Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/201

Rh the autumn of 1774, it was thought necessary to appoint a committee of safety, Madison was its youngest member. Early in 1776 he was chosen a delegate to the State convention, which met at Williamsburg in May. The first business of the convention was to instruct the Virginia delegation in the Continental congress with regard to an immediate declaration of independence. Next came the work of making a constitution for the state, and Madison was one of the special committee appointed to deal with this problem. Here one of his first acts was highly characteristic. Religious liberty was a matter that strongly enlisted his feelings. When it was proposed that, under the new constitution, “all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience,” Madison pointed out that this provision did not go to the root of the matter. The free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, is something which every man may demand as a right, not something for which he must ask as a privilege. To grant to the state the power of tolerating is implicitly to grant to it the power of prohibiting, whereas Madison would deny to it any jurisdiction whatever in the matter of religion. The clause in the bill of rights, as finally adopted at his suggestion, accordingly declares that “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion,