Prelude to Article VI: The Ordeal of

Religious Test Oaths in Pennsylvania

Stephen A. Smith

University of Arkansas

The renewed e mphasis on a jurisprudence of original intent, combined with the wide acceptance of Leonard Levy's thesis that the Framer's of the First Amendment intended only to enshrine Blackstone's view of freedom of the press, presents a considerable challenge for c ommunication scholars who recognize the value of freedom of expression to the cultural and political life of the nation and to the very relevance of our discipline. Levy has, of course, been challenged by more recent scholarship, and Richard Parker has e xposed the flaws of consensus theories that are grounded in a single view of the Framers regarding the extent of protected expression.1 While I agree with Parker that it would be difficult to reconstruct the views of all the Framers, that not all of them held fully developed opinions, and that those who ventured to define their intentions regarding the First Amendment did not always agree, I do not find original intent fully discredited as means of constitutional interpretation nor do I think historical scholarship in the area either futile or irrelevant.

To better understand the Framers' intent regarding the meaning of various Constitutional provisions, Robert Bork has suggested that scholars and judges can supplement documentary narratives by also s eeking "enlightenment from the structure of the document and the government it created."2 Such a view is not unlike Kenneth Burke's argument that critics seeking to interpret constitutions should be aware of "the Constitution-Behind-the-Constitution."3 Influenced by Burke's work, James Boyd White urged that interpretation of original intent must be guided "with an eye to purpose and structure and value, not to particular terms and details."4 For the Framers, this purpose-structure-value cluster, the co nstitution behind the Constitution, was the prevailing republican political theory that had served as the intellectual paradigm for the revolution and that shaped their views of the emerging republic.

In this essay, I ground my analysis on the proposit ion that the original intent of the First Amendment can be illuminated by explicating the premises of republican political theory that guided the Framers and by examining the communication values embedded in various clauses of the original Constitution. Such a textual examination reveals an implicit republican theory of political communication that can inform our understanding of intent. I have argued elsewhere, for example, that the journals, post office, and copyright clauses of the document reflect t he Framers' encouragement for and promotion of the exchange of political information and ideas as necessary to a functional republican form of government.5 Likewise, the protection of ideas, for the diversity of political opinions and policy options nece ssary for wise choices in a republic, is advanced by such constitutional provisions as the speech and debate clause of Article I, the narrowed definition of treason in Article III, and the prohibition on religious test oaths contained in Article VI.

To better illustrate my argument, I will address the background and origins of the religious test oath controversy in revolutionary Pennsylvania, probe the relationship between the provision and republican theory, and show how this approach can improve our understanding of original intent in Article VI and, ultimately, in First Amendment theory. The Bicentennial of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights has led to renewed attention upon the meaning of almost every clause of the document. Sc holars have devoted such scant attention to the origins of the religious test oath prohibition in Article VI, however, that one scholar called it the "Forgotten Article,"6 and much of what has been written has merely repeated the commonplaces of earlier s cholarship. The ever-growing body of literature on freedom of religion has concentrated almost exclusively on the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.7

Nonetheless, the prohibition on religious test oaths for public officer s has been called "perhaps the wisest of all the things done by the Constitutional Convention," and praised for having "not only removed the basis for any preferential treatment of one religion over another for holding public office, but [because it] also denied the right of any preferential status of religion over nonreligion in matters of one's political participation in the life of the Republic."8 Leonard Levy suggested that Article VI was an "implied ban against an establishment of religion," and Alb ert J. Menendez contended that the provision ultimately "paved the way for the First Amendment."9

At the beginning of the American Revolution, every Western nation-state had an officially-established religion. Nine of the 13 American colonies granted some preference or support for a particular denomination, and all officially limited public office to Protestant Christians.10 However, when the new nation sought to draft a national constitution codifying the republican principles secured by the Revolu tion, Charles Pinckney argued that "the prevention of Religious Tests, as qualifications to Offices of Trust or Emolument . . . [is] a provision the world will expect from you, in the establishment of a System founded on Republican Principles, and in an a ge so liberal and enlightened as the present."11

The records of the Federal Convention provide little evidence for scholars wishing to go beyond "the meaning of the words" and understand the intent of the framers in adding such a bold provision. The official journal of the convention reveals only that "It was moved and seconded to add the following clause to the 20 Article. 'But no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the authority of the Unite d States' which passed unan: in the affirmative".12 Madison's notes indicate that the motion was offered by Charles Pinckney, that Sherman "thought it unnecessary" under the prevailing liberality, and that Gouverneur Morris and General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney supported the amendment.13 Although Madison does not record that he spoke to the motion, he certainly favored the provision and had earlier warned against the dangers of the British precedents in allowing oaths and qualifications for electors a nd officers to advance the interests of religious parties.14

Luther Martin, after the fact, observed that the test oath prohibition "was adopted by a great majority of the convention, and without much debate . . . ." He did suggest, though, that "the re were some members so unfashionable as to think, that a belief of the existence of a Deity, and of a state of future rewards and punishments would be some security for the good conduct of our rulers," addressing the solemnity of the official oaths. How ever, Martin also gave voice to other concerns, and added, "that, in a Christian country, it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism."1

The debates in the Connect icut, Massachusetts and North Carolina ratifying conventions provide considerable evidence of the prevailing sentiments against Martin's views in 1787-1788, but his arguments continue to resonate in contemporary political discourse. The Bicentennial of t he Bill of Rights is an especially appropriate timeÑa time when Judge Bork is demanding interpretative reliance solely upon the intent of the framers, and Chief Justice Rehnquist is calling Jefferson's "wall of separation" an erroneous and unfortunate met aphorÑfor reflection on the origins of Article VI. In this essay, I hope to illuminate both the historical controversy and the contemporary debate by examining the antecedent arguments that led to the Constitution's prohibition on religious test oaths as a condition for political participation.

The experience in Pennsylvania provides an excellent paradigm for understanding the conflicting rhetoric of rights in the state constitution-making process as philosophy and history stumbled toward a new praxis . As Gordon Wood noted, Pennsylvania's experience is particularly informative, because it "telescoped into several months' time changes in ideas that in other states often took years to work out and became in effect a laboratory for the developing of l ines of radical Whig thought that elsewhere in 1776 remained generally rudimentary and diffuse."2

Pennsylvania's confrontation over religious test oaths for public officials was the first to occupy the realm of public argument, and the controversy rega rding the oath can be examined almost in isolation. As Thomas Curry observed, "the only significant Church-State issue to arise in the new state was whether government should be limited to Christians."3 Moreover, the arguments regarding religious test o aths were fully developed and clearly articulated, providing unusual insight into both the prevailing thought at the time of the revolution and the dramatic extent to which the public discourse changed between 1776 and 1787.4

First, I will review the o rigins of religious toleration and the manifestations of religious tests in colonial Pennsylvania. Second, I will examine in detail the arguments advanced for and against the religious oaths required of delegates to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Conven tion of 1776 and of officers of the Commonwealth under that constitution. Specifically, I will focus upon the bitter rhetorical confrontations over these oath provisions, symbolic battles that undermined the cohesion of the revolutionary cadre and, ultim ately, the stability of the new state government.5 Within these debates, the first and most important of such struggles, can be seen the birthing pains of Article VI and the embryonic arguments that would eventually secure a national prohibition on relig ious tests in the United States Constitution. Third, I will briefly discuss the consequent changes in arguments and attitudes in both Pennsylvania and the new nation with a view to understanding why the vigorous demands and loud opposition of 1776 were r eplaced in 1787 by near unanimous agreement in support of abolishing religious test oaths as a condition of full citizenship and political participation.

Colonial Antecedents

Pennsylvania was by Penn's design the most tolerant and was, consequently, the most religiously diverse of the American colonies. Although the Quakers dominated the government, there was no tax support for any one denomination nor for religion generally. Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Moravians were active in public worship and public life. St. Joseph's, the only active Catholic Church in the British Empire, was established in Philadelphia in 1733, and Congregation Mikveh Israel, organized in 1740, established its first synagogue in 1771. Perh aps most representative of the reputed religious climate was the non-denominational Whitefield Meeting House, erected in 1740. Here, Franklin boasted, was a house "for the Use of any Preacher of any religious Persuasion who might desire to say something to the People of Philadelphia; . . . so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a Missionary to preach Mohametanism to us, he would find a Pulpit at his Service."6

James Madison, returning to Virginia after study under John Witherspoon a t Princeton and having spent time in Philadelphia, was impressed with the extent of religious liberty in Pennsylvania. He wrote to William Bradford in 1773 asking for a copy of the charter-constitution and the "fundamental principles of Legislation; part icularly the extent of your religious Toleration." Madison then asked Bradford two important questions with which he was already concerned at age 22. "Is an Ecclesiastical Establishment absolutely necessary to support civil society in a supream Governme nt? & how far is it hurtful to a dependant State?"7 The following year Madison had the opportunity to reflect upon an attempt to extend a degree of toleration to the Baptists and Presbyterians in Virginia. He remarked to his college friend, "That libera l catholic and equitable way of thinking as to the rights of Conscience, which is one of the Characteristics of a free people and so strongly marks the People of your province is but little known among the Zealous adherents to our Hierarchy." Bradford wa s fortunate, he wrote, "in dwelling in a Land where those inestimable privileges are fully enjoyed and [the] public has long felt the good effects of their religious as well as Civil Liberty."8

