235 



the same forms, as prescribed by the present laws in 

 elections of senators and delegates of assembly. The 

 said senators and delegates shall constitute the first ge- 

 neral assembly of the new government, and sliall spe- 

 cially apply themselves to the procuring an exact return 

 from every county of the number of its quaUfied elec- 

 tors, and to the settlement of the number of delegates 

 to be elected for the ensuing general assembly. 



The present governor shall continue in office to the 

 end of the term for which he was elected. 



All other officers of every kind shall continue in of- 

 fice as they would have done had their appointment 

 been under this constitution, and new ones, where new 

 are hereby called for, shall be appointed by the autho- 

 rity to which such appointnjent is referred. One of the 

 present judges of the general court, he consenting 

 thereto, shall by joint ballot of both houses of assembly, 

 at their first meeting, be transferred to the High Court 

 of Chancery. 



No. in. 



An ACT for establishing Ret.ig}0\js Freedom, passed 

 in the Assembly of Virginia in the beginning of the year 

 1786. 

 Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind 

 free ; that all attempts to influence it by temporal pun- 

 ishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend 

 only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and 

 are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of 

 our religion, who being I^ord both of body and mind, 

 yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, 

 as was in his Almighty power to do ; that the impious 

 presum{)tion of legislators and rulers, civil as well as 

 ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and 

 uninspired- men have assumed dominion over the faith 

 of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of 

 thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such en- 



