Roger Williams of Rhode Island
Stuart D. Goulding introduces the founder of the colony, Roger Williams, who returned to England in 1643 and 1651 and had many friends among the English Parliamentarians.
The name of Roger Williams is so closely associated with the colony of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations which he founded in New England that the part he played in England’s civil war is largely overlooked or forgotten. Williams had succeeded in Rhode Island in establishing the first state in history based on the absolute separation of church and state.
His insistence on this premise, from which his followers never departed and which was ultimately written into the Constitution of the United States, permitted man to exercise full liberty of conscience in religious matters. His views, as expressed for the benefit of Rhode Islanders, follow:
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