It’s ironic to recall that the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had fled England in search of a place where they could worship according to their beliefs without fear of persecution — and yet denied those colonists who were not Puritans the right to vote, hold office, or even live in their community. And there were consequences for those who dissented.
In 1636, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for preaching that the government had no right to punish religious infractions, inferring that political government had no power in the realm of faith. Williams left Massachusetts, fled south, and founded Providence, where the government was based strictly on the consent of the governed.
In limiting government in Providence to power “only in civil things,” Williams stated that forcing citizens to worship against their conscience was “soul-rape.” Strong words and forward-thinking action from a man who advocated that societies of citizens could function well without creating a state where the church governed the human soul.
In his foundational work The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, Williams wrote that it is absurd for “civil powers and officers to judge the conviction of men’s souls,” arguing that “God needeth not the help of a material sword of steel to assist the sword of the Spirit in the affairs of conscience.”
Most students of U.S. history also remember the name of Anne Hutchinson, even if we’re a bit vague on her place in history. She, like Williams, ran afoul of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s strict laws regarding religious practice. While Hutchinson never wrote political essays or religious manifestos, her actions certainly were unsettling to Governor John Winthrop and other leaders in a colony where government and the Puritan Church were closely interwoven.
How did Hutchinson gain the attention of the Massachusetts government?
Hutchinson was accused of breaking the law by hosting religious meetings in her home, arguing that hospitality and spiritual instruction were duties that no human law could dictate. She believed in the “covenant of grace” — the idea that the Holy Spirit can commune directly with an individual’s soul without the need for church ministers or governmental magistrates as intermediaries. (This sounds very similar to Martin Luther’s treatise that eventually led to the Protestant Reformation.) She offered the argument to her accusers that “human laws are secondary to divine light” and that man should remain in their proper places “rather than usurping divine authority.”
News of her very public trial for heresy spread across the region, especially when she defied the court’s authority by telling the judges that they “only had authority over her physical body, but no jurisdiction over her soul.” She accepted her banishment with steadfast courage, warning them of the “divine consequences” awaiting.
Hutchinson and her followers founded Portsmouth (on Aquidneck Island) in 1638, and six years later, Providence and Portsmouth would merge to form the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
Rhode Island’s government was the most radically democratic government in the Atlantic World at that time. Unlike any other colony, Rhode Island did not require church membership to vote or hold public office. No taxes were collected to support the church. In creating such a society, Rhode Island became a haven for religious minorities like Quakers and Jews because it allowed a wide percentage of all males to vote on all issues.
In 1663, Williams secured a permanent royal charter from the recently restored monarch, Charles II of England, granting Rhode Island a “lively experiment” status, guaranteeing no person would be molested or punished for any differences in opinion regarding matters of religion.
The government created allowed Rhode Island to operate as a self-governing republic, with a lawmaking body of deputies directly elected by the freemen in each town. The General Assembly held legislative authority to make laws, establish courts, and regulate local commerce. The governor, deputy governor, and a panel of assistants were elected annually by the colonists with no interference from the Crown. Elections were held for the General Assembly twice a year, ensuring that government officials remained accountable to the local populace, serving the needs of the colony and not themselves.
Rhode Island was our first almost totally independent colony, as the Crown rarely intervened. Its experiment in local autonomy and hyper-individualism would influence the eventual writing of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
