APPENDIX No. I.

"——to bear those ills we have"Than fly to others that we know not of!"

Yet, with all these characteristics, no one will hesitate to believe that Calvert was a bold and resolute person, when it is recollected that he visited the wilderness of the New World in the seventeenth century, and projected therein the formation of a British Province.

But, in truth, our materials for his biography are extremely scant. He died at the very moment when America's chief interest in him began. He belonged to the Court Party, as distinguished from the Country Party. He is known to have been a zealous supporter of the "supremacy of authority." He held, that "America, having been acquired by conquest, was subject, exclusively, to the control of royal prerogative." He was the defender of the Court in its diplomacy; and, ultra as James was in his monarchical doctrines, there can be little doubt that he would have dismissed Calvert from office, had there not been concord between the crown and its servant, as to the policy, if not the justice, of the toryism they both professed. But let us not judge that century by the standards of this. That would be writing history from a false point. Let us not condemn rulers who seem to be despotic in historic periods of transition—in periods of mutual intolerance and distrust—in periods when men know nothing, from practical experience, of the capacity of mankind for self government.[8]

The charter which Sir George Calvert framed, and the successor of James granted, was precisely the one we might justlysuppose such a subject, and such a sovereign would prepare and sign. It invested the Lord Proprietary with all the royal rights, enjoyed by the Bishop of Durham, within the County Palatine of Durham. He was the source of justice. He was the fountain of honor, and allowed to decorate meritorious provincials with whatever titles and dignities he should appoint. He had the power to establish feudalism and all its incidents. He was not merely the founder and filler of office, but he was also the sole executive. He might erect towns, boroughs and cities;—he might pardon offences and command the forces. As ecclesiastical head of the Province, he had the right to found churches, and was entitled to their advowsons.[9]In certain cases he had the dangerous privilege of issuing ordinances, which were to have the force of sovereign decrees. In fact, allegiance to England, was alone preserved, and the Lord Proprietary became an autocrat, with but two limitations: 1st, the laws were to be enacted by the Proprietary, with the advice and approbation of the free men, or free-holders or their deputies,—the "liberi homines" and "liberi tenentes," spoken of in the charter;—and 2nd, "no interpretation" of the charter was "to be made whereby God's Holy Rights and the true Christian Religion,orthe allegiance due to us," (the King of England,) "our heirs and successors, may, in any wise, suffer by change, prejudice or diminution." Christianity and the King—I blush to unite such discordant names—were protected in equal co-partnership.[10]

The first of these reserved privileges of the people, the Lord Proprietary Cecilius understood, to mean, thathehad the exclusive privilege of proposing laws, and that the free-men, or free-holders of his province, could only accept or reject his propositions. These laws of the province were not to be submittedto the King for his approval, nor had he the importantright of taxation, which was expressly relinquished. In the early legislation of Maryland, this supposed exclusive right of proposing laws by the Proprietary, was soon tested by mutual rejections, both by the legislative Assembly and by Cecilius, of the Acts, which each had separately passed or prepared.

But the other clause, touching "God's Holy Rights and the true Christian Religion," was one, in regard to the practical interpretation of which, I apprehend, there was never a moment's doubt in the mind either of the people or of the Proprietary. It is a radiant gem in the antique setting of the charter. It is the glory of Calvert. It is the utter obliteration of prejudice among all who professed Christianity. Toleration was unknown in the old World; but this was more than toleration, for it declared freedom at least toChristians,—yet it was not perfect freedom, for it excluded that patient and suffering race—that chosen people—who, to the disgrace even of republican Maryland, within my recollection, were bowed down by political disabilities.

I am aware that many historians consider the religious freedom of Maryland as originating in subsequent legislation, and claim the act of 1649 as the statute of toleration. I do not agree with them. Sir George Calvert had been a Protestant;—he became a Catholic. As a Catholic, he came to Virginia, and in the colony where he sought to settle, he found himself assailed, for the first time in his life, by Protestant virulence and incapacitation. He was now, himself, about to become a Lord Proprietor. The sovereign who granted his charter was a Protestant, and moreover, the king of a country whose established religion was Protestant. The Protestant monarch, of course, could notgrantanything which would compromise him with his Protestant subjects; yet the Catholic nobleman, who was to take the beneficiary charter, could notreceive, from his Protestant master, a grant which would assail the conscience of co-religionists over whom he was, in fact, to be a sovereign. In England, the King had no right to interfere with the Church of England; but in America, which was a vacant, royal domain, his paramount authority permittedhim to abolish invidious ecclesiastical distinctions. Calvert, the Catholic, must have been less than a man, if he forgot his fellow sufferers and their disabilities when he drew his charter. His Protestant recollections taught him the vexations of Catholic trials, while his Catholic observation informed him sharply of Protestant persecution. Sectarianism was already rampant across the Atlantic.[11]The two British lodgments, in Virginia and New England, were obstinately sectarian. Virginia was Episcopalian; New England was Puritan;—should Maryland be founded as an exclusively Protestant province, or an exclusively Catholic settlement? It is evident that either would be impossible:—the latter, because it would have been both impolitic and probably illegal; and the former because it would have been a ridiculous anomaly to force a converted Catholic, to govern a colony wherein his own creed was not tolerated by a fundamental and unalterable law. It is impossible to conceive that the faith of Calvert and the legal religion of Charles, did not enter into their deliberations, when they discussed the Charter; and, doubtless, both subject and sovereign justly decided to make "The Land of Mary," which the Protestant Charles baptised in honor of his Catholic Queen, a free soil for Christianity. It was Calvert's duly and interest to make Charles tolerant of Catholic Christianity; nor could he deny to others the immunity he demanded for himself and his religious brethren. The language of the charter, therefore, seems explicit and incapable of any other meaning. There were multitudes of Catholics in England, who would be glad to take refuge in a region where they were to be free from disabilities, and could assert their manhood.The king, moreover, secured for his Catholic subjects a quiet, but chartered banishment, which still preserved their allegiance. At the court there was much leaning towards the church of Rome. It was rather fashionable to believe one way, and conform another. The Queen was zealous in her ancestral faith; and her influence over the king, colored more than one of his acts. Had Calvert gone to the market place, and openly proclaimed, that a Protestant king, by a just charter of neutrality, had established an American sanctuary for Catholics, and invited them thither under the banner of the cross, one of his chief objects, must have been at once defeated; for intolerance would have rallied its parties against the project, and the dream of benevolence would have been destroyed for ever. If by the term, "God's Holy Rights and the true Christian religion," the charter meant,the church of England, then,ex vi termini, Catholicity could never have been tolerated in Maryland; and yet it is unquestionable that the original settlement was made under Catholic auspices—blessed by Catholic clergymen—and acquiesced in by Protestant followers. Was it not wise, therefore, to shield conscience in Maryland, under the indefinite but unsectarian phraseology of "God's Holy Rights and the true Christian Religion?"[12]