Jefferson, too, was impressed and commented that Pennsylva nia (and New York) had flourished without religious establishments and that there social harmony was unparalleled. He attributed such fortune to their "unbounded tolerance, because there is no other circumstance in which they differ from every nation on earth. They have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them."9

Most historians of religious freedom in colonial Pennsylvania seem unaware or unconcerned that the government's compelling a presc ribed confession of belief as a condition for political participation is no less onerous than the same government's prohibiting expression of different views or extracting revenues to advance a particular view of religion.10 Religious pluralism and volunt ary support of the clergy are important elements of religious liberty, but those alone do not constitute complete religious freedom. Regimes which impose religious tests as a condition for entering certain professions, attending universities, exercising the electoral franchise, and holding public offices or employment cannot claim that their citizens possess freedom of conscience. In fact, the requirement of a religious test oath infringes upon both political and religious liberty.11

The Anglo-Americ an tradition of requiring religious test oaths from officers of the government dates at least from the 1558 Act of Supremacy, and the extension to members of the House of Commons came in 1562, well over a hundred years before William Penn carried the idea to Pennsylvania and sold it to the freeholders at Chester.12 Despite its historic reputation for tolerance of various religious denominations and an absence of state-established religion, Pennsylvania has a long history of restricting political rights m ore narrowly than civil rights.13

Among the Laws Agreed Upon in England by William Penn in 1682, was the requirement "That all . . . Members elected to serve in the provincial Council and General Assembly, and all that have right to elect such Members, shall be such as possess faith in Jesus Christ . . . ."14 The Frame of Government adopted in 1696 under Governor Fletcher was even more restrictive, requiring the much more specific doctrinal professions of the Toleration Act, 1 W.&M. c. 18 (1689), and these restrictions were continued by an act of the Provincial Assembly in 1705 requiring all officers to swear that

we and each of us do solemnly and sincerely profess and testify that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is no transubstantia tion of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint, and the sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.

And we and each of us for himself do solemnly profess, testify, and declare that we do make this declaration in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read to us, as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever, and without any dispensation already granted for this purpose by the Pope or any other authority whatsoever; and without any hope of any such dispensa tion from any such person or authority whatsoever, or thinking that we are or can be acquitted before God or man or absolved of this Declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope should dispense with or annul the same, or declare that it was null and void from the beginning.

And we the said subscribers, and each of us for himself, do solemnly and sincerely profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his Eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for evermore. And we do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures to be given by Divine inspiration.15

The political climate in Britain, of course, made the events leading to these changes quite complex, and as Sally Schwartz noted, "It is unclear why Penn did not object to the 1 705/6 law establishing religious qualifications for both settlers and officials that, if enforced, could have severely circumscribed freedom of conscience." Two possible explanations, she said, were that Penn might have acquiesced to reduce the public pe rception that Quakers were not Christians and that "he feared that he would again lose the colony if it did not conform in law to some of the boundaries of English toleration."16

This history suggests that the concept of religious tolerance in Pennsyl vania until the eve of the revolution conformed in some respects to the philosophical bounds of John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration, which would allow most civil rights to all except Catholics and Moslems (on grounds of political allegiance to a foreign power) and atheists (because, he said, "Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist").17 The practice in Pennsylvania would allow more freedom for Catholics and less for Jews than would L ocke's scheme, but both were more inclusive than British law. The inherent conflict between the concept of religious freedomÑin the sense that freedom of conscience was a natural right unalienable to the civil powerÑand the practice of religious test oat hs for public officers, however, was less clearly considered, understood, or articulated. Perhaps the political and jurisprudential limits were those sanctioned by Blackstone, who explained the utility of test oaths "[i]n order the better to secure the e stablished church against perils from nonconformists of all denominations, infidels, Turks, Jews, heretics, papists, and sectaries."18

In the view of Charles J. Stille, the history of religious oaths required for all public officials from 1693 to 1775 undermined the perception "that Pennsylvania during the Provincial period was the classic land of religious liberty" and "presents a very different picture of the condition of things here from that which has been generally accepted or given us by writers on Pennsylvania history."19 Moreover, he said, these restrictions "were adopted without discussion or opposition," and he further noted that he was unable to discover a single instance in any petition of the Provincial Assembly or the Continental Congr ess "the slightest complaint against the policy of confining the full enjoyment of civil rights to persons of one religious creed."20 Other writers have argued that the perception of Pennsylvania as "the chosen home of religious liberty is very far from the truth," and that, in fact, Pennsylvania "entered the revolutionary period with a restrictive legislation unsurpassed by that of any other. . . . [S]o far as terms of law make definitions, there was less liberty in Pennsylvania than in theocratic Massa chusetts and conforming Virginia."21

In Pennsylvania, without one established church, Protestant Trinitarian Christianity became the object of political protection in the test oaths required of all members of the Assembly. While the majority of Pennsy lvania citizens might not have had occasion to question or defend such a thesis, the ideological forces swirling in the revolution would soon lead to a confrontation over the political test oaths and lay bare the essential connection among such requiremen ts, the nature of individual rights, the source of power, the ends of government, and the scope of freedom of conscience in republican governments. The debate would engage the issues squarely and serve as a clear prelude to the freedom of thought and ide as protected by Article VI and Amendment I of the United States Constitution.

The Provincial Conference

The political revolution in Pennsylvania formally began with the convening of the Provincial Conference that met June 18-25, 1776, to declare the Provincial Assembly to be without authority and to call a Constitutional Convention to frame a new government. Pennsylvania had been led to this point by a group of pro-independence radicals in PhiladelphiaÑamong the most active of whom were Thomas Pai ne, Thomas Young, James Cannon, Benjamin Rush, Christopher Marshall, and Timothy MatlackÑwho worked closely with Thomas McKean, Sam Adams, and John Adams in the Congress to shape events and assure that Pennsylvania would support independence. Now McKean, Rush, and Marshall were delegates to the Provincial Conference, with McKean serving as president.

While the Conference achieved its main objectives, the issue of the required religious oath for delegates to the Constitutional Convention pitted Marshal l and Rush in a heated debate that was only the first skirmish in a battle that would continue to divide the state's leadership for the next decade. The Conference, on June 21, adopted an oath for Convention delegates that read, "I, A.B., profess faith i n God the Father, and in Jesus Christ his Eternal Son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for evermore, and I acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration."22 While this was essentially the last section of the oath that had been transported from 17th Century Britain to Provincial Pennsylvania and was less specific than that formerly applied, it nonetheless created concern for those committed to working their way through emerging republi can principles and led to "a very warm debate."23

Although the record is silent on the point, it appears that McKean, out of the chair during discussions in committee of the whole, was one of the measure's proponents and possibly its author and mover. When the Delaware Constitutional Convention met in September, 1776, McKean served as a Delegate and exhibited considerable leadership on behalf of those who would enforce religious exclusion by law. The Convention began on August 30 and adopted an oath that required members of the convention to declare, "I, A.B., do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God blessed for evermore." When McKean arrived at the convention on September 6, he moved and secured approval for expanding the oath by adding, "And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration."24 On September 7, McKean was named to the committee to prepare a Declaration of Rights, and he c laimed to have been primarily responsible for that draft.25 The Delaware Declaration of Rights is based upon the Pennsylvania proposal (which had been published in draft for comment in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on August 20 before McKean left Philade lphia), but it is more restrictive in limiting equal enjoyment of civil rights to "all Persons professing the Christian Religion."

The religious oath that the Delaware Convention had required for itself was adopted on September 18 as Article 22 and req uired of every public official. On September 19th, McKean tried unsuccessfully to strike a provision in Article 29 that barred members of the clergy from holding any public office.26 McKean appears from this record to have been less interested in protec ting individual freedom of conscience than in promoting and protecting the Christian religion through various civil provisions. His lead on the religious test oath in Delaware suggests a similar leadership role earlier in the Pennsylvania Conference and later as an outside influence on the Pennsylvania Convention.

Marshall, writing shortly after the Pennsylvania Provincial Conference adopted the test oath, indicated that his friend, Benjamin Rush, was the "chief and zealous opposer of this motion." R ush, he said,

gave it was his Judgement that as we were now forming a Provincial Convention for the express purpose of forming a New Government in this province, on the Authority of the People, no man whose morals were good by walking uprightly among st his neighbours should be exempted because he could not take that Declaration, as there were numbers of that Class. That good men who did not believe in the Divinity of the Son of God (and altho' he said I am not one of that class). That I am bold to declare as my belief "how that there was better, more substantial, and upright laws enacted for the government of the moral world and more faithfully executed between man & man before the coming of Christ in the flesh than has been ever since."27

Marsh all said he rebutted Rush's remarks, granting that he may well be a Christian, but, with regard to the claim of better laws before Christ, said, "I then let him know that I would [meet him] at any time on that ground in order to show the weakness & absurd ity of his arguments." The motion to require the test, said Marshall, carried, "having but two or three dissenting votes."28

While Marshall had won the fight for inclusion of the religious test for constitutional delegates, it was a victory gained at the expense of unity among the radical leadership. Besides his debate with Rush, on June 28 he had a serious confrontation with James Cannon over his role in supporting the religious test. Marshall noted in his diary that evening that the oath was "high ly censured, and as it's represented, and not unjustly, that I strenuously supported it, I am blamed and buffeted and extremely maltreated by sundry of my friends, as I thought, and who, I believed, were really religious persons and loved our Lord Jesus C hrist, but now declare that no such Belief or Confession is necessary, in forming the new government. But their behavior don't affect me, so as to alter my judgement in looking upon such a Confession to be necessary and convenient."29

