An Act for establishing religious Freedom (authored by Thomas Jefferson)

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;
That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,

That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;

That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;
That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;

That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,
That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,

That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;
That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;

That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;

That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;

And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:

Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

On the water side of Commercial Street, opposite Copp’s Hill, the Purity Distilling Company had built a giant storage tank in 1915. Massively constructed, with great curved steel sides and strong bottom plates set into a concrete base and pinned together with a stitching of rivets, it was built to hold molasses. Boston still made rum as well as baked beans, and molasses was needed for both.

As January hit its mid-point that year the weather in Boston turned mild—close to 40 F—and the streets were bare of snow, and a ship from Puerto Rico had just added 2,300,000 gallons to the big molasses tank.

At noon work around the tank routinely slowed as laborers took time out for their sandwiches and coffee. Men paused to eat and chat in a shack owned by the city Paving Department, which shared the area where the tank stood. Others were doing the same at the quarters of a Boston Fire Department fireboat on the waterfront side of the tank.
At about 12:30, with a sound described as a sort of muffled roar, the giant molasses tank seemed to rise and then split, the rivets popping in a way that reminded many ex-soldiers of machine-gun fire. Then a wet, brown hell broke loose, flooding downtown Boston.

An estimated 14,000 tons of thick, sticky molasses ran from the ruptured tank in a choking brown wave, 15 feet high. One section of the steel tank was hurled across Commercial Street, knocking out the uprights supporting the elevated railroad. An approaching train screeched to a stop as the track sagged into the onrushing molasses.

A policeman was at his corner signal box, making a call to his precinct, when he glanced down the street and saw the brown tide racing towards him. “Holy Mother of God! Sind everythin’ you can—somethin’ tirrible has happened!”

Houses “seemed to cringe up as though they were made of pasteboard.” The Clougherty home at the foot of Copp’s Hill collapsed around poor Bridget Clougherty. A jagged chunk of the tank smashed the freight house next door, and then the great brown wave caught and killed most of the lunching laborers. The fireboat company quarters was splintered. A lorry was blasted right through a fence, and a wagon driver was found later, dead and frozen in his last attitude like a figure from the ashes of Pompeii.

Anthony di Stasio, walking homeward with his sisters from the Michelangelo School, was picked up by the wave and carried, tumbling on its crest, almost as though he were surfing. Then he grounded and the molasses rolled him like a pebble as the wave diminished. He heard his mother call his name and couldn’t answer, his throat was so clogged with the smothering goo. He opened his eyes to find three of his sisters staring at him. They had found little Anthony stretched under a sheet on the “dead” side of a body-littered floor alongside his sister who did not survive.

Red Cross volunteers, Boston debutantes in smart gray uniforms with spotless white shirtwaists and shiny black puttees, stepped determinedly into the deep brown muck. In a second they were gooey and bedraggled, plunging through the flood. The rescue workers, clean-up crews and sight-seers managed to distribute molasses all over Boston. Boots and clothing carried it into the suburbs. Everything a Bostonian touched was sticky, streetcar seats and public telephones were coated. The harbor turned brown as the hoses washed the goo into the bay.

The death toll rose as rescue operations continued. Two bodies showed up four days after, so glazed over that identification was difficult. The final count was 21 dead, 150 injured.

The molasses covered several blocks of downtown Boston to a depth of two or three feet. As the rescue workers and clean-up crews tackled the incredible mess the night of January 16, they paused as church bells rang out all over downtown Boston.

Nebraska had voted on the 18th Amendment and ratified it. Prohibition was now law, and churches which had campaigned for it in their pulpits now celebrated. Men up to their ankles in the makings of rum listened for a moment and went back to work.

Credit: Edwards Park – The Smithsonian – November 1983

To The Honorable Counsel & House of Representatives for the State of Massachusitte Bay in General Court assembled, Jan. 13, 1777.

The petition of A Great Number of Blackes detained in a State of slavery in the Bowels of a free & Christian Country Humbly shuwith that your Petitioners apprehend that thay have in Common with all other men a Natural and Unaliable Right to that freedom which the Grat Parent of the Unavers hath Bestowed equalley on all menkind and which they have Never forfuted by any Compact or agreement whatever—but thay wher Unjustly Dragged by the hand of cruel Power from their Derest friends and sum of them Even torn from the Embraces of their tender Parents—from A popolous Pleasant and plentiful contry and in violation of Laws of Nature and off Nations and in defiance of all the tender feelings of humanity Brough hear Either to Be sold Like Beast of Burthen & Like them Condemnd to Slavery for Life—Among A People Profesing the mild Religion of Jesus A people Not Insensible of the Secrets of Rational Being Nor without spirit to Resent the unjust endeavours of others to Reduce them to a state of Bondage and Subjection your honouer Need not to be informed that A Life of Slavery Like that of your petioners Deprived of Every social privilege of Every thing Requisit to Render Life Tolable is far worse then Nonexistence.

In Imitation of the Lawdable Example of the Good People of these States your petitiononers have Long and Patiently waited the Evnt of petition after petition By them presented to the Legislative Body of this state and cannot but with Grief Reflect that their Success hath ben but too similar they Cannot but express their Astonishment that It has Never Bin Consirdered that Every Principle form which Amarica has Acted in the Cours of their unhappy Dificultes with Great Briton Pleads Stronger than A thousand arguments in favowrs of your petioners they therfor humble Beseech your honours to give this petion [petition] its due weight & consideration & cause an act of the Legislatur to be past Wherby they may be Restored to the Enjoyments of that which is the Naturel Right of all men—and their Children who wher Born in this Land of Liberty may not be heald as Slaves after they arrive at the age of twenty one years so may the Inhabitance of this Stats No longer chargeable with the inconsistancey of acting themselves the part which they condem and oppose in others Be prospered in their present Glorious struggle for Liberty and have those Blessing to them, &c.

Prince Hall
Lancaster Hill
Peter Bess
Brister Slenser
Jack Pierpont
Nero Funelo
Newport Sumner
Job Look