So far, then, for the basis of the charter, and for the action of Sir George Calvert. After his death, the planting of the colony took place under the administration of Cecilius, who, remaining in Europe, dispatched his brother Leonard to America to carry out his projects.

If the personal history of the Calverts is scant, the history of the early days of Maryland is scarcely less so; but the industry of antiquarians, and the researches of a learned Catholic clergyman, have brought to light two documents which disclose much of the religious and business character of the settlement. The work entitled:—"A Relation of Maryland," which was published in London in 1635, and gave the first account of the planting of the province, is a minute, mercantile, statistical, geographical and descriptive narrative of thelanding and locating of the adventurers who set sail in 1633, and of their genial intercourse with the aborigines. If I had time, it would be pleasing to sum up the facts of this historical treasure, which was evidently prepared under the direction of Cecilius, Lord Baltimore, if not actually written by him. It is full of the spirit of careful, honest enterprise; and exhibits, I think, conclusively, the fact that the design of Calvert, in establishing this colony, was mainly the creation of a great estate, manorial and agricultural, whose ample revenues should, at all times, supply the needs of his ten children and their descendants.

The other document to which I refer, is a manuscript discovered some years ago, by the Rev. Mr. McSherry, in the archives of the college of the Propaganda, at Rome, and exhibits the zeal with which the worthy Jesuits, whom Lord Baltimore sent forth with the first settlers, applied themselves to the christianization of the savages. It presents some beautiful pictures of the simple life of these devotees. It shows that, in Maryland, the first step wasnotmade in crime; and that the earliest duty of the Governor, was not only to conciliate the Indian proprietors, but to purchase the land they were willing to resign. Nor was this all; there was provident care for the soul as well as the soil of the savage. There is something rare in the watchful forethought which looks not only to the present gain or future prospects of our fellow men, which takes heed not only of the personal rights and material comforts of the race it is displacing, but guards the untutored savage, and consigns him to the vigilance of instructed piety. This "Narrative of Father White," and the Jesuits' letters, preserved in the college at Georgetown, portray the zeal with which the missionaries, in their frail barks, thridded the rivers, coves and inlets of our Chesapeake and Patapsco;—how they raised the cross, under the shadow of which the first landing was effected;—how they set up their altars in the wigwams of the Indians, and sought, by simplicity, kindness and reason, to reach and save the Indian. In Maryland, persecution was dead at the founding;—prejudice, even, was forbidden. The cruelties of Spanish planting were unknownin our milder clime. No violence was used, to convert or to appropriate, and thus, the symbol of salvation, was properly raised on the green Isle of St. Clement, as an emblem of the peace and good will, which the Proprietary desired should sanctify his enterprise.[13]

I think there ran be no doubt that this adventure had the double object of affording an exile's refuge to Calvert's co-religionists, as well as of promoting the welfare of his family. It was designed for land-holders and laborers. It was a manorial, planting colony. Its territory was watered by two bays, several large rivers, and innumerable streams. Its fertile lands and thick forests, invited husbandmen, while its capacious coasts tempted the hardy fisherman. And so it is, that in the Arms which were prepared for the Proprietary government, the baronial shield of the Calvert family, dropped, in America, its two supporting leopards, and received in their stead, on either side, a Fisherman and a Farmer. "Crescite et Multiplicamini,"—its motto,—was a watchword of provident thrift.

Forty-nine years after the charter was granted to Lord Baltimore, King Charles II issued a patent, for a magnificent patrimony in America, toWilliam Penn.

But what a change, in that half century, had passed over the world! A catalogue of the events that took place, in Great Britain alone, is a history of the growth of Opinion and of the People.

