t and
good men, it was ordered and agreed that for time to come, no man shall
be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but such as are members
of some of the churches within the limits of the same."

Mr. Bancroft, after quoting this extraordinary and unprecedented
enactment, remarks--"The principle of universal suffrage was the usage
of Virginia; Massachusetts, resting for its defence on its unity and its
enthusiasm, gave all power to the select band of religious votaries,
into which the avenues could be opened only by the elders [ministers].
The elective franchise was thus confined to a small proportion of the
whole population, and the Government rested on an essentially
aristocratic foundation. But it was not an aristocracy of wealth; the
polity was a sort of theocracy; the servant of the bondman, if he were a
member of the Church, might be a freeman of the Company."--"It was the
reign of the Church; it was a commonwealth of the chosen people in
covenant with God."[60]

It thus appears that the new Congregationalists of Massachusetts were
far behind the old Episcopalians of Virginia in the first principle of
civil liberty; for while among the latter the Episcopal Church alone was
the recognized Church, the elective franchise was not restricted to the
members of that Church, but was universal; while in the new Government
of Massachusetts, among the new Puritan Congregationalists, none but a
Congregational Church member could be a citizen elector, and none could
be a Church member without the consent and recommendation of the
minister; and thus the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay, at the very
beginning, became, in the words of Mr. Bancroft, "the reign of the
Church"--not indeed of the Church of England, but of the new
Congregational Church established by joining of hands and covenant
around the well-pump of Naumkeag--then christened Salem.

The New England historians assure us that on the settlement of the
Puritans at Massachusetts Bay, the connection between Church and State
ceased. It is true that the connection of the Church of England with the
State ceased there; it is true that there was not, in the English sense
of the phrase, connection between the Church and State there; for there
was no State but the Church; the "Commonwealth" was not the government
of free citizens by universal suffrage, or even of property citizens,
but was "the reign of the Church," the members of which, according to
Mr. Bancroft