was believed to consist in money. Experience has made us wiser. We know that the freest action in this, as in so many other cases, is also the most conducive to general prosperity. It was stated in the journals of the day that Miss Jenny Lind remitted five hundred thousand dollars from the United States to Europe. Suppose this to be true, would we have been benefited had she been forced to leave that sum in this country? Or would we, upon the whole, profit by preventing five million dollars, which, according to the statement of our secretary of state, are now annually sent by our Irish emigrants to Ireland, from leaving our shores ?2 Unquestionably not. But this is not the place for further pursuing a question of political economy.

The English provided for a free egress and regress as early as in Magna Charta. As to the freest possible locomotion within the country, I am aware that many persons accustomed to Anglican liberty may consider my mentioning it as part of civil liberty too minute. If they will direct their attention to countries in which this liberty is not enjoyed in its fullest extent, they will agree that I have good reason

1 The papers of September, 1853, reported that "the Silby estate, belonging to the Hon. Mrs. Petre, has been sold to Lord Londesborough for £270,000. Mrs. Petre, whose property was left by her husband entirely at her own disposal, has taken the veil in a nunnery in France, which will of course receive the whole of her fortune."

This emigration of more than a million of dollars, and serving for the purpose of a religious community not favored by the country whence it emigrates, (not to speak of the actual droit d'Anbaine in France before the revolution,) indicates a great advance of civilization, and would not be allowed in several countries.

Hon. Edward Everett's dispatch to Mr. Crampton, on the Island of Cuba, December 1, 1852. The London Spectator of December 17, 1853, said :

"Not less than £2,972,000 was remitted from Irish emigrants in America to their friends and relatives at home, in 1848, 1849, 1850, and 1851. It is estimated that if the remittances have continued at the same rate, upwards of four millions must have been remitted in the last six years."

for enumerating it. Passports are odious things to Americans and Englishmen, and may they always be so.1

1 The primordial right of locomotion and emigration has been discussed by me in Political Ethics, at considerable length. The state of Mississippi declares in its bill of rights, that the right of emigration shall never be infringed by law or authority. The English distaste of passports was severely tried when, after Orsini's attempt to assassinate Napoleon III., stringent passport regulations were adopted in France; but the English found them too irksome, (and the money they spend is so acceptable to the continent,) that those police regulations were soon relaxed in a very great degree. Napoleon III., when an exile, wrote on the individual liberty in England, and called passports "that invention of the Committee of Public Safety." See his works. The modern passport was, doubtless, greatly developed in the first French revolution, but not invented. The history of the passport, from the Roman Empire to the modern railroad, which naturally interferes with its stringency, is an interesting portion of the history of our race, but it belongs to what the Germans have carved out as a separate branch under the name of Police Science, (Polizei-Wissenschaft.)

CHAPTER X.

LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. PROPERTY. SUPREMACY OF

THE LAW.

8. LIBERTY of conscience, or, as it ought to be called more properly,' the liberty of worship, is one of the primordial rights of man, and no system of liberty can be considered comprehensive which does not include guarantees for the free exercise of this right. It belongs to American liberty to separate entirely the institution which has for its object the support and diffusion of religion from the political government. We have seen already what our constitution says on this point. All state constitutions have similar provisions. They prohibit government from founding or endowing churches, and from demanding a religious qualification for any office or the exercise of any right. They are not hostile to religion, for we see that all the state governments direct or allow the bible. to be read in the public schools; but they adhere strictly to these two points: No worship shall be interfered with, either directly by persecution, or indirectly by disqualifying members of certain sects, or by favoring one sect above the others; and no church shall be declared the church of the state, or "established church;" nor shall the people be taxed by government to support the clergy of all the churches, as is the case in France.

1 Conscience lies beyond the reach of government. "Thoughts are free," is an old German saying. The same must be said of feelings and conscience. That which government, even the most despotic, can alone interfere with, is the profession of religion, worship, and church govern

ment.