Charles's efforts to overthrow the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, and to enforce Episcopacy, brought on the war with the stern enthusiasts of that country. Laud, in the Church, and the Earl of Strafford, in the Cabinet, kept the King in a constant passion of royal and ecclesiastical power. Strafford fell, and the civil war broke out. Cromwell towered up suddenly, on the bloody field, and was victorious over the royalists. The King perished on the scaffold. Cromwell became Lord Protector. Anon, the commonwealth fell; the Stuarts were restored, and Charles II ascended the throne;—but amid all these perilous acts of political and religious fury, the world of thought had been stirred by the speeches and writings, of Taylor, Algernon Sydney, Hampden, and Milton. As the people gradually felt their power they learned to know their rights, and, although they went back from Republicanism to Royalty, they did so, perhaps, only to save themselvesfrom the anarchy that ever threatens a nation while freeing itself from feudal traditions.

Besides these political and literary phases of the time, there had been added to the Catholic, Episcopal, and Puritan sects, anewelement of religious power, which was destined to produce a slow but safe revolution among men.

An humble shoemaker, namedGeorge Fox, arose and taught that "every man was complete in himself; he stood in need of no alien help; the light was free of all control,—above all authority external to itself. Each human being, man or woman, was supreme." The christian denomination called Quakers, or more descriptively—"Friends,"—- thus obtained a hearing and a standing among all serious persons who thought Religion a thing of life as well as of death.

Quakerism, with such fundamental principles of equality in constant practice, became a social polity. If the Quaker was a Democrat, he was so because the "inner light" of his christianity made him one, and he dared not disobey his christianity. He recognized no superiors, for his conscience taught him to deny any privileges to claimed superiority. But the Quaker added to his system, an element which, hitherto, was unknown in the history of sects;—he was a Man of Peace. It is not to be supposed that any royal or ecclesiastical government would allow such radical doctrines to pass unnoticed, in the midst of a society which was ever greedy for new teachings. The Quaker, therefore, soon participated in the persecutions which prelacy thought due to liberal christianity. But persecution of the Friend, was the Friend's best publication, for he answered persecution, not by recantation, but by peaceful endurance. Combative resistance, in religious differences, always gives the victor a right, or at least, an excuse, to slay. But Quakerism, a system of personal and religious independence and peace,—became slowly successful by thevis inertiæof passive resistance. All other sects were, more or less, combative;—Quakerism was an obstinate rock, which stood, in rooted firmness, amid a sea of strife:—the billows of faction raged around it and broke on its granite surface, but they wasted themselves—notthe rock!And this is a most important fact in the history of Religion in its development of society. All other sects lost caste, power or material, either by aggression or by fighting. But the Quaker said to the Prelate, the Puritan, and the Catholic, you may annoy us by public trials, by denial of justice, by misrepresentation, by imprisonment, by persecution, by the stake,—yet we shall stand immovable on two principles, which deny that God is glorified by warfare—especially for opinion. Our principles are, equality and peace—in the church and in the world. Equality is to make us humble and good citizens. Peace is to convert this den of human tigers into a fold, wherein by simply performing our duties to each other and to God, we may prepare ourselves for the world of spirits. You can persecute—wecan suffer. Who shall tire first? We will be victorious by the firmness that bears your persecutions; and those very persecutions, while they publish your shame, shall proclaim our principles as well as our endurance. They knew, from the history of Charles 1st, that the worst thing to be done with a bad king was to kill him; for, if the axe metamorphosed that personage into a martyr, the prison could never extinguish the light of truth in the doctrines of Quakerism![14]

You will pardon me, gentlemen, for having detained you so long in discussing the foundation of Maryland. The planting of your own state is familiar to you. It has been thoroughly treated in the writings of your Proud, Watson, Gordon, Du Ponceau, Tyson, Fisher, Wharton, Reed, Ingraham, Armstrong and many others. Can it be necessary for me to say a word, in Philadelphia, of the history ofWilliam Penn;—of him, who, as a lawgiver and executive magistrate,—a practical, pious, Quaker,—firstdeveloped in state affairs, and reduced to practice, the liberty and equality enjoined by hisreligion and founded on liberal christianity;—of him whofirsttaught mankind the sublime truth, that—

"Beneath the rule of men entirely great"ThePenis mightier than the sword? Behold"The arch-enchanter's wand,—itself a nothing!"But taking sorcery from the master hand"To paralyse the Cesars!Take away the sword,"States can be saved without it!"

It would be idle to detail the facts of his life or government, for, not only have Pennsylvanians recorded and dwelt upon them until they are household lessons, but they have been favorite themes for French, British, Italian, German and Spanish philosophers and historians.

It was Penn to whom the charter of 1681 was granted, half a century after the patent issued to Cecilius Calvert. The instrument itself, has many of the features of the Maryland grant; but it is well known that the absolute powers it bestowed on the Proprietary, were only taken by him in order that he might do as he pleased in the formation of a new state, whose principles of freedom and peace, might, first in the World's history, practically assume a national aspect.

I shall not recount the democratic liberalities of his system, as it was matured by his personal efforts and advice. Original, as he unquestionably was, in genius; bold as he was in resisting the pomp of the world, at a time when its vanities sink easiest and most corruptingly into the heart,—we may nevertheless, say, that the deeds and history of his time, as well as of the previous fifty years, had a large share in moulding his character.

