Thank God, being a church-member is not evidence that a person has a bad character, even in New York; although there may be exceptions which serve to show that such membership is not conclusive evidence of a good character, even in Massachusetts.

Had not the Puritans the legal right to limit participation in their government, in that manner? Was it morally wrong in them to do so? Was it unjust? Was it inexpedient? Unless we can answer some one, at least, of these questions emphatically in the affirmative, we convict ourselves, and not the Puritan Fathers, when we set ourselves up as censors, and condemn their legislation.

As to the legal right, in the first place! If the exposition which has been given of the provisions of the charter has been satisfactory, I need not add any thing upon this subject. Nothing can be more clear than their right to judge and determine whom they would admit to the participation of the privileges under their charter. They were expressly authorized to admit freemen; they were not to admit all comers. They must exercise a right of selection in some manner.

Was it morally wrong to adopt their principle of selection? With a concession of the principle that all rightful government should be for the greatest good of the community over which it is exercised, and that in a republican State, the question what measures will produce the greatest good must be determined by the majority of voices having the right of decision, I think I might venture the proposition, that any rule of suffrage which such majority should conscientiously determine to adopt, as that best calculated to promote the welfare of the whole, whatever else might be thought of it, could not be censured as morally wrong. But some enthusiastic advocate of universal suffrage might, perhaps, wish to be heard on that proposition; so we will confine ourselves to the Puritan Commonwealth.

Was it morally wrong in the grantees of the charter to determine, that the greatest good of their organization would be best promoted by a limitation of that character? I certainly do not suppose, that any one who has a reasonable sense respecting moral right and wrong, will be disposed to argue that question with me.

They profess to have done it, "to the end the body of freemen may be preserved of honest and good men." They are, at least, entitled to the credit of the motive on which they professed to act until that motive be disproved, and there is not the first particle of proof that they were not actuated by it. Admit that this rule did not assure to them the association of all the good and honest men in the community. Will any of you tell me what criterion they should have adopted, in their circumstances, which would have given higher assurance of the accomplishment of the worthy end which they proposed to themselves? If I should pause for a reply, I think none would be forthcoming.

Was this rule unjust? Who at that day should impeach it on this score? It was made by the grantees of a charter, and those whom they had admitted as associates, prescribing for themselves a limitation on which alone they would admit other associates.

The charter was, as we have seen, in form, and partly in fact, an act incorporating a company to which a large grant of land had been made, and to which was given the power to purchase and hold property, and the power also to plant and govern a colony upon the territory thus granted. The charter gave them expressly, what at this day follows as a corporate right, without any express words, the right to admit whom they pleased as freemen of the corporation; that is, as associates entitled to a participation in all their rights and privileges equally with themselves. They might have required a price for the privilege of an ownership in the lands and a participation in the franchise of the corporation, if they had thought proper. But money was no part of their object in the admission of freemen, or in voting for officers. They had not even arrived at that knowledge of the science of government which teaches that legislators may sell their votes in a caucus for the nomination of candidates for an office to which they hold the power of election, and then say that there was no bribery in that, because the nomination of the caucus was not an election. They might have required any other condition of membership which to them seemed just and right. Under these circumstances, who should advance a claim to thrust himself into a participation of their rights and privileges? The question answers itself. No one, unless he could say, that they

had held out to him a prospect of participation, and then refused it. No one said that this had been done, even by implication. The rule was adopted very soon after the settlement, and was known and understood. If there was any such individual case, it would not affect the principle.

Was the rule inexpedient? - is the remaining question. We might inquire here, on what principle of right it is that we are to judge and condemn them upon such a question. We may judge and express our opinion whether they acted wisely for their own interests, without assuming to censure them for their judgment respecting a matter which, as it was then presented, was one affecting their rights, property, and duties. But let us try this question also. In considering the three preceding questions, I have treated them mainly as questions of right and of business in relation to a civil corporation. This presents itself in the same aspect; but we must also take into consideration the religious character of the enterprise.

And here there seems to be no possible room for doubt. It is true that it offered some temptation to persons to join the Church from sinister motives. Few persons, however, would venture, for secular reasons, to enter the pale of a church so strict in its observances; and the sure support which the churches would receive from the legislation of a General Court composed of their own members, would greatly overbalance any danger from hypocritical members.

