It Is Certain That Every

I Have Ever Regarded The Freedom Of Religious Opinions And Worship As Equally Belonging To Every Sect.

The Number, The Industry, And The Morality Of The Priesthood, And The Devotion Of The People Have Been Manifestly Increased By The Total Separation Of The Church From The State.

The Political Truths Declared In That Solemn Manner Acquire By Degrees The Character Of Fundamental Maxims Of Free Government, And As They Become Incorporated With National Sentiment, Counteract The Impulses Of Interest And Passion.

May It Not Be Asked Of Every Intelligent Friend To The Liberties Of His Country, Whether The Power Exercised In Such An Act As This Ought Not To Produce Great And Universal Alarm? Whether A Rigid Execution Of Such An Act, In Time Past, Would Not Have Repressed That Information And Communication Among The People Which Is Indispensable To The Just Exercise Of Their Electoral Rights? And Whether Such An Act, If Made Perpetual, And Enforced With Rigor, Would Not, In Time To Come, Either Destroy Our Free System Of Government, Or Prepare A Convulsion That Might Prove Equally Fatal To It?

The Ultimate Authority, Wherever The Derivative May Be Found, Resides In The People Alone, And That It Will Not Depend Merely On The Comparative Ambition Or Address Of The Different Governments, Whether Either, Or Which Of Them, Will Be Able To Enlarge Its Sphere Of Jurisdiction At The Expense Of The Other.