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The Catholic Democracy of America, 54
they liberated the foundation of the fabric of American
Catholicism which in a century has grown to be the strongest
and the most solid in Christendom.
Complete religious liberty in the emancipated States was
not secured in a day, nor in a generation, but there was a
general feeling that the Church to which Lafayette and
Yaudreuil belonged was not only socially and politically
reputable, but also not antagonistic to American freedom.
At first only in Maryland and Pennsylvania, where liberty
of conscience, as we have seen, was traditional, in Delaware,
which is geographically a portion of Maryland, and in George
Washington's native Virginia, were all civil rights without
distinction or diminution extended to Catholics. In Connecticut
and Georgia almost alj restrictions were swept away.
In Rhode Island the law denying toleration to Catholics was
expunged from the statute book on the appearance of the
French fleet off Newport. New Jersey made the profession
of a Protestant faith the test of holding office. Massachusetts
granted liberty of conscience, but permitted the support of
Protestant worship out of the taxes. New York, in spite
of the liberal efforts of Governeur Morris and Philip Livingstone,
imposed conditions which virtually excluded Catholics
from the legislature. New Hampshire enacted that the
members of its House of Representatives should be Protestants,
a provision which was till recently on the statute book ;
and the two Carolinas likewise imposed a Protestant test.
Great as was the advantage given to Roman Catholicism by
the Revolution and the French alliance, it is none the less
certain that the faith which is now professed by the most
powerful religious community in the Union had not a fair
start with the creeds of other denominations at the birth of
the new nation.
The Tory party made great efforts to excite the old anti-
Catholic prejudice against the American cause, and, because
the French chaplains in New England were now permitted
to celebrate mass and to parade the streets in religious pro-