2 See Primordial Rights in Political Ethics.

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In England there is an established church, and religious qualifications are required for certain offices and places, at least in an indirect way. A member of parliament cannot take his seat without taking a certain oath "upon the faith of a christian;" which, of course, excludes Jews. There is no doubt, however, that this disqualification will soon be removed.1

1 This disqualification has at length been removed, in 1858. The words "upon the faith of a christian" may be left out of the qualifying oath by a non-christian. There are now, 1859, three Jews in the house of commons.

Since the text, to which this note is appended, was written, the case of the Madiai family has attracted the attention of all civilized nations in the old and new world. The Madiai family, natives of Tuscany, had become protestants, and used to read the bible. No offence has ever been charged to them, except that they read the bible in the vernacular. Their imprisonment and prosecution caused the formation of a Society for Protecting the Rights of Conscience, in England, in July, 1857. Archbishop Whately presided at the first meeting, and in giving the scope of society, spoke of the topic in hand, with a degree of discrimination which entitles his remarks to be reproduced here. He said:

"We are entirely unconnected with conversion, except so far as converts may be exposed to persecutions, for conscience sake. We enter into no connection with any society for diffusing religious knowledge of any kind. By rights, we understand not necessarily that every one is right in the religion that he adopts, but that his neighbors have no right to interfere with him. We merely maintain that a man has a right, not necessarily a moral right, nor a right in point of judgment, but a civil right, to worship God according to his own conscience, without suffering any hardships at the hands of his neighbors for so doing. We limit ourselves entirely to those descriptions of persecution in which the law can give no relief. As for assaults and violence of any kind, where the law provides and holds out a remedy, we leave all persons to seek that remedy for themselves; and we do not undertake to guard, or to remunerate, or to compensate any persons who are exposed to obloquy, to curses, denunciations of Divine vengeance uttered by men, to ridicule, or to any sort of annoyance of that kind. They should be taught to bear it and to support it with joy and satisfaction through Divine help, and rejoicing that they are counted worthy to suffer in the good cause. But when attempts are made to compel men to conform to what they do not conscientiously believe, by the fear of starvation, by turning them out of employment when they are honest and industrious laborers, by refusing to buy and sell, or hold any intercourse with them, then I think it is, and then only, that a society like this ought to come forward, and that all

Whether it will be done or not, we are nevertheless authorized to say that liberty of conscience forms one of the elements of Anglican liberty. It has not yet arrived at full maturity in some portions of the Anglican race, but we can discern it in the whole race, in whose modern history we find religious toleration at an earlier date than in that of any other large portion of mankind. Venice, and some minor states, found the economical and commercial benefit of toleration at an early period, but England was the earliest country of any magnitude where toleration, which precedes real religious liberty, was established. While Louis XIV. of France, called the Great, "dragonaded" the protestants on no other ground than that they would not become catholics, a greater king, William III., declared, in England, that "conscience is God's province." The catholics were long treated with severity in England, but it was more on a political ground, because the pope supported for a long time the opponents to the ruling dynasty, than on purely religious grounds.

There is a new religious zeal manifesting itself in all branches of the christian church. The catholic church seems to be animated by a renewed spirit of activity, not dissimilar to that which inspired it in the seventeenth century, by which it regained much of the ground lost by the reformation, and which has been so well described by Mr. Ranke. The protestants are not idle; they study, probe, preach, and act with great zeal. May Providence grant that the Anglican tribe, and all the members of the civilized race, may more and more distinctly act upon the principle of religious liberty, and not swerve from it, even under the most galling circumstances. Calamitous consequences, of which very few may have any conception at this moment, might easily follow.

As to that unhappy and most remarkable sect called the Mormons, who have sprung up and consolidated themselves

persons, whatever religion they may be of, or whether they are of any religion at all or not, in a feeling of humanity and justice, ought to look with a favorable eye on such a society as yours, provided it keep itself within its own proper bounds."