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NEVER WERE LNTOLERANT. 159
did not interfere with the established Episcopalian church throughout its
long supremacy, in enacting and enforcing persecuting laws, it is difficult to
understand how—being granted, as we have stated, to a Catholic for a Catholic
settlement—it could have prevented those Catholics from such legislation as
would have kept out of the province men, who, when they had found there
an asylum from the persecution of their fellow Protestants and become
sufficiently numerous, turned upon the Catholic settlers, disfranchised and
persecuted them.
It is clear that the Catholics had the power to pass these exclusive laws
under the charter: would they have been permitted to do so by the government at home, if they had been disposed ? This is in fact, the only point.
But they who make this point, when they look at the history of that period,
should blush for doing so. It admits neccessarily, that the early Catholic
settlers of Maryland were in fact tolerant and liberal; and, while it attempts
to rob them of every honor for being so, takes away the necessity of dwelling
upon the second point before alluded to. Now as the Catholics or first
settlers Q>C Maryland never were intolerant or persecutors, we can
only judge of what would have been the consequences to them from
such acts, by the consequences that befel other denominations in the
English colonies who really did persecute, when they were no more
supreme in England and had less favor from the government than
the Catholics. We demand that each colony be judged by its own
acts without any reference to the imaginary wishes of the parent
government; and we do this the more earnestly because we know that whenever it suits the purpose of certain writers they will make the state of the
British government and the British king, during the early part of the seventeenth century, the means and the motive for conduct exactly opposite to that
imputed to the respective Catholic and Protestant colonies. It is just to all
parties to allow to each that amount of credit for motives which is fairly
deducible from their acts; and if in a period of much religious intolerance a
colony hedges itself about with edicts of the most persecuting character, and
inflicts penalties, pains and death on those whose views of Christian requirements differ from those of the majority, it is but just to suppose that they
left the parent country with no disrelish for intolerance in itself, but only as
it affected their non-conformity; and it is no less fair to believe that a colony
which leaving an intolerant country, gives freedom to religious creeds and
makes it criminal to interfere with the differences of men's belief, nay, that
not only admits to equality all that are within its borders, but invites to
itself, as to an asylum for the oppressed, the sufferers in other colonies—it is
fair, we say, to conclude that such a colony has in itself a better appreciation
of human rights and Christian freedom than exists among its intolerant
neighbors.
It is undeniable that James and his successor, Charles, hated the Puritans even more than they feared them; for they opposed the government
| Title | History of Maryland - 1 |
| Creator | Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas) |
| Publisher | J. B. Piet |
| Place of Publication | Baltimore |
| Date | 1879 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000184 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | NEVER WERE LNTOLERANT. 159 did not interfere with the established Episcopalian church throughout its long supremacy, in enacting and enforcing persecuting laws, it is difficult to understand how—being granted, as we have stated, to a Catholic for a Catholic settlement—it could have prevented those Catholics from such legislation as would have kept out of the province men, who, when they had found there an asylum from the persecution of their fellow Protestants and become sufficiently numerous, turned upon the Catholic settlers, disfranchised and persecuted them. It is clear that the Catholics had the power to pass these exclusive laws under the charter: would they have been permitted to do so by the government at home, if they had been disposed ? This is in fact, the only point. But they who make this point, when they look at the history of that period, should blush for doing so. It admits neccessarily, that the early Catholic settlers of Maryland were in fact tolerant and liberal; and, while it attempts to rob them of every honor for being so, takes away the necessity of dwelling upon the second point before alluded to. Now as the Catholics or first settlers Q>C Maryland never were intolerant or persecutors, we can only judge of what would have been the consequences to them from such acts, by the consequences that befel other denominations in the English colonies who really did persecute, when they were no more supreme in England and had less favor from the government than the Catholics. We demand that each colony be judged by its own acts without any reference to the imaginary wishes of the parent government; and we do this the more earnestly because we know that whenever it suits the purpose of certain writers they will make the state of the British government and the British king, during the early part of the seventeenth century, the means and the motive for conduct exactly opposite to that imputed to the respective Catholic and Protestant colonies. It is just to all parties to allow to each that amount of credit for motives which is fairly deducible from their acts; and if in a period of much religious intolerance a colony hedges itself about with edicts of the most persecuting character, and inflicts penalties, pains and death on those whose views of Christian requirements differ from those of the majority, it is but just to suppose that they left the parent country with no disrelish for intolerance in itself, but only as it affected their non-conformity; and it is no less fair to believe that a colony which leaving an intolerant country, gives freedom to religious creeds and makes it criminal to interfere with the differences of men's belief, nay, that not only admits to equality all that are within its borders, but invites to itself, as to an asylum for the oppressed, the sufferers in other colonies—it is fair, we say, to conclude that such a colony has in itself a better appreciation of human rights and Christian freedom than exists among its intolerant neighbors. It is undeniable that James and his successor, Charles, hated the Puritans even more than they feared them; for they opposed the government |
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