The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Editorial Board
• Alphabetical List of Authors
• Illustrations
• Introduction
• Note On the Texts
• Part One: Colonial Settlements and Societies
• Virginia Articles, Laws, and Orders I610–11
• The Mayflower Compact November 11, 1620
• Fundamental Orders of Connecticut January 14, 1639
• The Massachusetts Body of Liberties December 1641
• Charter of Liberties and Frame of Government of the Province of Pennsylvania In America May 5, 1682
• Dorchester Agreement October 8, 1633
• Maryland Act For Swearing Allegiance 1638, Plymouth Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity 1625
• Governor Winthrop’s Speech
• Copy of a Letter From Mr. Cotton to Lord Say and Seal
• Part Two: Religious Society and Religious Liberty In Early America
• The Bloody Tenent, of Persecution, For Cause of Conscience
• A Platform of Church Discipline
• Providence Agreement August 20, 1637
• Maryland Act For Church Liberties 1638
• Pennsylvania Act For Freedom of Conscience December 7, 1682
• Worcestriensis 1776
• Thanksgiving Proclamation and Letters to Religious Associations
• Thanksgiving Proclamation
• Farewell Address
• The Rights of Conscience Inalienable
• Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association
• Part Three: Defending the Charters
• Magna Charta 1215
• Petition of Right 1628
• An Account of the Late Revolution In New England and Boston Declaration of Grievances
• Boston Declaration of Grievances
• The English Bill of Rights 1689
• The Stamp Act March 22, 1765
• Braintree Instructions
• Resolutions of the Virginia House of Burgesses June 1765
• Declarations of the Stamp Act Congress October 24, 1765
• The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved
• The Act Repealing the Stamp Act March 18, 1766
• The Declaratory Act March 18, 1766
• Part Four: the War For Independence
• A Discourse At the Dedication of the Tree of Liberty
• Letters From a Farmer In Pennsylvania, Letters V and Ix
• Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress October 14, 1774
• Virginia Bill of Rights June 12, 1776
• On Civil Liberty, Passive Obedience, and Non-resistance
• Common Sense
• The Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776
• Part Five: a New Constitution
• Thoughts On Government
• Articles of Confederation 1778
• The Essex Result April 29, 1778
• Northwest Ordinance 1787
• Albany Plan of Union July 10, 1754
• Virginia and New Jersey Plans 1787
• The Constitution of the United States of America 1787
• The Federalist , Papers 1, 9, 10, 39, 47–51, 78
• Address of the Minority of the Pennsylvania Convention December 12, 1787
• An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution
• Part Six: the Bill of Rights
• The Federalist , Papers 84 and 85
• Letter I
• Essay I
• Letter Iii
• Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments
• Virginia Bill For Establishing Religious Freedom
• Speech Introducing Proposed Constitutional Amendments
• Debate Over First Amendment Language August 15, 1789
• The First Ten Amendments to the Constitution, Or the Bill of Rights 1789
• Commentaries On the Constitution of the United States
• The People V. Ruggles
• Marbury V. Madison
• Barron V. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore
• Part Seven: State Versus Federal Authority
• Essay V: “brutus” 1787
• Chisholm V. Georgia
• U.s. Constitution, Eleventh Amendment 1787
• The Alien and Sedition Acts June 25, 1798
• Virginia Resolutions December 21, 1798
• Kentucky Resolutions November 10, 1798
• Counter-resolutions of Other States 1799
• Report of Virginia House of Delegates 1799
• The Duty of Americans, At the Present Crisis
• Report of the Hartford Convention 1815
• Commentaries On the Constitution of the United States
• A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States
• Part Eight: Forging a Nation
• Opinion Against the Constitutionality of a National Bank
• Opinion As to the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States
• Veto Message
• Veto Message
• Commentaries On the Constitution of the United States
• Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois
• Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• Newspaper Editorials
• Speech On Electioneering
• Speech Before the U.s. Senate
• Speech of Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts
• Fort Hill Address
• Part Nine: Prelude to War
• Laws Regulating Servants and Slaves, 1630–1852
• “slavery” “agriculture and the Militia”
• The Missouri Compromise 1820–21
• Newspaper Editorials
• Senate Speeches On the Compromise of 1850 Speech On the Slavery Question
• The Constitution and the Union
• Speech On the Slavery Question, Delivered In the Senate March 4th, 1850
• Second Fugitive Slave Law September 18, 1850
• The Relative Position and Treatment of the Negroes the Abolitionists—consistency of Their Labors
• What Is Slavery? Slavery Is Despotism
• Kansas-nebraska Act 1856
• Fifth Lincoln-douglas Debate October 7, 1858
• Bibliography

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Letters to Religious Associations

To the United Baptist Churches in Virginia

Gentlemen:

I request that you will accept my best acknowledgements for your congratulation on my appointment to the first office in the nation. The kind manner in which you mention my past conduct equally claims the expression of my gratitude.

After we had, by the smiles of Heaven on our exertions, obtained the object for which we contended, I retired at the conclusion of the war, with an idea that my country would have no farther occasion for my services, and with the intention of never entering again into public life. But when the exigence of my country seemed to require me once more to engage in public affairs, an honest conviction of duty superseded my former resolution, and became my apology for deviating from the happy plan which I had adopted.

If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution. For you, doubtless, remember that I have often expressed my sentiment, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.

While I recollect with satisfaction that the religious society of which you are members, have been, throughout America, uniformly, and almost unanimously, the firm friends to civil liberty, and the persevering promoters of our glorious revolution; I cannot hesitate to believe that they will be the faithful supporters of a free, yet efficient general government. Under this pleasing reflection I rejoice to assure them that they may rely on my best wishes and endeavors to advance their prosperity.

In the meantime be assured, Gentlemen, that I entertain a proper sense of your fervent supplications to God for my temporal and eternal happiness.

g. washington

To the Roman Catholics in the United States of America

Gentlemen:

While I now receive with much satisfaction your congratulations on my being called, by an unanimous vote, to the first station in my country; I cannot but duly notice your politeness in offering an apology for the unavoidable delay. As that delay has given you an opportunity of realizing, instead of anticipating, the benefits of the general government, you will do me the justice to believe, that your testimony of the increase of the public prosperity, enhances the pleasure which I should otherwise have experienced from your affectionate address.

I feel that my conduct, in war and in peace, has met with more general approbation than could reasonably have been expected and I find myself disposed to consider that fortunate circumstance, in a great degree, resulting from the able support and extraordinary candour of my fellow-citizens of all denominations.

The prospect of national prosperity now before us is truly animating, and ought to excite the exertions of all good men to establish and secure the happiness of their coun-try, in the permanent duration of its freedom and independence. America, under the smiles of a Divine Providence, the protection of a good government, and the cultivation of manners, morals, and piety, cannot fail of attaining an uncommon degree of eminence, in literature, commerce, agriculture, improvements at home and respectability abroad.

As mankind become more liberal they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their government; or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed.

I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind concern for me. While my life and my health shall continue, in whatever situation I may be, it shall be my constant endeavour to justify the favourable sentiments which you are pleased to express of my conduct. And may the members of your society in America, animated alone by the pure spirit of Christianity, and still conducting themselves as the faithful subjects of our free government, enjoy every temporal and spiritual felicity.

g. washington

To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport

Gentlemen:

While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.

The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.

If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.

The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.

May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.

g. washington