The arguments th at Cannon had urged against the test oath and those who had favored and required it were more fully explained in a letter which Marshall, obviously upset with their disagreement, sent to Cannon three days later. Cannon had "passionately" attacked the pro ponents in the Conference and "called them fools, blockheads, self righteous, and zealous bigots, with a deal more of acrimony and ill-natured discourse &c. declaiming it was only done with a manifest view and tendency to keep some of the most best and va luable men out of government . . . ." Perhaps, here, Cannon thought that their political allies, such as Paine and Young, would not take the oath, but Marshall was more concerned with requiring professions of strict religious scruples from public officia ls than in political cohesion or principle. He found Cannon's remarks "to be in contempt of the best and most glorious laws and lawgiver that ever was," and, as far as the new government was concerned, Marshall said, "it was, and is, my best Judgement th at no person who could not freely subscribe unto [the oath] should not have any thing to do in the Modeling of it. This only brought upon me," he protested, "very severe and harsh censure, bitter invectives, and unjust caluminies."30

In the three week s between the Provincial Conference and the convening of the Constitutional Convention, despite the obvious interpersonal tensions and disagreements, only one discussion of the religious test oaths appeared in the public prints. An anonymous pamphlet pub lished on July 8 in anticipation of the Convention meeting on July 15 offered observations "for the perusal of the gentlemen concerned in the arduous task of forming a constitution." The writer, in this influential tract, contended, "Nothing can be more evident, than the mischief that has ever followed the requisition of a declaration of faith in doctrines acknowledged to be above human comprehension as a qualification for any civil trust."31 It was an argument that was to be engaged again when the conv ention met to distill a text from the ideas of the day.

The Constitutional Convention

The convention organized on July 15, and on July 16 the delegates took and subscribed the oath of office and profession of faith that had been prescribed by the Pro vincial Conference.32 The Declaration of Rights, debated between July 25 and August 16, contained a strong provision on religious freedomÑassuring free exercise and prohibiting establishmentÑwhich clearly exceeded that recently adopted in Virginia and pr esented a well developed explanation of the concept, far in advance of that prevailing in Great Britain and sanctioned by Blackstone at the time. Section Two provided:

That all men have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God, accord ing to the dictates of their own consciences and understanding, and that no man ought, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any ministry, contrary to, or against his own free w ill and consent; nor can any man be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of his religious sentiments, or peculiar mode of religious worship; and that no authority can, or ought to be vested in, or assumed by any power wh atever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner controul the right of conscience in the free exercise of religious worship. [Emphasis added]33

On August 19, the same committee which had drafted the Declaration of Rights presented a draf t of a Frame of Government. While this draft does not survive, it probably contained the relatively simple oath requiring only belief in one God as in the draft published for consideration of the members and for the public on September 10. On September 5, it appears that a motion was made to change the profession of faith required of public officials to conform to that which the delegates themselves had taken, professing belief in the Trinity and divine inspiration of the scriptures. The Journal of the Convention notes only that the draft was debated in committee of the whole, a report was adopted, and four hundred copies of the revised report were to be printed for public consideration.34

Christopher Marshall noted in his diary that a motion had be en made in convention that day to amend the oath to include a belief in the Christian religion and the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments, "which after a long debate was rejected by a majority of the votes (in which number were Robt. Whitehi ll & James Cannon) who asserted that a belief in one God should be sufficient profession: (farewell Christianity when Turks, Jews, infidels, & what is worse Deists and Atheists are to make laws for our State)."35 In a letter to a friend a few days later , Marshall despaired that Cannon, who "for all the understanding of which he has been blest with a large share, yet those cunning artful Sophisters the Deists have catched him by guile and induced him so far as his words gave his heart the Lye." Cannon, he said, had lived a "humble Christian life some years past" but now Christ's name was one "he would not have mentioned by any means in the plann of our new government."36

Marshall, it seems, was unable to appreciate the republican distinction between private religious opinion and the appropriate sphere of civil government that was emerging among Cannon, Whitehill, and the other more democratic leaders of the revolution. As Sally Schwartz concluded, their actions in the convention indicated "that many Pennsylvanians had come to believe that liberty of conscience was to be valued; that even a token uniformity of religion was no longer considered essential to a stable government; and that some men believed that one's faith was a private matter and had n othing at all to do with public affairs."37

The draft Frame that was ordered printed at that time contains two interesting provisions that demonstrate significant advances in the concept of religious liberty. First, the Declaration required of members of the House of Representatives read, "I do believe in one God the Creator and Governor of the Universe."38 Section 41 of the draft also contained a provision that also indicated a change in one ancient relationship between church and state, declaring, "No man, or set of men of any denomination or profession, are intitled to particular privileges or exemptions from punishment for offenses; therefore the words 'without Benefit of Clergy,' where the punishment is death, ought to be hereafter disused in Le gislation, and the punishment inflicted shall be that directed by Law."39

The publication and circulation of the draft Frame on September 10 led to a resumption of the debates on the appropriateness of religious test oaths for officers in a republican government. On September 12, the oath was praised as adequate and appropriate by "Sat Verbum," but within the week, "Demophilus" suggested that "the candidate for office should declare his belief in the retributive justice of the Supreme Governor of the universe; for otherwise we have no religious hold upon him." The intent here was to assure the solemnity of the oath with regard to the ultimate punishment for perjury, rather than to limit officeholding to particular religious sects; for, as "Demophilus " reasoned, "The sublime mysteries of the Christian faith . . . [were] above the reach of human reason, [and] . . . we have no evidence that the time is yet come when the Saints alone . . . shall rule the world."40 Rev. Henry Muhlenberg seemed disappoint ed when he noted, "The draft was posted and the public had only a few days to judge and comment upon it. A few approved and praised the plan in the newspapers and merely observed that there might be added to it that the members of the new government shou ld also acknowledge that God was a rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked; otherwise there was silence in the public prints."41

Rev. William Smith contacted Muhlenberg on September 16 and expressed serious concerns about the proposed constitu tion's provisions on religious liberty and the oath of office. Specifically, they discussed "that the Christian religion is paid scant or no respect, but is rather considered an indifferent, arbitrary matter" in the document and that the oath allowed an official to "be sufficiently qualified if he merely acknowledges by word of mouth a Supreme Being as the creator and upholder of all things." The provision for general religious liberty in the Declaration of Rights was also found deficient, because "ever y religious party and persuasion shall, without distinction, have equal freedom to believe and teach what it pleases according to its so-called conscience."42 Obviously, the Anglican Smith and the Lutheran Muhlenberg wanted a more specific endorsement of Christianity.

At a meeting of Philadelphia ministers on September 16, arranged by William Smith and attended by Francis Alison, Jacob Duche, and Henry Muhlenberg, several aspects of the draft were examined and discussed. Muhlenberg objected to the pr oposed religious test oath as too lenient and told the group "that it now seems as if a Christian people were ruled by Jews, Turks, Spinozists, Deists, perverted naturalists. They were learned pillars and would have much to answer for if they were now si lent." Alison, however, responded that "it was of no consequence and that it would be sufficient if the officials would only give testimony to the Supreme Being as creator and preserver of all things."43

Alison's comments reflected his consistent posi tion on the relationship between conscience and civil government, derived from the writings of his teacher and friend Francis Hutcheson.44 In his own "Lectures on Moral Philosophy" at the College of Philadelphia, Alison specifically addressed the scope o f oaths within a framework of natural rights. "It is vain to desire others to swear by what they don't believe invested with divine Power; Yet some Forms of Oaths are supposed to be valid, without expressing the name of God, when the Swearer names someth ing that is dear or necessary," he told his students. "Persons of the most different Religions may agree in some general Description, or Titles of the Deity, & these should be used, when Persons of different Religions are required to swear."45 That seem ed to be the approach taken in the first draft of the new Frame of Government, and it seems worth noting that both Cannon and Whitehill were former students of Alison and that the three were in frequent communication during this period of the convention.4 6

On the point of the religious test oath, Smith, Alison, and Duche "waxed warm and finally decided that they would publish their observations anonymously."47 At the same meeting, Smith proposed an amendment to the constitution to protect the existing corporate charters of the churches and schools, and a larger group met on the September 17 to plan a strategy for securing adoption of this language. The group presented their amendment to Franklin on September 18, and he secured its adoption to ¤47 of the draft (¤45 in the final version of the constitution).48

Christopher Marshall continued to be upset at the conduct of his former friends, criticizing the weak test oath, until Whitehill pointedly told him on September 19 that the Convention was form ing a republican government and not a Christian State.49 On September 21, however, Thomas McKean returned from the Delaware convention to Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania delegates were soon to reconsider the language of the proposed religious professi on. On September 24, the day before the Convention reconsidered the oaths, a letter signed "R" appeared in the press demanding an oath declaring belief in the Old and New Testaments, lest "Jews and Turks may become in time not only our greatest landholde rs, but principal officers."50

