freedom, with settlers fleeing religious persecution coming here not only
from Europe but from other American colonies where these liberties
were restricted. Dissenting sects from Virginia moved into the lower
Eastern Shore as the first settlers of that area of our State. Quakers,
Presbyterians and others lived there in harmony under the tolerant
authority of the Lords Baltimore. Political upheavals in the mother
country reverberated in the American colonies, with the result that
religious freedom suffered badly during the years preceding the American
Revolution. We recall, with some measure of shame, that Charles
Carroll of Carrollton because of his religion was not eligible to vote in
Maryland when he signed the Declaration of Independence.

But these rather dismal decades of our history, insofar as religious
tolerance is concerned, cannot blot out the glorious epoch. Nor were
subsequent restrictive acts ever able to blot out the spirit of the Act
of Toleration which was firmly implanted in the mind and habits of the
people of Maryland. With such a history and such a background, it was
easy for Marylanders to write a clause granting freedom of conscience
in the first State Constitution they adopted after political freedom had
been gained.

We see, then, a strong strain of religious motivations in the settlement
of the North American continent. Religion truly gave birth to the
Anglo-American society which was established here. But from the very
earliest times, as, for example, the era of the first Calverts in Maryland,
religious institutions remained distinct from political institutions. As a
result, it was easy enough, when the time came, for the Americans to
overthrow their government—"to dissolve, " as they said in the Decla-
ration of Independence, "the political bands which have connected
them with another" and "to assume among the powers of the earth, the
separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's
God entitle them.... " But the religious beliefs, which, as we have seen,
had become intermingled with their habits and feelings, remained un-
shaken in all this upheaval. Their religious institutions, in fact, remained
intact save for superficial and unessential form.

So much, then, for the effect of religion on the foundations of our
country. It is clear that religion has deeply affected the complexion of
our society and consequently the lives of all the individuals who have
comprised it. With such a heritage, it is unthinkable that religion ever
would decline as a vital force in our nation. I predict that as long as
this republic stands, its citizens will continue to be guided by the moral
and religious precepts of their forefathers.

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