ON THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 133 
and wrong: “ Wrong is when somebody runs off with 
my wife; right is when I run off with some other 
fellow’s wife.” As for Nathaniel Ward, the “Simple 
Cobbler of Agawam,” he tells us that there are people 
in the world who say, “that men ought to have liberty 
of their conscience, and that it is persecution to debar 
them of it.’ And what answer has the Simple Cobbler 
to make? He is for the moment struck dumb. He 
declares, “ I can rather stand amazed than reply to this ; 
it is an astonishment to think that the brains of men 
should be parboiled in such impious ignorance; let all 
the wits under the heavens lay their heads together 
and find an assertion worse than this ... and I will 
petition to be chosen the universal idiot of the world.” 
The reverend gentleman who writes in this pungent 
style was the person who drew up the first code 
adopted in Massachusetts, the code which is known as 
its “ Body of Liberties.” One and all, these men who 
shaped the policy of Massachusetts would have echoed 
with approval the sentiment of the Scottish divine, 
Rutherford, who declared that toleration of all religions 
is not far removed from blasphemy. Holding such 
opinions, they resented the imputation of tolerance in 
much the same spirit as that in which most members 
of the Republican party in the years just preceding 
our Civil War resented the imputation of being 
Abolitionists. 
While the founders of Massachusetts thus stoutly 
opposed religious liberty their opinions did not bear 
their worst fruits until after the middle of the century, 
when men of persecuting temperament like Norton 
and Endicott acquired control. In the earlier years 
the fiery zeal of such men as Wilson and Dudley was 
