Note 95 — Chapter VII

To be sure the carrying out of this right, in the direction of full political equality to the members of all confessions, differed in the different states. New York was the first state after Rhode Island that brought about the separation of church and state. Virginia followed next in 1785. For some time after in many states Protestant or at least Christian belief was necessary to obtain office. And even to-day some states require belief in God, in immortality, and in a future state of rewards and punishments. Massachusetts declared in her bill of rights not only the right but the duty of worship, and as late as 1799 punished neglect of church attendance. In the course of the nineteenth century these and other restrictions have fallen away except for a very small part. For the Union the exercise of political rights is made entirely independent of religious belief by Art. VI of the Constitution, and also by the famous First Amendment the establishment of any religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof is forbidden. On the present condition in the separate states, cf. the thorough discussion by Cooley, Chap. XIII, pp. 541-586; further Rüttiman, Kirche und Staat in Nordamerika (1871).