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2 The Third Article Not until December 20 was the report of the committee on the bill of rights taken up in committee of the whole. Debate immediately centered on the aggravating third article. After the delegates endorsed the recommendation t o strike the antiquated provision empowering the legislature to enjoin attendance at religious worship, Leverett Saltonstall moved that except f or two further amendments of a minor nature the third ar ticle be left undisturbed. The Salem attorney and legislator with an old Massachusetts name was a prominent member of the small eastern conservative group that dominated the convention. So too was Samuel Hoar, Jr., of Concord, who spoke in favor of Saltonstall’s motion. Enoch Mudge, a delegate from the incipient indust rial center of Lynn, in Essex Count y, then explained why he opposed the motion. The next day the motion was passed over in favor of Childs’s resolution, which would more clearly test the opinion of the convention on the basic issue. Henry Halsey Childs came f rom the Berkshire town of Pittsfield, long a center of religious liberalism and Republicanism. A physician by profession, he also ser ved in the legislature f rom 1816to 1827 . The debate lasted two days. Many delegates spoke for the substitute.The remarks of a dissenting minister from Beverly, N. W. Williams, were particularly pointed. Saltonstall delivered the longest and most forthright speech against the motion. Soon after he finished, the question was called, the motion defeated. Mr. Sal t onst al l moved to amend the r eport by striking out the thir d and fourth resolutions, and substituting a resolution declaring that it is not From Journal, pp. 352–5 9, 381–82, 385–90. The Third Article 31 expedient to make any further amendment to the third article of the declaration of rights than to substitute the w ord “Christian” for “Protestant,” and also to provide that real estate shall be taxed for the suppor t of public worship in the town, parish or precinct in which it shall be situated. Mr. Hoar of Concord said it appear ed to him, that the amendment proposed by the gentleman f rom Salem, must necessarily bring the whole subject of the third article into discussion. If it should be adopted,it would show that the committee w ere in favor of the ar ticle as it now stands, in preference to the substitution proposed by the select committee, or by the gentleman f rom Chester [Mr. Phelps], or f rom Pittsfield [Mr. Childs], and to any other which may be off ered. He was desirous that the present amendment might be adopted.He was on the select committee ,but did not vote with the majority in reporting these resolutions. If they were wrong, therefore, he was not responsible for their defects, and if right, he was entitled to no par t of the cr edit. He considered the alteration pr oposed by the report of the committee to be in substance pernicious. It was going to change one of the fundamental principles of our government. If there was in our constitution one pr inciple more than another on which the public happiness and welfare depended, and which was entitled to gr eater favor, he thought it was this; and it was here peculiarly proper to call on gentlemen for an applic ation of the r ule so of ten brought forward, that before any principle in the constitution was changed, it ought to be shown clearly and decisively that experience had proved it capable of producing an ill effect on the community. If this was ac knowledged to be an impor tant and an operative principle and not a dead letter , and if the eff ect produced by it was not a bad one, but the contrary, it ought to be retained. He was unwilling to destroy the effect of this principle. We had had experience of its beneficial operation, not for forty years only, but for more than a century; and he would not exchange this exper ience for any theor y however wise in appearance. Theory might deceive, but experience could not. And if any experience was useful, that of the particular community for which the constitution was intended, was to be preferred. Although other countries may have been able to do without this principle, it by no means followed that it would do no good here. He knew that a distinguished...

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