In William Penn, the crude germs of religious originality, which, in Fox, were struggling, and sometimes almost stifling for utterance, found their first, ablest, and most accomplished expounder. He gave them refinement and respectability. His intimacy with Algernon Sidney taught him the value of introducing those principles into the doctrines of government;—and thus, he soon learned that when political rights grow into the sanctity of religious duties, they receive therebya vitality which makes them irresistible. Penn, in this wise, become an expanded embodiment of Fox and Sidney; and, appropriating their mingled faith and polity, discarded every thing that was doctrinal and not practical, and realized, in government, their united wisdom. Noblyin his age, did he declare: "I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, which are the rule of one, of a few, and of the many, and are the three common ideas of government when men discourse on that subject. But I choose to solve the controversy with this small distinction, and it belongs to all three:—any government is free to the people under it, whatever be the frame, where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws; and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, and confusion."[15]

In these historical illustrations, I have striven to show that Primitive Christianity was the basis of equal rights and responsibilities. The alleged defence of this christianity, in the land of its birth, gave rise to "holy wars," in which Feudalism and Chivalry originated. Feudalism was the source of the strictest military dependence, as well as of manifold social perversions. The knight expanded into a lord,—the subject commoner dwindled to a soldier or a serf. Thus Feudalism and a great historical Church, grew up in aristocratic co-partnership over the bodies and souls of mankind, until the one, by the omnipotence of its spiritual authority, ripened into an universal hierarchy, while the other, by the folly of its "divine right," decayed into a temporal despotism that fell at the first blow of the heads-man's axe. The reformation and revolution broke the enchanter's wand; and, when the cloud passed from the bloody stage, instead of seeing before us a magician full of the glories of his art and almost deceived himself, by the splendor of his incantations, we beheld a meagre and pitiful creature, who though blind and palsied, still retained for a while, the power of witch-like mischief. But his reign was not lasting. The stern Puritan,—the pioneer of Independence,—advanced with his remorseless weapon,—while quietly, in his shadow, followed the calm and patient Friend,sowing the seed of Peace and Good-Will in the furrows plowed by the steel of his unrelenting predecessor. And thus again, after ages of corrupt and desolating perversion, the selfish heart of man came humbly back to its original faith that Liberal Christianity is the true basis of enlightened freedom, and the only foundation of good and lasting government.

The bleak winds of March were blowing in Maryland, when Calvert conciliated and purchased from the Indians at Saint Mary's; but Autumn was

"Laying here and there"A fiery finger on the leaves,"

when Penn, also, established a perfect friendship with the savages at Shackamaxon.[16]

Calvert, a protestant officer of the crown, became a catholic, and, retiring to private life, was rewarded by his king, with a pension, estates, and an American principality;—Penn, the son of a British Admiral, and who is only accurately known to us by a portrait which represents himin armor, began life as an adherent of the Church of England, and having conscientiously, doffed the steel for the simple garb of Quakerism, was persecuted, not only by his government but his parent. Calvert took the grant of a feudal charter, and asserting all its legislative and baronial powers, sought to fasten its Chinese influence, in feudal fixedness, on his colonists;—but Penn, knowing that feudalism was an absurdity, in the necessary equality of a wilderness, embraced his great authority in order "to leave himself and his successors no power of doing mischief, so that the will of one man might not hinder the good of a whole community."[17]

Calvert seems to have thought of English or Irish emigration alone;—Penn, did not confine himself to race, but sought for support from the Continent as well as from Britain.[18]

Calvert was ennobled for his services;—Penn rejected a birthright which might have raised him to the peerage.

Calvert's public life was antecedent to his American visit—Penn's was almost entirely subsequent to the inception of his "holy experiment."

Calvert laid the foundations of a mimic kingdom;—Penn, with the power of a prince, stripped himself of authority. The one was naturally an aristocrat of James's time; the other, quite as naturally, a democrat of the transition age of Sidney.

Calvert imagined that mankind stood still; but, Penn believed, that mankindevermoves, or, that like an army under arms, when not marching, it is marking time.

While to Calvert is due the honor of a considerable religious advance on his age, as developed in his charter,—Penn is to be revered for the double glory of civil andperfectreligious liberty. Calvert mitigated man's lot by toleration;—Penn expanded the germ of toleration into unconditional freedom.

Calvert was the founder of a Planting Province, mainly agricultural, and creative of all the manorial dependencies;—but Penn seems to have heartily cherished the idea of a great City, and of the commerce it was to gather and develope from a wilderness over which it was to stand as guardian sentinel. As farming was the chief interest of the one, trading, became, also, a favorite of the other; and thus, while thetransienttrader visited, supplied, and left the native Indian free,—thepermanentplanter settled forever on his "hunting grounds," and drove him further into the forest.

Calvert recognized the law of war;—Penn made peace a fundamental institution. They both felt that civilized nations have a double and concurrent life,—material and spiritual;—but Calvert sought rather to develop one, while Penn addressed himself to the care of both.

Calvert's idea was to open a new land by old doctrines, and to form his preserving amber around a worthless fly;—but Penn's Pennsylvania was to crystalize around the novel and lucid nucleus of freedom.

Calvert supposed that America was to be a mere reflex of Britain, and that the heart of his native Island would pulsate here; but Penn, seeing that the future population of America, like the soil of the Mississippi Valley, would be an alluvial deposit from the overflow of European civilization, thought it right to plant a new doctrine of human rights, which would grow more vigorously for its transplanting and culture.

