In June of 1785, James Madison ensconced himself in his library in Orange County, Virginia, and wrote “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments.” His aim was to rally opposition against a bill that would impose on the people “a moderate tax or contribution annually,” first defined as being “for the support of the Christian religion or of some Christian church, denomination or communion of Christians.” In a later version of the bill, teachers of the Christian religion were identified as the beneficiaries of the tax. In either case, Madison feared the bill’s “dishonorable principle and dangerous tendency.” He stood alone against its many backers, who claimed their object was to halt moral decay. In fact, they were spurred on by the powerful Episcopalian Church, which hankered after state moneys.
In “Memorial and Remonstrance,” Madison argued the necessity of keeping church separate from state. Religious liberty is “an unalienable right,” he wrote, “because the opinions of men, depending only upon the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men.… Religion is wholly exempt from the cognizance [of Civil Society].” The former student of theology tactfully pointed out the effect of state support upon religion: “ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation.”
Printed and circulated as a petition, “Memorial and Remonstrance” was signed by countless Virginians. When the legislature convened in November to consider the bill, a table stood before them buried beneath a mound of the petitions. “Such an overwhelming opposition of the people [was displayed],” wrote Madison, “that the plan of a general assessment was crushed under it.” No vote was even taken.
Jubilant, Madison brought forth Thomas Jefferson’s 1779 Ordinance of Religious Freedom and pushed it through the assembly. Heresy ceased to be a crime, and an end was put to religious tests for civil office. “I flatter myself,” the diligent legislator wrote Jefferson, “[we] have in this country extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.”
June 23: Massachusetts and New Hampshire prohibit British ships from exporting American goods.
July 6: Thomas Jefferson’s decimal system of money is adopted by the Continental Congress.
1835 One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago
After ruling for thirty-four years as chief justice of the United States, John Marshall died in Philadelphia on July 6 of a liver ailment. When appointed to the post by President John Adams in 1801, Marshall seemed an unlikely candidate, despite his political career; although once a practicing lawyer, he had studied law for only six weeks. Yet after Marshall was named chief justice, his genius soon became apparent. He molded the Supreme Court into a prestigious and powerful body, and his decisions set forth the basic principles by which the Constitution is interpreted.
“There fell to Marshall perhaps the greatest place that was filled by a judge,” said Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes a century later, “but when I consider his might, his justice, and his wisdom, I do fully believe that if American law were to be represented by a single figure, sceptic and worshipper alike would agree that the figure could be only one alone, and that one John Marshall.”
It is said that the Liberty Bell cracked while tolling Marshall’s death.
June 15: H. L. Ellsworth is made the country’s first patent commissioner.
July 1: Trains begin running between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland.
July 29: Antislavery literature is confiscated from the post office in Charleston, South Carolina, and burned.
1860 One Hundred and Twenty-five Years Ago
“A dollar book for a Dime!!” ran the June 7 advertisement in the New York Tribune. “128 pages complete, only Ten Cents!!! BEADLE’S DIME NOVELS NO. 1, MALAESKA: Indian Wife of the White Hunter, By Mrs. Ann S. Stephens.” With this inauguration of their dime novel series, Irwin P. Beadle & Co. became the first book publishers to tap the American mass market—a market only recently made possible by a paperback revolution in 1842 and the advent of cheaper printing processes. They made a fortune. Turning out one title after another, their novels soon developed recognizable characteristics: high suspense and rip-roaring action, often marked by bloodshed but never by immoral behavior; characters who used bold language but refrained from profanity, never drank, and were utterly asexual; and plots in which virtue prevailed and the forces of evil were inevitably overcome.
Other publishers began selling dime novels too, and until 1900 these paperbacks remained popular fare. Newsprint and pulp-paper magazines took the lead in mass-market publishing by 1910, however, and dime novels disappeared —but the kind of fiction they fostered never did.
June 23: The federal Secret Service is authorized to go into operation.
June 30: The Excelsiors of Brooklyn, New York, formerly known as the Jolly Young Bachelors’ Base Ball Club, become the first baseball team to tour.
1885 One Hundred Years Ago
Prior to 1885, Niagara Falls resembled a carnival. At every turn, landowners forced visitors to pay tolls, and hackmen, hawkers, and showmen besieged them with their importunate cries. That ended on July 15 of this year. The American portion of the falls, eighty thousand surrounding acres, and several islands were transferred from private, exploitative hands to the sovereignty of New York State. The area became the nation’s first state park.
“No longer shall the pilgrim to Niagara suffer for his devotion,” reported The New York Times shortly after. “Him no longer shall the wily occupier fleece. Henceforth he is free of the soil, without fear of toll or charge.” Another advantage was to befall the devotee on Niagara’s becoming a park, according to the Times: “All the abominable obstructions of the late occupiers are to be swept away. These include shanties, cottages, [and] mills, ingeniously placed so as to be visible from all points [and] glaringly hideous in general.”
The Irish poet Oscar Wilde, who visited the falls three years earlier, may have doubted such attempts at purification would improve the site. “Every American bride is taken there,” he said at the time, “and the sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life.” And yet on closer inspection of the falls he relented this much, saying, “I thought of what Leonardo da Vinci said once, that the two most wonderful things in the world are a woman’s smile and the motion of mighty waters.”
June 5: When presented with the opportunity to become President, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman replies: “If nominated, I will not accept. If elected, I will not serve.”
June 19: The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
July 1 : The postal rates are lowered for second-class mailings, leading to a boom in magazine publishing.
1910 Seventy-five Years Ago
During Glenn Curtiss’s pioneering airplane flight between Albany and New York, an as yet unheard of use for the airplane dawned on him. He announced it to the press upon landing: “All the great battles of the future will be fought in the air. I have demonstrated that it is easy to fly over cities and fortifications. It would be perfectly practical to drop enough dynamite or picric acid down on West Point or a city like New York to destroy it utterly.… Take my word for it, the days for big warships are numbered.”
The Navy took notice. When Curtiss flew over Keuka Lake, New York, on June 30 and dropped dummy bombs—eight-inch pieces of lead pipe—within a ring of buoyed flags representing a battleship, military observers were there. It was the first airplane bombing experiment. Fifteen out of seventeen bits of pipe splashed down on target, but Rear Adm. W. W. Kimball nevertheless declared: “There was nothing in the trial that would lead one to suppose that in the present state of the art of aviation there is anything in a possible aerial attack to cause the slightest uneasiness to the commanding officer of a well-ordered ship.” For one, he said, the sound of a plane’s engine would alert a ship to its approach.
By January the War Department was hiring men for aviation training.
June 25: The Publicity of Campaign Contributions Act is made law, requiring U.S. representatives to make public all contributions received for election campaigns.
July 1 : The first completely automatic bread plant opens in Chicago, Illinois.
July 20: The Christian Endeavor Society of Missouri begins its campaign to ban kissing in films. Kisses between actors portraying relatives are deemed acceptable.
