If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of
government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion,
always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or
impaired; and their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this
free spirit. The people are Protestants; and of that kind which is the
most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a
persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but built upon it. I do not
think, Sir, that the reason of this averseness in the dissenting churches
from all that looks like absolute government is so much to be sought in
their religious tenets, as in their history. Every one knows that the
Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval with most of the governments
where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and
received great favor and every kind of support from authority. The Church
of England too was formed from her cradle under the nursing care of
regular government. But the dissenting interests have sprung up in direct
opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world, and could justify that
opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty.
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