The germs of Civil and Religious freedom may be found elsewhere in the foundation of American provinces and colonies. I know they are claimed for the cabin of the Mayflower, the rock of Plymouth, and the sands of Rhode Island. But I think that William Penn is justly entitled to the honor of adopting them on principle, after long and patient reflection, as the seed of his people, and thus, of having taken from their introduction by him into this country, all the disparagement of originating either in discontent or accident. His plan was the offspring of beautiful design, and not the gypsey child of chance or circumstance.

History is to man what water is to the landscape,—it mirrors, but distorts in its reflection, and the great founder of Pennsylvania has suffered from this temporary distortion. But, at length, the water will become still, and the image will be perfect. Penn is one of those majestic figures that loom up on the waste of time, in the same eternal permanence and simple grandeur in which the Pyramids rise in relief from the sands of Egypt. Let no Arab displace a single stone!

It is singular that the clause in the XXII section of Charles Ist's charter to Lord Baltimore, relating to the interpretation of that instrument in regard to religion, has never been accurately translated, but that all commentators have, hitherto, followed the version given by Bacon. I shall endeavor to demonstrate the error.

The following parallel passages exhibit the original Latin, and Bacon's adopted translation:

ORIGINAL LATIN.ENGLISH TRANSLATION.The 22nd section of the charter of Maryland, copied from Bacon's Laws, wherein it was adopted from an attested copy from the original record remaining in the Chapel of Rolls in 1758:Translation of the 22nd section of the charter, from Bacon's Laws of Maryland, wherein it is copied from an old translation published by order of the Lower House in the year 1725:"Section xxii.Et si fortè imposterum contingat Dubitationes aliquas quæstiones circa verum sensum et Intellectum alicujus verbi clausulæ vel sententiæ in hâe presentiChartanostrâ contentæ generariEamsemper et in omnibus Interpretationem adhiberi et in quibuscunque Curiis et Prætoriis nostris obtinereVolumuspræcipimus et mandamus quæ præfato modò Baroni deBaltimoreHæredibus et Assignatis suis benignior utilior et favorabilior esse judicabitur Proviso semper quod nulla fiat Interpretatio per quam sacro-sanctaDeiet vera Christiana Religio aut LigeantiaNobisHæredibus et successoribus nostris debita Immutatione Prejudicio vel dispendio in aliquo patiantur:" &c. &c."Section xxii.And if, peradventure, hereafter it may happen that any doubts or questions should arise concerning the true sense and meaning of any word, clause or sentence contained in this our present charter, we will, charge, and command,ThatInterpretation to be applied, always, and in all things, and in all our Courts and Judicatories whatsoever, to obtain which shall be judged to be more beneficial, profitable and favorable to the aforesaid now Baron ofBaltimore, his heirs and assigns: Provided always that no interpretation thereof be made wherebyGod's holy and true christian religion, or the allegiance due to us, our heirs and successors, may, in any wise, suffer by change, prejudice or diminution:" &c. &c.,

It will be noticed that thisLatincopy, according to the well known ancient usage in such papers, is not punctuated, so that we have no guidance, for the purpose of translation, from that source.

The translation of this section as far as the words: "Proviso semper quod nulla fiat interpretatio," &c. is sufficiently correct; but the whole of the final clause, should in my opinion, be rendered thus:—

"Provided always that no interpretation thereof be made, wherebyGod's holy rightsandtheTRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, or the allegiance due to us our heirs or successors, may, in any wise suffer by change, prejudice or diminution." Let me offer my reasons for this alteration:

1st, This new translation harmonizes with the evident grammatical construction of the Latin sentence, and is the easiest as well as most natural. The common version, given by Bacon: "God'sholyandtrueCHRISTIANreligion,"—is grossly pleonastic, if not nonsensical. Among christians, "God's religion," can of course, only be the "christian religion;" and, with equal certainty, it is not only a "true" religion, but a "holy" one!

2nd, The wordSacrosanctus, always conveys the idea of aconsecrated inviolability, in consequence of inherent rights and privileges. In a dictionary,contemporary with the charter, I find the following definition,—in verbo sacrosanctus.

"Sacrosanctus: Apud Ciceronem dicebatur id quod interposito jurejurando sanctum, et institutum erat idem etiam significat ac sanctus,santo.Tribunus plebis dicebatur sacrosanctus, quia eum nefas erat attingere, longè diviniori ratione Catholici appellamus ecclesiam Romanam sacrosanctam.Calpinus Parvus;—seu Dictionarium Cæsaris Calderini Mirani:Venetiis, 1618.

Cicero,in Catil: 2. 8.—uses the phrase—"Possessiones sacrosanctæ," in this sense; and so does Livy in the epithet,—"Sacrosancta potestas," as applied to the Tribuneship; and, in the sentence,—"ut plebi sui magistratus essent sacrosanctæ."

From the last sentence, in the definition given in the Venetian Dictionary of 1618, which I have cited in italics, it will be seen that the epithet had a peculiarly Catholic significationin its appropriationby the Roman Church.

3d, I contend that "sacrosancta" does not qualify "religio," but agrees withnegotia, or some word of similar import, understood; and thus the phrase—"sacrosancta Dei"—forms a distinct branch of the sentence.

