himself, constituted but "a small proportion of the whole
population"--this great majority (soon five-sixths) of the population
being mere helots, bound to do the work and pay the taxes imposed upon
them by the "reigning Church," but denied all eligibility to any office
in the "Commonwealth," or even the elective franchise of a citizen! It
was indeed such a "connection between Church and State" as had never
existed, and has never existed to this day, in any Protestant country.
"The reign of the Church"--the small minority over the great majority of
the "Commonwealth;" and this system of "the reign of the Church" over
the State--of the government of a Church minority of one-sixth over a
whole population of five-sixths--continued for sixty years (as will
hereafter appear), until suppressed by a second Royal Charter, which
placed all citizens upon equal footing before the law, and in respect to
the elective franchise. Though the Congregational Puritans of
Massachusetts Bay may have been the fathers of American independence of
England, they were far from being the fathers or even precursors of
American liberty. They neither understood nor practised the first
principles of civil and religious liberty, or even the rights of British
subjects as then understood and practised in England itself.

It is admitted on all sides, that, according to the express words of the
Royal Charter, the planter emigrants of Massachusetts Bay should enjoy
all "the privileges of British subjects," and that no law or resolution
should be enacted there "contrary to the laws and statutes of England."
Was it not, therefore, perfectly natural that members of the Church of
England emigrating to Massachusetts Bay, and wishing to continue and
worship as such after their arrival there, should complain to their
Sovereign in Council, the supreme authority of the State, that, on their
arrival in Massachusetts, they found themselves deprived of the
privilege of worshipping as they had worshipped in England, and found
themselves subject to banishment the moment they thus worshipped? And
furthermore, when, unless they actually joined one of the new
Congregational Churches, first established at Massachusetts Bay, August
6th, 1629, five months after granting the Royal Charter (March 4th,
1629), they could enjoy none of the rights of British subjects, they
must have been more or less than men had they not complained, and loudly
complained, to the highest authority t