general instruction, remained, in fact, a dead letter."

The College of Pennsylvania being in the hands of Episcopalians strongly suspected of Toryism, the property III.-В B