If the translation given in Bacon is the true one, the positions of the words "sacrosancta" and "Dei" should be reversed, for their present collocation clearly violates accurate Latin construction. In that case, "Dei" being subject to the government of "religio," ought to precede "sacrosancta," which would be appurtenant to "religio," while "et," which would then couple the two adjectives instead of the two members of the sentence, should be placed immediately between them, without the interposition of any word to disunite it either from "sacrosancta" or "vera." If my translation be correct, then the collocation of all the words in the original Latin of the charter, is proper. If "sacrosancta" is a neuter adjective agreeing with "negotia," understood,—and "et" conjoins members of sentences, then the whole clause is obedient to a positive law of Latin verbal arrangement. Leverett says: "The genitive is elegantly put before the noun which governs it with one or more words between;exceptwhen the genitive isgoverned by a neuter adjective, in which case,it mustbeplaced after it."

4th, Again:—if "et" joins "sacrosancta" and "vera," which, thereby, qualify the same noun, there arethenonly two nominatives in the Latin sentence of the charter, viz: "religio" and "ligcantia." Now these nouns, being coupledby the disjunctive conjunction "aut," must have the verb agreeing with themseparatelyin the singular. But, as "patiantur" happens to be in the plural, the author of the charter must either have been ignorant of one of the simplest grammar rules, or have designed to convey the meaning I contend for.

I must acknowledge the aid and confirmation I have received, in examining this matter, from the very competent scholarship of my friend Mr. Knott, assistant Librarian of the Maryland Historical Society.

The scope of my discourse is confined to the illustration ofprincipleseither announced, or acted on, in thefoundingof Maryland and Pennsylvania. I have contended that Sir George Calvert, thefirstLord Baltimore, so framed the charter which was granted by Charles I, that, without express concessions, the general character of its language in regard to religious rights, would secure liberty of conscience to christians.

I: 1632.—Language can scarcely be more perspicuously comprehensive, than in the phrase: "God's Holy Rights and the true Christian Religion." Under such a clause,in the charter, no particular church could set up a claim for its exclusive christianity. There was no mention, in the instrument, of "the Established Church," or, of "the Church of England." The Catholic could not deny the Episcopalian's christianity; the Episcopalian could not deny the Catholic's, nor could the Puritan question the christianity of either. All professed faith in Christ. Each of the three great sects might contend that itsformof worship, or interpretation of the Bible, was the correct one; but all came lawfully under the great generic class of christians. And, while the political government of the colonists was to be conducted by a Catholic magistrate, in a province belonging to a Catholic Lord,—theinterpretationof the law of religious rights was to be made, not by the laws of England, but exclusively under the paramount law of the provincial charter. By that document the broad "rights of God," and "the true christian religion," could not "suffer by change, prejudice or diminution."

This view is strengthened by a clause in the 4th section of the charter, by which the king granted Lord B. "the patronages and advowsons ofALLchurcheswhich,with the increasing worship andReligion of Christ, (crescenti Christi cultu et religione,") should be built within his province. The right ofadvowson, being thus bestowed on the Lord Proprietary, forall Christian Churches; his majesty, then, goes on, empowering Lord B. to erect and found churches, chapels, &c. andto causethem to be dedicated "according to the Ecclesiastical laws of our kingdom of England." The general right of advowson, and the particular privilege, conceded to a Catholic, of causing the consecration of Episcopal churches, areseparatepowers and ought not to be confounded by a hasty reader of the charter.

I think there can hardly be a fair doubt that the interpretation I give to the 22nd clause is the one assigned to it by the immigrants from the earliest colonialmovement in 1633. We may assert, therefore, the fact, that religious freedom was offered and secured for christians, in the province of Maryland, from the very beginning.

II: 1633.—We must recollect that under the English statutes,adherents of the national church required no protection; they were free in the exercise of their faith; but Catholics and Puritans were not so happily situated, and, accordingly, they sought, in the new world an exemption from the disabilities and persecutions they experienced at home. Can it be credited, that, under such vexations, the Catholic Lord Baltimore would have drawn a charter, or, his Catholic son and successor, sent forth a colony, under a Catholic Governor, when the fundamental law, under which alone he exercised his power, did not secure liberty to him and his co-religionists? It is simply necessary to ask the question, in order to demonstrate the absurdity of such a supposition.

III: 1634.—If we show, then, that Catholic conscience was untrammeled in Maryland, I think we may fairly assume the general ground as satisfactorily proved. What was, briefly, the first movement of this sect, under the Lord Proprietary's auspices? When Lord Cæcilius was planning his colonial expedition in 1633, one of his earliest cares was to apply to the Order of Jesus for clergymen to attend the Catholic planters and settlers, and to convert the natives. Accordingly, under the sanction of the Superior, Father White joined the emigrants,although, under previous persecutions in England, he had been sent into perpetual banishment, to return from which subjected the culprit to the penalty of death! These facts are set forth, at page 14 of the 2nd volume of Challoner's Memoirs. Historia Anglo-Bavara, S. J. Rev. Dr. Oliver's collections illustrative of the Scotch, English and Irish Jesuits, page 222, and in the essay on the Early Maryland Missions, by Mr. B. U. Campbell. Fathers Andrew White and John Altham, and two lay brothers, named John Knowles and Thomas Gervase, accompanied the first expedition, and were active agents in consecrating the possession of the soil, and convertingProtestant immigrantsas well as heathen natives. The colony, therefore, cannot properly be called a Protestant one, when itsonlyspiritual guides were Catholics; and consequently if it was more of a Catholic than a Protestant emigration, it must, by legal necessity, have been free from the moment it quitted the shores of England. If the Catholic was free, all were free.

