= IN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor History is past Politics and Politics present History-Freeman TENTH SERIES II-III CHURCH AND STATE IN NEW ENGLAND Enacmus BY PAUL E. LAUER, A. M. BALTIMORE THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS February and March, 1892 PREFACE. The complete separation of church and state is an American doctrine. European governments have long maintained church establishments. The Puritan colonists of New England in the seventeenth century were not prepared to organize on principles that characterize the relations of church and state in America to-day. They followed the example of the mother country and united the civil and ecclesiastical organizations. They established the Congregational church and endeavored to maintain it by law against all opposition. The design of this monograph is to give the history of the establishment, to point out the causes that led to the dis-establishment and also the steps by which the latter was brought about. The author aims, in this way, to trace the growth of religious liberty from the time of the first settlements to the final triumph of religious freedom in New England in 1834. P. E. L. |