"A Follower of Christ" vigorously attacked the lack of a Christian test oath in the proposed Frame (as published on September 10) and developed the rationale against the innovation. First, the argument went, the simple oath to qualify members of the House "is . . . abrogating the rights and liberties of the people, and not enlarging them, as some may imagine." Second, removal of the Christian oath requirement for public officials, which had prevailed since Penn's first in 1682, would remove the "bar against professed Deists, Jews, Mahomedans, and other enemies of Christ" and would be "a firmer establishment for Antichrist, and all damnable errors, than the Quebec bill for Popery." Third, when the states of Europe see that "Jews, Turks, and Heathens" can serve in the government and that the text "mentions not a word of the bible, Christ or the Christian religion", Pennsylvania will not be treated as "a Christian State." Fourth, the writer, loathing "to reflect on the wisdom and religion of the framers of this scheme," called upon the local ministers who still believed in Christian doctrine to "speak NOW in support of it, and to remind the members of the Convention, that they now ought to give a testimony to their Chri stianity, and secure to the people of Pennsylvania that inestimable blessing of the gospel of Christ." Finally, the author despaired, "If blasphemers of Christ and the holy blessed Trinity, despisers of Revelation and the holy bible, may be Legislators, Judges, Counsellors and Presidents in Pennsylvania, Wo unto the city! Wo unto the land."51

On September 25, the oaths were again considered by the convention, and this time they were amended.52 Although the Journal is of little help, the textual chan ges from the draft of September 5 to the final version approved on September 28 show several results of the efforts to strengthen the role of religious beliefs in the document. The section on "Benefit of Clergy" was dropped completely from the constituti on, and Article Two of the Declaration of Rights was amended by limiting full protection of civil rights only to those who acknowledged "the being of a God."53 In addition, two important changes were made in the religious test oath. The oath now read, " I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration." Also added, however, was a provis ion that "no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this state," providing the basis for the language that would eventually be adapted by Charles Pinckney and proposed in the Federal Conventi on in 1787.54

Franklin fought against the revisions that were added on September 25, and he has claimed credit for securing the prohibition on additional tests. He later explained to Joseph Priestly that he "thought the clause in our constitution, whi ch required the members of Assembly to declare their belief, that the whole of it was given by divine inspiration, had better been omitted. That I had opposed the clause; but, being overpowered by numbers, and fearing more might in future times be grafte d on it, I prevailed to have the additional clause, 'that no further or more extended profession of faith should ever be extracted.'"55

Christopher Marshall again provided insight to the process regarding the amendments and the "long and tedious debate s" in which he understood that the members from Philadelphia were the strongest in opposing any changes in the oath and to including any mention of Christ. Even the additional language did not satisfy him, because the exclusion of Jesus' name was, he sai d, "to the lasting stain and infamy of all those who were the authors & cause of it, and the want of it . . . will be a perpetual badge of infamy." Repeating his earlier fears that had not been quieted by the revisions, he was upset that the oath would s till be "opening a wide door for Arianism, Atheism, Deism, Jewism, Mohometism, and indeed Infidelity with all its cursed train . . . ."56

The rising of the Convention and publication of the Constitution did not end the debate on the religious test oath . In fact, it seemed to intensify as the supporters and opponents clashed over principles and power, and the first month of the fight went to those who opposed the lenient oath and the democratic constitution. Rev. Henry Muhlenberg continued to criticiz e the loose oath that, combined with other individual freedoms protected in the constitution, he saw as dangerous. "If you only acknowledge a Superior Being with the mouth, you may assist in the government, moreover, you may deride, calumniate the enthus iasm and the old fashioned ideas concerning the Bible, a Savior of the world, the Spirit, and because the printing presses are to be free, place them on public exhibition and lead them in triumph."57

When Muhlenberg examined the final copy of the const itution, he was pleased that the ministerial efforts had secured the corporate protection for their institutions, but he was still upset by the religious test oath, even after the additional language. "Very well, you smart chief-fabricators with your ref ined taste, you have acted very cleverly in allowing nothing concerning a Savior of the world and His religion to slip in," he complained in his diary. "Your ingenious edifice is founded on quicksand and will not survive many stormy winds and rains. You r heathen morality has putrid sources and your wild and tainted flesh abhors the salt of Christian morality."58

On October 15, a satirical dialogue between Orator Puff and Peter Easy alleged that the convention had "passed such strongly implied censure s of contempt on our holy religion, and weakened the securities of it by law established," and praised the old oath, which "was a clear, direct, 'profession of the Christian faith.' It admitted of no gloss or equivocation." The writer feared, and rightl y so, that constitutional forms and successful administration might lead the people to believe that civil government could function quite well without being wedded to religion. Orator Puff then provided a detailed rendering of the Christian opposition to the new oaths:

Thou knowest that this country is chiefly inhabited by Christians, and that heretofore no person could be a member of our Assembly, unless he was a Christian, and indeed a Protestant too, I believe. WellÑwhen our statesmen were consi dering this point . . . they found that no man could be a member unless he solemnly "professed his faith" in that religion, mentioning particularly the distinguishing articles thereof, they thought that religion was not simple enough for a commonwealth wi th one legislative body only, and that members of Assembly and other officers of the state ought not to be hoppled with that old fashioned creed of believing in the "Three that bear record in heaven," and therefore, by the tenth section of the plan first published, members were only to declare in these words, "I do believe in one God the Creator and Governor of the Universe." But this section caused so much noise, that in the frame that is now settled, the expression has been a little altered. However, our leaders have been too cunning for the narrow minded people who made the racket; for they have only added the words ÒÑthe rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scripture of the Old and New testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.Ó Now to comprehend the ingenuity of this management . . . in the first place observe, that the Convention has not in any part of the frame ordered any officer whatever to make even this slight declaration, except members of Assembl y; but have only carefully provided, that "no farther or other religious test, shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this state." Secondly, the word "holy" which, in the former qualification by the laws of Pennsylvania, w as put next before the word "Scriptures" is omitted in this new frame. Thirdly, the other words in the former qualifications described briefly the Christian belief, and "professing faith" therein, are also left out of this frame, and only the foregoing a cknowledgement, without any "profession of faith," is put instead, which leaves people, who do not believe the Christian religion, to put what construction they please on that "acknowledgement." . . . Fourthly, this point is made clearly to be the intenti on of the Convention, because in the second section of the "Declaration of Rights," it is expressly asserted, that "no man, who acknowledges the Supreme Being, can be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen . . . on account of his reli gious sentiments or peculiar mode of religious worship." Thus . . . Deism is made the established religion of Pennsylvania, without a single syllable being mentioned throughout the whole, of the Christian religion, but on the contrary all the art used, w hich our leaders, bold as they are, dared to employ, to throw a slight and contempt upon it; and now Deists, Jews, Mohometans, and Indians, by putting their own gloss or equivocation on the foregoing "acknowledgement," may hold the first offices of profit and trust in our free and blessed state.59

The satire was followed on October 16 by another narrow religious attack on the framers asking, "Were the members of the Convention, Christians?" Unconcerned with political theory or the relationship between freedom of thought and republican ideology, "In Hoc Signo Vinces," said the time honored religious test had been "mangled" so that "those who do not believe the Christian religion may avail themselves of some such evasion or equivocation" as might be ne cessary to assume the state's highest offices. Charging that "the design of this attack on our religion was to lessen our reverence for it," the writer asked whether "any State on this continent . . . has treated the Christian religion with so much conte mpt as our convention has done?"60

While the above critics of the oath were concerned primarily with the effect of the new constitution on the continued dominance of their versions of protestant Christianity in the new commonwealth, it appears that oth ers more concerned with regaining control of the government employed those same arguments as planks in a platform for gaining partisan support and wresting political power from the radicals. Opponents of the new constitution met at the Philosophical Soci ety Hall on October 17 and, after a four-hour debate, adopted a series of 32 resolutions against the new government. Two of the resolutions addressed the religious test oath. Resolution 3 held, "That in the Constitution formed by the said Convention, th e Christian religion is not treated with proper respect." Resolution 27 recommended that the new Assembly members elected in November should refuse to take the prescribed oath, instead declaring, "I (mentioning his name) profess faith in GOD the father, and in JESUS CHRIST his eternal son, and in the HOLY SPIRIT, one GOD blessed forever more: And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration."61 These resolutions then were debated before a crowd of 1,500 in the Statehouse Yard on October 21-22 and adopted by a large majority after a heated debate in which Thomas McKean and John Dickinson supported the resolutions while James Cannon, Timothy Matlack, James Smith, and Thomas Young defended the Constit ution.62

"Now the battle of words and pens is also commencing to rage back and forth and pro and con in this province over the new form of government," observed Henry Muhlenberg. "The courage of many a Christian-minded soul has fallen," he said, "for it has been observed how the beast with horns has been working in the background and cast the Christian religion out of the new form of government, in spite of the fact that, in the old constitution, Christianity was deemed by respectable and genuine Chri stians as precious and valuable as a pearl."63

The Constitutionalists, who had first offered a Declaration of Rights and Frame of Government protecting broad freedom of conscience and with an oath of office designed only to secure devotion to the princ iples of the Constitution, had seen their plan compromisedÑeither by opposition or through accommodationÑand now had assumed the burden of proof in defending their own character and a bastardized oath requiring acknowledgement of the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments (which they had opposed in convention debates). It was not a position from which they could comfortably articulate their original principles, so the choice of effective rhetorical strategies had to consider more than republica n ideology. Having defended their position in public debate, they now turned to the press to counter the charges against the revised religious tests.