IV: 1637.—Our next authority, in regard to theearly interpretationof religious rights in Maryland, is found in a passage in Chalmers's Political Annals, page 235. "In the oath," says he, "taken by the Governor and Council,betweenthe years 1637 and 1657, there was the following clause, which ought to be administered to the rulers of every country. 'I will not, by myself or any other, directly or indirectly, trouble, molest or discountenance, any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ, for or on account of his religion.'" This shows, that "belief in Jesus Christ," under the constitutional guaranty of the charter, anterior to the enactment of any colonial law by the Maryland Assembly, secured sects from persecution. The language of the oath, which was doubtless promulgated by the Lord Proprietor, is as broad as the language of the charter. The statement of Chalmers has been held to be indefinite as to whether the oath was takenfrom1637 to 1657, or, whether it was taken in some yearsbetweenthose dates; but, if the historian did not mean to say that it had been administeredfirstin 1637, and continued afterwards, why would he not have specified any other, as the beginning year, as well as 1637? Theobjection seems rather hypercritical than plausible. Chalmers was too accurate a writer to use dates so loosely, and inasmuch as he was an old Maryland lawyer and custodian of the Maryland provincial papers, he had the best opportunity to designate the precise date. A Governor's oath was a regular and necessary official act. No one can doubt that an oath was required of that personage in Maryland; and the oath in question, is precisely such an one as Protestant settlers, in that age, might naturally expect from a Catholic Magistrate, who, (even from motives of the humblest policy,) would be willing to grant to others what he was anxious to secure for himself. If ever there was a proper time for perfect toleration, it was at this moment, when a Catholic became,for the first time in history, a sovereign prince of thefirst provinceof the British Empire!

Mr. Chalmers could not have confounded the oath whose language he cites, with other oaths which the reader will find cited in the 2nd volume of Bozman's History of Maryland, at pages 141, 608, 642. The oath prepared for Stone in 1648, appears to have been an augmented edition of the one quoted by Chalmers, and is so different in parts of its phraseology as well as items, that it cannot have been mistaken by the learned annalist. Bancroft, McMahon, Tyson, C. F. Mayer and B. U. Campbell, adopt his statement as true.

V: 1638.—In regard to the earlypractice of Marylandtribunals, on the subject of tolerance, we have a striking case in 1638. In that year a certainCatholic, named William Lewis, was arraigned before the Governor, Secretary, &c., forabusive language to Protestants. Lewis confessed, that, coming into a room where Francis Gray and Robert Sedgrave, servants of Captain Cornwaleys, were reading, he heard them recite passages so that he should hear them, that were reproachful to his religion, "viz: that the Pope was anti-Christ, and the Jesuits anti-Christian Ministers, &c: he told them it was a falsehood and came from the devil, and that he that writ it was an instrument of the devil, and so he would approve it!" The court found the culprit "guilty of a very offensive speech in calling the Protestant ministers, the ministers of the devil," and of "exceeding his rights, in forbidding them to read a lawful book." In consequence of this "offensive language," and other "unreasonable disputations, in point of religion, tending to the disturbance of the peace and quiet of the Colony, committed by him,against a public proclamation set forth to prohibit all such disputes," Lewis was fined and remanded into custody until he gave security for future good behaviour.[19]

Thus, four years, only, after the settlement, the liberty of conscience was vindicated by a recorded judicial sentence, and "unreasonable disputations in point of religion," rebuked by a Catholic Governor in the person of a Catholic offender. There could scarcely be a clearer evidence of impartial and tolerant sincerity. The decision, moreover, is confirmatory of the fact that the Governor had taken such an oath as Chalmers cites, in the previous year, 1637; especially as there hadalready been a "proclamation to prohibit disputes!"

VI: 1638.—At thefirst efficientGeneral Assembly of the Colony, which was held in this year, only two Acts were passed, though thirty-six other bills were twice read and engrossed, but not finally ripened into laws. The secondof the two acts that were passed, contains a section asserting that "Holy Church,within this province, shall have all her rights and liberties;" thus securing the rights of Catholics;—while the first of the thirty-six incomplete acts was one, which we know only bytitle, as "An act forChurch liberties." It was to continue in force until the end of the next General Assembly, and then, with the Lord Proprietary's consent, to be perpetual. Although we have no means of knowing the extent of the proposed "Church liberties," we may suppose that the proposed enactment was general, in regard to all Christian sects besides the Catholics.

VII: 1640.—At the session of 1640, an act for "Church liberties"was passedon the 23d October, and confirmed, as a perpetual law, in the first year of the accession of Charles Calvert, 3d Lord Baltimore, in 1676. This Act also declares that "Holy Church, within this province, shall have and enjoy all her rights, liberties and franchises, wholly and without blemish." Thus, in 1640, legislation had already settled opinion as to the rights of Catholics and Protestants. Instead of the early Catholics seeking to contract the freedom of other sects, their chief aim and interest seem to have been to secure their own. I consider the Acts I have cited rather as mere declaratory statutes, than as necessary original laws.

VIII: 1649.—In this year, an assembly, believed to have been composed of a Protestant majority, passed the act which has been lauded as the source of religious toleration. It is "An Act concerning Religion," and, in my judgment, is less tolerant than the Charter or the Governor's Oath, inasmuch as it included Unitarians in the same category with blasphemers and those who denied our Saviour Jesus Christ, punishing all alike, with confiscation of goods and the pains ofdeath. This was the epoch of the trial and execution of Charles I, and of the establishment of the Commonwealth.

