Liberal Thought in America 139 



the Episcopal Church supreme in New York and 

 Maryland, the Catholic inhabitants of those colo- 

 nies were disfranchised and made the subject of 

 various oppressive enactments. Even the laws of 

 Ehode Island, as first printed, early in the eigh- 

 teenth century, expressly prohibit Roman Catho- 

 lics from voting. The date of this statute is not 

 accurately known, but it was certainly between 

 1688 and 1705, 1 and may be due to the strong 

 antagonism aroused by the conduct of James II. 

 and his Jacobites. However that may be, the 

 statute was not repealed until 1784. 



The disfranchisement of Catholics was contrary 

 to the spirit of the Rhode Island charter and to 

 the views of Roger Williams, who certainly under- 

 stood the rational grounds for religious toleration 

 better than any other man of his time, save perhaps 

 Milton and Vane. He represents the Protestant 

 principle of the sacred right of private judg- 

 ment carried out with unflinching logical consist- 

 ency. In him the transition from Independency 

 to Individualism is completed. The contrast be- 

 tween the two is illustrated in the controversy 

 between Williams and Cotton which was called 

 forth by the publication in 1644 of Williams's 

 book entitled " The Bloudy Tenent of Persecu- 

 1 See Arnold's History of Ehode Island, ii. 490-49(3. 