The first defense, and perhaps the most effective, came from "A Real Friend to the Christian Religio n" on October 24, two days after the public meeting had approved the resolves. The Constitution, it was argued, "was formed by a great number of honest, upright, and sensible men, and some of them very respectable in their learning and wisdom, and knowle dge of public affairs. Their Bill of Rights, as was publicly acknowledged by [the opposition], does them great honor; and is equal to any thing of the kind now extant in the various governments that we know in the world." The writer, versed in religious history and grounded in protestant theology, defended the oath as sufficiently supportive of Christian principles and contended that the substitute oath suggested in Resolve 27 seemed to invent doctrine not found in the Apostle's Creed. Furthermore, in view of the long history of bloody persecution and the more recent doctrinal disputes involving Clarke, Whiston, and Hoadly, it would be foolish to bind the legislature to a more specific religious test. In fact, relying on Hoadly's experience with the o ath in England, the essay continued, "the sacramental test, and all such tests to qualify men for offices in the state, served no good purpose, but were a prostitution of our holy religion, and should be laid aside." Finally, after confessing to having h ad great respect for the speaker, the writer said, "Sir, I heard your religious harangue with great uneasiness. . . . I never expected to hear such narrow slavish doctrines proceed from your lips, or that you would expose a number of gentlemen to popular resentment, as not having treated the Christian religion with proper respect."64

James Cannon, writing as "Consideration," defended the framers of the Constitution and its major provisions, but he also turned his attack on the motives of the opposition as much as on the issues being contested. He believed the religious attack was a disingenuous ploy to disguise the more fundamental controversy over who would rule. "I am well informed that in a secret cabal, one proposed attacking the Constitution on the religious quarter," he said with the stance developed in his "Cassandra" essays arguing for independence. However, he continued, "a more conscientious gentleman . . . objected and said he thought it abominable to bring religion into political debates ; and was for his part of opinion, that creeds had nothing to do in civil constitutions; but he was answered the people could not be moved otherwise, and the necessity of the case carried the question."65

Other Constitutionalist writers continued the a ttack on the opposition, with John Dickinson bearing the brunt of the personal attacks and being labeled "a piddling politician." By early November, "Detector," speaking as a backcountry legislator, said the citizenry was not fooled by attacks on the Con stitution as "a system in which the Christian faith was treated with such disrespect as to omit inserting its most mysterious and disputable credenda into a test of qualification for civil offices." Then turning to Dickinson, the writer said, "the leader of the Philosophical Society has forgot the flaming chariot in which he was driving toward the New Jerusalem, on the memorable 21st of Oct. and has not mentioned a single syllable about reforming our profane creed in the notable instructions we are to gi ve sanction to this day at the State-house . . . ." Instead, Dickinson was charged with having "dropt every other pretense of civil or religious flaw in the Constitution" to focus on the Council of Censors and try to remove the barriers to his resuming s ome office in the new commonwealth.66

The last volley fired in the debate came from "Demophilus," who continued the taunting attack on Dickinson and the Whigs and charged the opposition with having been driven "to the shameful shift of irritating the r eligious spleen, your low art persuaded people that the church, and indeed our land was in danger, because the Athanasian Creed, Heidelberg cathecism, Westminister Confession of Faith, or some other much esteemed form of sound words was not literally tran scribed into our Constitution, and every man obliged to make solemn oath that he believed that formula before he could enjoy the rights of a citizen."67

The objections to the oath and other aspects of the new constitution continued to concern James Can non. After much of the public discussion of the religious oath had abated, he wrote to Robert Whitehill in early April, discussing the controversy:

You and I appear to be the Butts of the resentment of the gentlemen who do not like the government. I only wish the people may act honestly for themselves and that every one who seeks an alteration in the Plan may do it from a sincere desire to serve his country & secure the Liberties of its Inhabitants on the safest foundationÑI am to live but one Life TimeÑHave none to leave behind me, am not gained by any Plan; but sincerely pray God that that alone may be established which will ever secure their Liberties without future Tumults & Confusion. This I think our present form would do if once fairly subm itted to. . . . However I wish every friend to his country satisfied and would do anything in reason to effect itÑIt was a great error not to print & distribute properly 10,000 of the copies of the Frame of Government, that the People might see & judge fo r them selvesÑThis and a prudent conduct would settle the Matter I believe. To God I committ it & his good Providence, I have done what I did in Sincerity & with a sincere love of my neighbours.68

What Cannon, Whitehill, and the other radicals had don e in the convention was remarkable in many ways. While not achieving their original intentions for complete religious freedom in the Declaration of Rights and the modification of the religious test for public officials, they did further the concepts of b oth religious liberty and republican government. The test oath still represented a significant advance of their position when compared with the text of the 1705 statute on the subject and that desired by Muhlenberg, McKean, and other critics of their wor k. Furthermore, under the new Constitution, the religious test oath was only applicable for members of the Assembly, not to the numerous other officers and employees of the state. In 1779, Rev. Father Farmer, a Jesuit priest, became the first Catholic t o hold a public office in Pennsylvania as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. The republicans had waged a battle and gained significant ground in a rhetorical war that would soon be decided in their favor.

After Words a nd After War

The necessity of defending the commonwealth against the British forces was more than a slight distraction for the debates between Constitutionalists and Whig-Republicans, but other factors also changed the nature of the disputes and argume nts regarding religious test oaths. Few could have imagined, in the heat of the debates of 1776-1777, how quickly the intensity of the issue would fade. John Dickinson's draft of the Articles of Confederation did not contain any oath of office for membe rs of Congress. When the New Jersey Assembly was debating ratification in 1778, it noted the absence of any oath of office and suggested the appropriateness of one. When the New Jersey Delegates proposed an amendment requiring such an oath, "some Test o r Obligation," it was rejected by Congress three to six.69 It appears that the national fervor for such an official oath was underwhelming, and Dickinson's not having included one in his draft articles suggests its true importance to him as well.

Seve ral factors of independent origin, yet of overlapping concern, influenced the rapid dissipation of the dispute. First, the opposition became aware that the rigorous political test oath for voters was a greater obstacle to their return to power than the l enient religious test issue was a political advantage in their debates. Finding themselves in a position of attacking the political oaths while maintaining that they were sincere patriots must have undermined any arguments that they might have wanted to advance against the religiosity of the Constitutionalists. The opposition made these oaths a key point of attack, along with the single assembly, and mounted a continuing campaign against them. Rush's continuing efforts to secure repeal of the political tests employed arguments that could be used with equal force against the religious test oaths.70 Perhaps Rush would have liked to have done so; some of his allies did do so.

Richard Price, who aided Rush's campaign in 1785 with a letter against test oaths in general, wrote that it "is a miserable legislature which relies much on tests; for in general they bind only honest men."71 Price had corresponded with Franklin concerning his opposition to religious test oaths as early as 1780, and his famous 1 784 publication, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, was one of the more influential political tracts in the nation. It contained Price's enthusiastic support for the American cause and his sharp criticism of the Pennsylvania and D elaware religious test oaths, as well as a letter from Turgot on the same topic.72

After legislative repeal of the political loyalty oaths in Pennsylvania, Noah Webster urged repeal of the religious tests as well. The repeal of the political oaths, he wrote, was "a prelude to wiser measurers; people are just awakening from delusion. The time will come (and the day may be near!) when all test laws, oaths of allegiances, abjuration, and partial exclusions from civil offices will be proscribed from thi s land of freedom. . . . They originated in savage ignorance, and they are the instruments of slavery."73 Such rhetoric had a certain resonance that would would be endorsed by the Republicans and would not be disputed by the Constitutionalists.

Third , and it is again difficult to measure any direct effect just as it is to deny any cumulative effect, the Philadelphia Jewish community became a participant in the debates, providing its own voice and its own arguments to join those of Alison and his inte llectual cadre. A petition to the Council of Censors in 1783 called attention to the inherent contradiction between the Article Two protection of equal civil rights for all who believe in a God and the Section 10 oath requiring acknowledgement of the div ine inspiration of the New Testament as a condition for holding office, calling the restriction "a stigma upon their nation and their religion."74 Jonas Phillips' petition to the Federal Convention was received after the delegates had approved the test o ath prohibition, but his discussion of the conflict inherent between the ¤2 declaration of religious liberty and the ¤10 test oath in the 1776 Constitution and his argument that Pennsylvania's Jews had "bravely faught for liberty which they can not enjoy" were persuasive when the state adopted a new constitution in 1790.75

Fourth, while Philadelphia Jews were seeking full citizenship and several Deists were prominent in the public life of the emerging republic, the Turks had not emerged as a significan t political force, nor did such a development seem imminent in Philadelphia or elsewhere in the nation. The fear appeals advanced in the past now failed the tests of probability and fidelity and were no longer argued nor acknowledged in the public forum.

Finally, by the time the United States Constitution was submitted for ratification, there had been a significant shift in the political landscape of Pennsylvania, and the new republican hegemony had interesting rhetorical consequences. On the opening day of PennsylvaniaÕs Ratifying Convention, Benjamin Rush did move that the Convention secure the services of a minister to open the sessions with prayer; however, there was a general objection to the proposal as Òa new and unnecessary measure,Ó unwarran ted by precedent in the Commonwealth government and inconsistent with the diverse religious views of the delegates. RushÕs rebuttal was attacked by John Smilie as an Òabsurd superstition.Ó Even with the Federalist majority of two to one, RushÕs motion d ied without even being put to a vote of the delegates, and the convention continued without ministerial intercession or public prayers.76

There were other indications of the changed political environment, exemplified more clearly by the FederalistsÕ la ck of concern regarding Article VI. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, who had expressed such concern over the limited oath in the Pennsylvania Constitution, did not even mention the meeting of the Federal Convention in his diaries.77 The proposed federal docum ent, which mentioned neither God nor Jesus and contained an absolute prohibition on religious test oaths, was disputed but never on those points. The only mention of Article IV, Clause 3 came during the ratifying convention when Benjamin Rush pointed to the feature prohibiting religious oaths as a reason for ratification.78 Robert Whitehill, the leader of the Anti-Federalists in the Pennsylvania Convention certainly would not dispute that point; he had been prepared to concede it in 1776, and his argume nt now was that the proposed constitution left the government too much power to infringe upon the sacred rights of conscience. Thomas McKean was at James Wilson's side in support of ratification, and he was not inclined to raise the issue as a point agai nst the document. Frederick A. Muhlenberg was serving as President of the Convention and was a supporter of ratification; he was not inclined to revive his father's pathetic arguments about imagined consequences.