IX: 1654.—The celebrated act I have just noticed, however, was passed fifteen years after the original settlement, which exceeds the period comprised in the actualfoundingof Maryland. Besides this, the political and religious aspect of England was changing, and the influence of the home-quarrel was beginning to be felt across the Atlantic. In 1654, during the mastery of Cromwell, religious freedom was destroyed: Puritanism became paramount; Papacy and Prelacy were denounced by law; and freedom was assured only to Puritans, and such as professed "faith in God by Jesus Christ, though differing in judgment, from the doctrine or worship publicly held forth."

X.—It has been alleged that the clause in the Maryland Charter securing "God's holy rights and the true Christian religion," is only an incorporation into Lord Baltimore's instrument, of certain clauses contained in the early Charters of Virginia. If the reader will refer to the 1st volume of Henning's Statutes at large, he will find all those documents in English, butunaccompanied by the original Latin. Thus, we have no means of judging theaccuracy of the translation, oridentity of languagein the Maryland and Virginia instruments. Adopting, however, for the present, the translation given by Henning, we find no coincidence of phraseology either to justify the suspicion of a mere copy, or to subject our charter to thelimitationscontained in the Virginia patents. Disabilities are to be construed strictly in law, and our charter is not to be interpreted by another, but stands on its own, independent, context and manifest signification.

The first Virginia Charter or Patent was issued to Sir Thomas Gates and others, April 10th, 1606, in the 4th year of James's English reign. Among the "Articles, Orders, Instructions," &c., set down for Virginia, 20th Nov., 1606,—(though nothing is said about restrictions in religion, while the preamble commends the noble work of propagating the Christian religion among infidel savages,)—is the following clause:—"And we doe specallie ordaine, charge, and require the presidents and councills," (of the two Colonies of Virginia,) "respectively, within their severall limits and precincts, that they with all diligence, care and respect, doe provide, that thetrue word and service of God and Christian faith, be preached, planted and used, not only within every of the said severall colonies and plantations, but alsoe, as much as they may, among the salvage people which doe or shall adjoine unto them, or border upon them,according to theDOCTRINE,RIGHTS,andRELIGION,now professed and established within our realme of England."—1st Henning, 69.

The second charter or patent, dated 23d May, 1609, 7th "James I," was issued to the Treasurer and Company for Virginia, and in its XXIX section, declares: "And lastly, because the principal effect, which we can desire or expect of this action, is the conversion and reduction of the people in those parts unto theWorship of God and Christian religion, in which respect we should be loath, that any person be permitted to pass, that we suspected to affect the superstitions of the Church of Rome; we do hereby declare that it is our will and pleasure that none be permitted to pass in any voyage, from time to time, to be made unto the said country, but such as shall first have taken the Oath of Supremacy; &c., &c.—1st Henning, 97.

The third Charter of James the I, in the 9th year of his English reign, was issued 12th March, 1611-12 to the Treasurer and Company for Virginia. The XIIth section empowers certain officers to administer theOath of Supremacy and Allegiance, to "all and every persons which shall at any time or times hereafter go or pass to said Colony of Virginia."

The Instructions to Governor Wyatt, of 24th of July, 1621, direct him:—"to keep up the Religion of the Church of England, as near as may be," &c., &c.—1st Henning.

All these extracts, it will be observed, containlimitationsandrestrictions, either explicitlyin favorof the English Church, oragainstthe, so called, "superstitions of the Church of Rome." The Maryland Charter shows no such narrow clauses, and consequently, is justly free from any connexion,in interpretation, with the Virginia instruments. Besides this, we do not know that the language of the original Latin of the Virginia Charters, is the same as ours, and, therefore, it would be "reasoning in a circle," or, "begging the question," if we translated the Maryland Charter into the exact language of the Virginian. The phraseology—"God's holy rights and the true Christian religion,"—unlimited in the Maryland Patent,—was a distinct assertion of broad equality to all professing to believe in Jesus Christ. It was not subject to any sectarian restriction, and formed the basis of religious liberty in Maryland, until it was undermined during the Puritan intolerance in 1654.

Dear Sir:

We have been appointed a committee to communicate to you the following resolution passed at a meeting of the Historical Society held this evening:

"Resolved, That the thanks of theHistorical Society, are hereby returned toMr. Brantz Mayer, ofBaltimore, for his very able and eloquent address, delivered before it, on Thursday evening, the 8th instant; and thatMessrs. Tyson,Fisher,CoatesandArmstrong, be appointed a committee to transmit this resolution to Mr. Mayer, and request a copy of the address for publication."

Permit us to express the pleasure we derived from the delivery of your Discourse, and, also, the hope that you will comply with the Society's request.

We remain, with great respect, your obedient servants,

To MR. BRANTZ MAYER,Baltimore.

Baltimore,15th April, 1852.

Gentlemen:

I am much obliged to thePennsylvania Historical Society, for the complimentary resolution it was pleased to pass in relation to the Discourse I delivered before it on the 8th of this month. In compliance with your request, I place a copy of the address at your disposal; and, while thanking you for the courtesy with which you have communicated the vote of your colleagues, I have the honor to be, your most obedient servant,

BRANTZ MAYER.

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