“… ‘A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion,’ and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power … The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants.  The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.  … As the Bill violates equality by subjecting some to peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle, by granting to others peculiar exemptions.  … What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society?  In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people.  … It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority.  Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree.

The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance.  …”

James Madison