On this day 250 years ago, William Bradford of Pennsylvania wrote to his Princeton classmate and good friend James Madison of Virginia about their shared belief in freedom of religion:
I have ever looked on America as the land of freedom when compared with the rest of the world, but compared with the rest of america Tis Pennsylvania that is so. Persecution is a weed that grows not in our happy soil: and I do no[t] remember that any Person was ever imprisoned here for his religious sentiments however heritical or unepiscopal they might be. Liberty . . . [is] the Genius of Pennsylvania; and it[s] inhabitants think speak and act with . . . freedom
Bradford would later serve as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Army and Attorney General under President Washington. Madison would later be the drafter of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution including the First Amendment’s protection of Freedom of Religion.
Source: https://founders.archives.gov/?q=%224%20March%201774%22&s=1111311111&sa=&r=5&sr=
On This Day In The Revolution 
One response to “On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — March 4, 1774”
Our country’s founders could not prevent persecution and intolerance but they at least were able to prevent it from becoming a government mandate as was the case in Europe.
LikeLike