This restriction of the privilege of freemen to persons who were members of the churches, is not to be regarded as evidence of intolerance or bigotry. Of itself, it required no profession of faith, no creed.

For the purpose of admission to a church, a person must have assented to the creed of that church very much as at the present day, so far as the Church has a creed. And so, through the operation of this rule, any person who was admitted to the privileges of a freeman, must have given his assent to the creed. But this assent to the creed, merely, was not the reason why he was admitted to the franchise. Somewhat more than assent to the creed was required, in order to admission to the Church. The candidate must be a person of good character, honest, and of a blameless life. It was to secure a body of men, of such a

character, that this rule was adopted. And, moreover, churchmembership was not of itself the sole qualification.

The Plymouth Colony undertook to secure the same result in a different mode. It was enacted there, that the deputies should propound candidates to the court, being such as have been also approved by the freemen of the town where such persons live. Then it was required that they be propounded at a June court, and stand propounded one whole year. And in the Revision of the Laws of that Colony in 1671, we find that none should be admitted as freemen but such as were, at least, twenty-one years of age, had the testimony of their neighbors that they are of sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion, with twenty pounds ratable estate, and to stand propounded a year, unless it was some person well known, or of whom the court might make present improvement.1

Which would best satisfy the candidate for suffrage at the present day, the Puritan, or Pilgrim rule, - Massachusetts, or Plymouth? more especially when there was another law of Plymouth by which freemen might be disfranchised, — a provision which, if it existed at the present day, and were enforced, would cause a great exodus among the voters. Even Rhode Island would not admit persons whom they considered turbulent and unruly, to ownership, or to exercise the privileges of freemen.

Of itself, the rule did not prohibit immigration into the Colony. Whoever chose might come, notwithstanding the adoption of this rule. Persons ambitious of participating in the government might be influenced by it not to come; but it would be their ambition which prevented them in such case. Persons might not desire to live under a government, with a religious legislation such as might be expected from such legislators; but it would be the desire for a larger license which prevented them. The rule itself might be the remote cause; but another, operating more directly upon them, would intervene, and a maxim of the law teaches us to look to the near, and not to remote, causes, as the ground for complaint, if there be any. The rule denied to no one a participation in the protection which the government offered to persons and property.

1 Plym. Col. Laws (Ed. 1836), p. 258.

But, still farther, all the alteration which Charles II., or his ministers, required, in respect to the right of suffrage, when, in 1662, he or they undertook to regulate the affairs of the Colony was, that "all the freeholders, of competent estates, not vicious in conversation, and orthodox in religion (though of different persuasions in church government) may have their votes in the election of all officers, civil and military."1 Would this rule satisfy us better than church-membership? The duty of making up the list of voters, on this basis, would not be an enviable one, at this day; and an action for exclusion from the list might open a wide field of inquiry.

The laws having for their object the conversion of the Indians to Christianity, were part and parcel of the religious legislation of the Colony.

The laws for the observance of the Lord's day were very strict, and provision was early made for instructing the Indians on that subject.

There were penalties for neglecting the worship of the churches, disturbing the order thereof, and for reproaching the ordinances. The law against Heresy provided, that "if any Christian within this jurisdiction shall go about to subvert and destroy the Christian faith and religion, by broaching and maintaining any damnable heresies," of which there followed a very respectable catalogue, commencing with, "denying the immortality of the soul," "every such person continuing obstinate therein, after due means of conviction, shall be sentenced to banishment."

Persons above sixteen years of age professing the Christian religion, might be punished for denying the inspiration of the books of the Old and New Testaments.

any of But the introduction to the law against Heresy disclaimed all power over the faith and consciences of men.

And in the proceedings respecting the celebrated Cambridge Platform, the General Court declared that they could not see light to impose any forms, as a binding rule, but gave their testimony to it.

The Antinomian controversy was not merely a difference of opinion upon a speculative doctrinal question, but an open attack upon what was regarded as sound doctrine, in such a manner as 1 Hutch. Coll. Papers, p. 379.