The religious test oath was no longer an issue with advocates willing to dispute in Pennsylvania, and very few were willing to do so elsewhere in the country. As Stephen Botein concluded, the critics presented only "unsystematic minority criticisms that never amounted to much." The real cur iosity was not, he said, "that the United States Constitution was faulted for its secularity, but that so few people appear to have cared."79

When the issue was joined over the prohibition of religious test oaths, the more able advocates were those sup porting a proscription of such measures. Virginia had already been through its preliminary confrontation, embracing MadisonÕs Memorial and Remonstrance and enacting Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, so Madison and Randolph palmed off th e opposition with ease, and John Leland did so in the backcountry with vigor and conviction.80 Leland would later declare, "The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-em inence above the rest to grant indulgence; whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians." In his view, "Test Oaths and established creeds should be avoided as the worst of evils."81

In Connecticut, Oliver Wolcott gave voice t o the ideas in that state's ratifying convention; however, future U. S. Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth's "Landholder VII" essay before the convention met is perhaps the most sublime of the arguments advanced in defense of Article VI. Recasting Price's ar gument, he said, "A test-law is the parent of hypocrisy and the offspring of error and the spirit of persecution. Legislatures have no right to set up an inquisition, and examine into the private opinions of men. Test-laws are useless and ineffectual, u njust and tyrannical . . . ."82 In Massachusetts, the case was made for Article VI in convention by two ministers, Shute and Payson, replowing the ground churned earlier by Isaac Backus.83 In North Carolina, eloquent pleas by Davie, Iredell, Lancaster, and Williamson made the point well, even if Willie Jones had the votes against ratification secured from the influence of arguments. The unanimous position of the Federal Convention in barring religious test oaths was ratified by the states, not one of t he numerous amendments suggested by the minority factions touched on the subject or suggested the desirability of such an oath.

Furthermore, the argument that the Federal Convention delegates had avoided drafting a national religious test oath merely b ecause of the diversity of religous denominations in the nation and the semantic problems that would be encountered in drafting a uniform national test is unconvincing.84 Pennsylvania, with the most diversity and the greatest tolerance, had functioned un til 1775 with the most specific religious test oath. Had the framers merely been frustrated with the task of constructing a general religious test, it is unlikely that they would have crafted and defended an absolute prohibition on such restrictions on t he access to political power in the republic.

The extent to which the political and intellectual climate had changed since 1776 became even more evident during the second wave of state constitutional conventions as the new republic became more comforta ble with itself and began to reify political theory in terms of evolving domestic policy choices. The Whig political organization that had criticized the lenient oaths in the 1776 Constitution was now in power in Pennsylvania, and they drafted and adopte d a new constitution in 1790. The preamble contained no mention of God, and a belief in God was dropped as a condition for full and equal civil rights. There was some support for entirely deleting the religious test, but the new test oath required only a belief in God and a future state of punishments and rewards, the language recommended by "Demophilus" in 1776.85

In Delaware, a state with the most severe religious test of the revolutionary state governments, the new Constitution of June 1792 became the first state charter to prohibit all religious tests for public office, declaring, "No religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, under this state."86 Franklin's exception of 1776, via the federal constitution of 1787, had finally secured full religious liberty in Penn's lower counties in 1792. In Vermont, a state that had borrowed its first constitution and religious test from Pennsylvania, the religious oath was deleted in 1793.87 Whatever the intent of th e Framers of the Federal constitution, the effect was to shape future state constitutional provisions and lead to the public perception that religious test oaths had no place in republican governments.88

Justice Joseph Storey, combining rhetoric and po etic in his construction of historical narrative, examined the intent of the framers in crafting Article VI, Clause 3, and he did so with some organic knowledge both of the text and of their views:

This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an invincible repugnance to any religious test, or affirmation. It had a higher object: to cut off for ever every pretense of an alliance between church and state in the national governmen t. The framers of the constitution were fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in the history of other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its strategems, to secur e to itself an exclusive ascendency over the human mind; and that intolerance was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of the civil power to exterminate those, who doubted its dogma, or resisted its infallibility. The Catholic and the Protestant had alternately waged the most ferocious and unrelenting warfare on each other; and Protestantism itself, at the very moment that it was proclaiming the right of private judgement, prescribed boundaries to that right, beyond which if any one dared to pas s, he must seal his rashness with the blood of martyrdom. The history of the parent country, too, could not fail to instruct them in the uses and the abuses of religious tests. They there found the pains and penalties of non-conformity written in no une quivocal language, and enforced with a stern and vindictive jealousy. One hardly knows how to repress the sentiments of strong indignation, in reading the cool vindication of the laws of England on this subject . . . by Mr. Justice Blackstone.89

Store y's comments and the clear arguments of the founders stand as a bulwark against those who hope to find historical justification for employing the police power to enforce the dogmas and dogmatism of a state religion. While the colonial governments were co nstituent elements of Great Britain, a Christian state with an established church and rigorous disabilities for those who dissented from the official orthodoxy, the political revolution in America was attended by an even more important ideological revolut ion.90 The concepts of inalienable rights, popular sovereignty, and republicanism espoused during the war became the primer for a constitutional scheme that privileged and protected diversity of thought, opinion, and expression as necessary for effective self-government.

The commandment of Article VI clearly evidences a concern for diversity of opinion that can contribute to and inform the understanding of original intention in First Amendment theory. It bars the government from judging content, limi ting political rights, or otherwise punishing citizens for devotion to principles or expression of opinions. When the Court finally and conclusively invalidated state religious test oaths for officeholders as violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendm ent rights of citizens, it seemed to bring a quiet end to what had once been a raging debate and achieved a comfortable resolution of constitutional theory with republican principles.91

The lessons of this study are important beyond mere academic curio sity, because the dialectic tension between liberty and authority, between freedom of conscience and compelled conformity, is never finally resolved. In 1971, two Pennsylvania citizens were arrested for blasphemy under a 1794 statute; in 1977, the Massac husetts legislature refused to repeal its 1697 blasphemy statute; and in 1987, Texas judge Guy Herman sentenced a prospective juror to jail for contempt of court when the woman refused to take the required oath that ended with ÒSo help me, God.Ó92 As gro ups such as the Rutherford Institute, Focus on the Family, and the Christian Legal Society seek to erect a ÒChristian AmericaÓ on the ruble of the wall of separation, scholars would do well to study the original blueprints for the republic. Knowledge of the history of Article VI and its meaning for the Framers might well prove to be an important argument and an effective shield in present and future legislative and legal battles. The prohibition on religious test oaths was and remains an essential claus e in the Constitution, informing an implicit integrated republican theory of political communication that both values and protects the diversity of opinionsÑsocial, political, and religious.

