Law and Religion in Colonial America: The Dissenting Colonies

ISBN-13: 9781009289054 / Angielski / Twarda / 2023

Scott Douglas Gerber

Opis

Law – charters, statutes, judicial decisions, and traditions – mattered in colonial America, and laws about religion mattered a lot. The legal history of colonial America reveals that America has been devoted to the free exercise of religion since well before the First Amendment was ratified. Indeed, the two colonies originally most opposed to religious liberty for anyone who did not share their views, Connecticut and Massachusetts, eventually became bastions of it. By focusing on law, Scott Douglas Gerber offers new insights about each of the five English American colonies founded for religious reasons – Maryland, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts – and challenges the conventional view that colonial America had a unified religious history.

Recenzje

'Scott Gerber's broad geographic focus and careful attention to the language of specific law codes allow for a fresh and exciting approach to the history of colonial religious liberty.' Adrian Chastain Weimer, Professor of History, Providence College

Spis treści

Introduction: English Law about Religious Toleration Prior to the Planting of Colonial America; 1. Law and Catholicism in Colonial Maryland; 2. Law and the Lively Experiment in Colonial Rhode Island; 3. Law and the Holy Experiment in Colonial Pennsylvania; 4. Law and Congregationalism in Colonial Connecticut; 5. Law and a City Upon a Hill in Colonial Massachusetts; Conclusion: Law, Religion, and Historiography in Colonial America.