1 Stephen A. Smith, ÒThe Origins of the Free Speech Clause,Ó Free Speech Yearbook, 29 (1991): 48-82; Richard A. Parker, "Revising Revisionist History: Consensus Theories of the Framers' Intent," Free Speech Yearbook, 26 (1987): 1-10. 2 Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law (New York: Free Press, 1990): 165. 3 Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969) 362-363. 4 James Boyd White, When Words Lose Their Meaning: Constitutions and Reconstitutions of Language, Character, and Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984) 262. Emphasis in original. 5 Stephen A. Smith, "Promoting Political Expression: The Import of Three Constitutional Provisions," Free Speech Yearbook, 27 (1989): 1-32. 6 Albert J. Menendez, No Religious Test: The Story of Our Constitution's Forgotten Article (Silver Spring, MD: Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 1987). 7 Evidence for this assertion is provided by the extensive bibliography appended to Elizabeth B. Clark, "Church-State Relations in the Constitution-Making Period," in Church and State in America: A Bibliographic Guide, ed. John F. Wilson, 2 vols. (Westpo rt, CT: Greenwood, 1986) 1: 164-189. A notable exception is Morton Borden, Jews, Turks, and Infidels (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984). 8 Edwin Yoder quoted in Joseph L. Conn, "No Religious Test! Americans United National Conference Celebrates the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution," Church & State 40.10 (November 1987): 7; James E. Wood, Jr., "No Religious Test: Good Medicine for th e Body Politic," Church & State 40.8 (September 1987): 14. 9 Leonard W. Levy, The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment (New York: Macmillan, 1986) 64; Menendez quoted in Joseph L. Conn, "No Religious Test! Americans United National Conference Celebrates the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitutio n," Church & State 40.10 (November 1987): 7. 10 Menendez, No Religious Test: The Story of Our Constitution's Forgotten Article, 2. Menendez notes, however, that South Carolina in 1774 and Maryland in 1776 ignored the laws in respectively electing Francis Salvador, Jr., a Jew, and Charles Carroll, a Catholic, to the Continental Congress. Today, as a consequence of the Article VI prohibition, Catholics rank first and Jews sixth in Members of Congress among more than 25 religions represented. 11 Charles Pinckney, Observations on the Plan of Government . . . , in Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 4 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911) 3:122 12 Journal of the Federal Convention, 2: 46 (30 August 1787) in Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner, The Founders' Constitution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) 4: 638. While the votes on adding the words "or affirmation" and approving Pinckn ey's motion for the prohibition on religious oaths were unanimous, the proposed Article XX was not unanimously adopted (North Carolina voted "No", and Maryland was divided). 13 Madison's Notes, 30 August 1787, in Kurland and Lerner 4: 638. 14 Madison (10 August 1787) in Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 2: 249-250. Further elaboration on the limitation of political oaths in republican governments, citing Madison's remarks, can be found in Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 135-137 (1966). 1Luther Martin, The Genuine Information . . . ., in Farrand 3:227. 2Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (New York: W. W, Norton, 1969) 85. 3Thomas J. Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) 160. 4The diaries of Christopher Marshall, Free Quaker, and Henry M. Muhlenberg, Lutheran, provide considerable insight and rich detail of the arguments for an extensive oath limiting government offices to Christians, and the newspaper exchange details both s ides of the controversy to an extent surpassing the discussion of Article VI in thirteen colonies. 5See, Robert Levere Brunhouse, The Counter-Revolution in Pennsylvania,1776-1790 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1942): 14-17. Denominational affiliation is discussed with regard to support for the constitution and the political oaths-- but not the religious test--in Owen S. Ireland, "The Ethnic-Religious Dimensions of Pennsylvania Politics, 1778-1779," William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, 30 (1973): 423-448; and O. S. Ireland, "The Crux of Politics: Religion and Party in Pennsylvania , 1778-1789," William and Mary Quarterly, Ser. 3, 42(1985): 453-475. One writer said the religious test oath "was, unmistakably, a Presbyterian influence," but offers no evidence for the assertion. Boyd Stanley Schlenther, Charles Thompson: A Patriot's Pursuit (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990) 137. In fact, however, Presbyterians were divided on the issue. Thomas McKean was an active proponent of extensive and very specific religious tests, while Benjamin Rush, Francis Alison, Robert Whi tehill, and George Bryan held very different views in opposition to such tests. 6The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard Larabee, Ralph Ketcham, Helen C. Boatfield, and Helene H. Fineman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964) 176. 7James Madison to William Bradford, 1 December 1773, The Papers of James Madison (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1962) 1:101. 8James Madison to William Bradford, 1 April 1774, The Papers of James Madison, 1:112. 9Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785; New York: Harper & Row, 1964) 154. 10An otherwise thoroughly researched and thoughtfully argued recent essay seems to overlook the importance of religious test oaths in Pennsylvania and the other state constitutions adopted during the period of the revolution. See, Arlin M. Adams and Cha rles J. Emmerich, "A Heritage of Religious Liberty," University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 137 (1989): 1567-1571. See also, John Casey, "Religious Freedom in the Constitutions of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," American Catholic Historical Society Re view, 60 (1949): 167-180. 11The radical republican arguments against religious test oaths in Pennsylvania were grounded in the emerging republican political theory being advanced by James Burgh, Joseph Priestly, Richard Price, and other English Dissenters. Kramnick suggests that Jefferson might have borrowed the "wall of separation" metaphor from Burgh's Crito (1766-1767) and contends that "one cannot fully understand the Framers' constitutional prohibition on religious tests for public office without reference to the Dissenters ' crusade against the Test and Corporation Acts . . . ." Isaac Kramnick, Republicanism and Bourgeois Radicalism: Political Ideology in Late Eighteenth-Century England and America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990) 11, 49, 55-56, 74, 232, 251, 290 , 293. 12See "Comment," New York University Law Review, 36 (1961): 513-514; Anson Phelps Stokes and Leo Pfeffer, Church and State in the United States (New York: Harper & Row, 1964): 482-483, 19. 13The social and political forces which led to a diverse demographic and religious population in Pennsylvania, necessitated a climate of tolerance for public worship by various religious sects, and resulted in the colony's traditional reputation are well -documented and explicated in Sally Schwartz, "A Mixed Multitude": The Struggle for Toleration in Colonial Pennsylvania (New York: New York University Press, 1987). 14Article XXXIV, Laws Agreed Upon in England (1682), reproduced in Francis Newton Thorpe, comp. and ed., The Federal and State Constitutions (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909) 5: 3062-3063. 15Provincial Act of 1705, quoted in Charles J. Stille, "Religious Tests in Provincial Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 9(1885): 391-392. Emphasis added. 16Schwartz, 31-39. 17John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. James H. Tully (1689; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983) 49-51. 18Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book IV, ch. 4. 19Stille, 377. 20Stille, 397. 21Sanford H. Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America: A History (New York: Cooper Square, 1968): 482-483. For more traditional and more sympathetic analyses of Pennsylvania's religious heritage, see Dietmar Rothermund, The Layman's Progress: R eligious and Political Experience in Colonial Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961); Patricia U. Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 198 6) 168-181; Schwartz, A Mixed Multitude; Otto Reimherr, ed., Quest for Faith, Quest for Freedom: Aspects of Pennsylvania's Religious Experience (Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 1987); and J. William Frost, A Perfect Freedom: Religious L iberty in Pennsylvania (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 22Pennsylvania Archives, 2d, 3: 642. Emphasis added. 23Christopher Marshall, Sr., to J. B., 30 June 1776, Christopher Marshall Letterbook, Ms, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 191. 24Proceedings of the Convention of the Delaware State held at New-Castle (Wilmington: James Adams, 1776): 9-10, 13. 25For a discussion of McKean's claim of influence see, G. S. Rowe, Thomas McKean: The Shaping of American Republicanism (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1978): 88-91; and John M. Coleman, Thomas McKean: Forgotten Leader of the Revoluti on (Rockaway, NJ: American Faculty Press, 1975. 26Proceedings of the Convention of the Delaware State held at New-Castle 18, 24-25. 27Christopher Marshall, Sr., to J. B., 30 June 1776, Christopher Marshall Letterbook, Ms, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, pp. 191-192. 28Christopher Marshall, Sr., to J. B., 30 June 1776, Christopher Marshall Letterbook, Ms, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, pp. 191-192. 29Christopher Marshall Diaries, 28 June 1776, Ms, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 30Christopher Marshall, Sr., to James Cannon, 1 July 1776, Marshall Letterbook, Ms, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 193. 31Demophilus, The Genuine Principles of the Ancient Saxon, or English Constitution (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1776): 4, 33. This radical document appears to have been responsible for introducing many of the more democratic structures and provisions, as well as the arguments in their support, appearing in the early drafts of the 1776 Constitution. It draws heavily from Obadiah Hulme's Historical Essay on the English Constitution, and authorship has been attributed to George Bryan or James Cannon. 32Like the Federal Convention, but unlike the Pennsylvania Assembly and the Continental Congress, the Pennsylvania Convention of 1776 did not employ a chaplain or open its sessions with a daily prayer. Benjamin Rush, who later became an outspoken oppone nt of the 1776 Constitution, said the convention's failure to preface their business with prayer was "probably the reason that the state has ever since been distracted by their proceedings." Merrill Jensen, ed., The Documentary History of the Ratificatio n of the Constitution (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976) 2: 328. 33This particular clause was singled out for praise by Samuel Wharton "because it communicates equal civil and religious Liberties to all." Samuel Wharton to Benjamin Franklin, 21 December 1776, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. William B. Willcox (N ew Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) 23: 65. 34Proceedings of the Convention, 5 September 1776, p. 52. 35Marshall Diaries, 6 September 1776, referring to a report of the events on September 5. It also appears, perhaps not coincidentally, that Thomas McKean left Philadelphia for New Castle and the Delaware convention on September 5. 36Christopher Marshall to J. B., 12 September 1776, Marshall Letterbook 207-208. Marshall's views on the Deists and fear of their influence in the government are extensively elaborated in Christopher Marshall to H.M., 20 September 1776, Marshall Letterb ook 212-218. 37Schwartz, A Mixed Multitude, 296 38Section the Tenth, The Proposed Plan or Frame of Government for the Commonwealth or State of Pennsylvania. [Printed for Consideration] (Philadelphia, 1776): 3. The Plan was also published in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on September 10 and the Pennsy lvania Gazette on September 18. The preamble, drafted by James Cannon on September 25, would refer to "the Author of existence" and "the great Governor of the universe." Proceedings of the Convention, 25 September 1776, 53. 39Section the Forty-first, The Proposed Plan or Frame of Government 10. Benefit of Clergy existed by statute in Pennsylvania from 1718 until 1794; its abolition was finally confirmed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Gable, 7 Serg. & R. 423 (1821). For a discussion of the history and application of the statute, see George W. Dalzell, Benefit of Clergy in America (Winston-Salem: Blair, 1955) 130-142, 253. 40John N. Shaeffer, "Public Consideration of the 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 98 (1974): 430; Pennsylvania Evening Post, 12 September 1776; Pennsylvania Packet, 17 September 1776. 41The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (16 September 1776), trans. Theodore G. Tapppert and John W. Doberstein, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium and Muhlenberg Press, 1942-1943) 2: 741. 42Muhlenberg Journals (16 September 1776), 2: 740. 43"Abstract of a Letter of Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America, on the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, 1776," 2 October 1776, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 9 (1898): 129. A more de tailed description of the debate can be found in the Muhlenberg Journals (16 September 1776), 2: 741-742. 44See, Francis Alison to Ezra Stiles, 12 December 1767, Alison Papers, Mss, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia; Francis Hutcheson, A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (Glasgow: Foulis, 1753): 115-116, 133, 305-306. 45 Francis Alison, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, p. 179 [MSS Notes of Jasper Yeates,1761], Archives of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. These notes are obviously based on Hutcheson's A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, Book II, Chapte r 11. For a more complete discussion of Alison's course on Moral Philosophy and his views on religious establishments and test oaths, see Elizabeth A. Ingersoll, "Francis Alison: American Philosophe, 1705-1779," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Delawa re, 1974: 39-69, 185-195, 287-296. 46See, for example, Marshall Diary, 11 September 1776. In Alison's obituary in the Pennsylvania Journal, a former student at his New London Academy recalled, "He never failed to implant the love of civil and religious liberty in every heart of his pupil s." Thomas C. Pears, Jr., "Francis Alison, Colonial Educator," Ts, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. Thomas McKean, who attended the New London Academy from 1742-1749, appears to have been much more influenced by Locke's ideas on religious liberty than by the works of Hutcheson, first published in 1747. 47Muhlenberg Journals (16 September 1776), 2: 742. 48Muhlenberg Journals (17-18 September 1776), 2: 742-743. Frost seems to have misread or confused the actions regarding the religious test oath and the charter protection amendment, stating, "The clergy drew up the language they wanted and brought it to Franklin, the president of the convention. The convention then adopted the clergy's stipulation requiring officeholders to acknowledge the divine inspiration for the Old and New Testaments." Frost, 65. Both the narrative in the Muhlenberg Journals, 2: 740-743, and Muhlenberg's subsequent objections to the amended oath provision contradict Frost's analysis. It is not unlikely that Muhlenberg's remarks and public opposition to the original form of the oath had some influence with the 26 German members a mong the Constitutional Delegates. One scholar counted the German influence by noting the German heritage of 19 of the 73 signers of the Constitution of 1776. Andreas Dorpalen, "The Political Influence of the German Element in Colonial America," Pennsy lvania History, 6 (1939): 230. 49Marshall Diary, 19 September 1776. 50Pennsylvania Evening Post, 24 September 1776. 51Pennsylvania Evening Post, 26 September 1776: 1. Although this letter appeared on the day following the amendments to the oath, it was written before the changes were made public and is indicative of the arguments used against the proposed general dec laration. 52Proceedings of the Convention, 25 September 1776, p. 53. 53The exact date of the addition to Article Two cannot be determined, but a September date seems likely. Although the Convention records indicate that the Declaration of Rights received final approval on August 16, Franklin's emendations on the changes from the preliminary printing on July 29 to final debate on August 16 do not indicate the addition of this language. See, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 22: 528-533. 54Chapter II, ¤10, Pennsylvania Constitution (1776). 55Benjamin Franklin to [Joseph Priestly], 21 August 1784, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, ed. by Jared Sparks (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1840) 10: 134. The additional language on the Old and New Testaments was also the subject of censure i n Charles Millon to Benjamin Franklin, 17 December 1777, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 25: 301-302. 56Christopher Marshall to J.S., 30 September 1776, Marshall Letterbook 220. 57Muhlenberg to Rev. Sir, Beloved Brother, 2 October 1776, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 9(1898): 131. 58Muhlenberg Journals (6 October 1776), 2: 747-745. 59"A Dialogue Between Orator Puff and Peter Easy," Pennsylvania Evening Post, 15 October 1776: 1-2. 60Pennsylvania Journal, 16 October 1776. 61"At a Meeting held at the Philosophical Society Hall . . . October 17, 1776," Pennsylvania Packet, 22 October 1776: 2. 62Pennsylvania Evening Post, 22 October 1776: 2-3; Marshall Diary, 21 October 1776. 63Muhlenberg Journals (23 October 1776), 2: 751-752. 64Pennsylvania Evening Post, 24 October 1776: 3, 5-6. I believe the author of the essay chiding Dickinson to have been Francis Alison. Dickinson and Alison had joined in the Centinel essays of 1768 against an Anglican Bishop for America. The tone and depth are similar to Alison's essays wherein he also launched attacks on the Test and Corporation Acts. See, Elizabeth I. Nybakken, ed., The Centinel: Warning of a Revolution (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1980) 107, 149, 219. 65"In the Day of Adversity Consider," Pennsylvania Gazette, 30 October 1776: 2. I think it likely that Benjamin Rush would have argued against the religious attack in the Whig councils in 1776. 66Pennsylvania Evening Post, 12 November 1776: 3. James Smith or Robert Whitehill would seem to be the likely author of this essay; both were former students of Francis Alison. See also, "John Trusshoop," Pennsylvania Gazette, 13 November 1776. 67"To Phocion," Pennsylvania Gazette, 19 March 1777: 3. 68James Cannon to Robert Whitehill, 9 April 1777, Robert Whitehill Papers, Cumberland County Historical Society, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Cannon's references to God in this personal correspondence with Whitehill undermines the argument that their effort to craft a secular republican constitution with broad religious liberty was motivated by personal hostility to religion. Henry Muhlenberg, for example, had said that the members of the convention were "doubtless for the most part honorable, loyal citizen s and mechanics" who, "as far as religion is concerned, are of various denominations, nationalities, languages, and persuasions, but possess little skill in giving clear and heartfelt expression to their true opinion in the English language, and are perha ps satisfied with what is set forth by the [polished] powerful orators." However, he charged, "those who are doing the speaking and bear the most weight appear not to be favorably inclined toward the Christian religion and to love the darkness more than the light, whereof their works give proof." Muhlenberg Journals (16 September 1776), 2: 740-741. 69Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 1:113-117. 70See, Benjamin Rush, Consideration upon the Present Test-Law of Pennsylvania: Addressed to the Legislature and Freemen of the State (Philadelphia: Hall and Sellers, 1784). 71Pennsylvania Gazette, 21 September 1785: 2. Rush credited this letter with helping to secure repeal of the statutory test. 72Benjamin Franklin to Richard Price, 9 October 1780, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. by Albert Henry Smythe (New York: Macmillan, 1906) 8:153-154; Richard Price, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution (Boston: Powars and Will is, 1784): 30-41. For the extent of Price's influence on American thought see, Carl B. Cone, "Richard Price and the Constitution of the United States," American Historical Review, 53 (1948): 726-747, and Henri Laboucheix, Richard Price as Moral Philosop her and Political Theorist (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1982): 25, 111. See also, Works of John Adams, 4:278-279. 73Noah Webster, "On Test Oaths, Oaths of Allegiance, & Partial Exclusions from Office," in Kurland and Lerner, 4:636. 74"Petition of the Philadelphia Synagogue to the Council of Censors of Pennsylvania," 23 December 1783, in Kurland and Lerner 4: 635. 75Jonas Phillips to the President and Members of the Convention, 7 September 1787, in Farrand, 3: 78-79. For discussion of the influence of the 1783 and 1787 petitions, see Stokes, 1: 286-290, and Robert T. Handy, "The Contribution of Pennsylvania to th e Rise of Religious Liberty in America," in Reimherr, 25. 76ÒNewspaper Report of Proceedings and Debates,Ó 21 November 1787, in Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 2: 328. 77Muhlenberg Journals, 3: 742-751. 78Debates in the Pennsylvania Convention, 3 December 1787, in Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 2: 457-458. 79Stephen Botein, "Religious Dimensions of the Early American State," in Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Constitution and Early American Identity, ed. Richard Beeman, Stephen Botein, and Edward C. Carter II (Chapel Hill: University of North Caroli na Press, 1987) 321. 80See generally, Merrill D. Peterson and Robert C. Vaughan, The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Its Evolution and Consequences in American History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Robert S. Alley, ed., James Madison on Religious L iberty (Buffalo: Prometheus, 1985); and William Lee Miller, The First Liberty (New York: Knopf, 1985). 81John Leland, Short Essays on Government (1820), quoted in Anson Phelps Stokes, Church and State in the United States, 3 vols. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950) 1: 355. 82Kurland and Lerner, 4: 639-642 83Kurland and Lerner, 4: 642-643. 84This perspective has been offered by, among others, George Anastaplo, The Constitution of 1787: A Commentary (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 207. 85Frost, 75; Article 9, ¤4, Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790, in Thorpe 5: 3100. Frost concludes that by 1790 James Wilson, Bishop William White, Tench Coxe, and Benjamin Rush embraced a definition of religious liberty which included prohibitions on re ligious oaths as a condition of public office. See Frost, 75-82. 86Article I, ¤2, Delaware Constitution of 1792, in Thorpe, 1: 568. 87Officers were given the option of completing their oaths to support the constitution with "So help you God" or an affirmation with "under pains and penalties of perjury." Vermont Constitution of 1793, Article II, ¤¤ 12, 29. Benjamin Perley Poore, com p., The Federal and State Constitutions, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1877) 2: 1879, 1881. 88Anastaplo, 213. 89Joseph Storey, Commentaries on the Constitution (1833): 3: ¤1841. 90For an excellent discussion of the social, political, ideological, and religious evolution, both historic and contemporary, see the fine interpretative essays in Mark A. Knoll, ed., Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the 1980s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). 91Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961). 92Leonard W. Levy, Treason Against God: A History of the Offense of Blasphemy (New York: Schocken, 1981) 337-338; see Murray v. Travis County District Court, 939 F2d. 1207 (5th C.C.A., 1991).