Matthew Emmons
11/30/04 Period 1
USHAP Seat #31
Final Draft for Democracy
Before the English colonists had settled in the new world, they mainly lived in England. While in England, many of the people that had disagreed with the King or Queen or the English parliament usually suffered from many fatal punishments. After the people were finally done arguing with England on religion, power control, and unjust acts, they all decided to leave and go to the new world to escape the religious persecution and the injustice they had suffered for so long in England. During the early colonization of the Americas, the English colonists had the beginnings of a democratic nation through their tolerance of religious freedom, their development of institutions to form a representative government, and their values and ideas used to form a democratic nation.
One of the major reasons why the English colonists fled England was to escape the persecution and killings of all the innocent people who just wanted to tell their perspective on their religion within their nation. The colonists also believed in being able to practice any religion without persecution. So, the Act of Toleration was formed. (Doc E) With in this act, people were able to tell the government what they wanted to do with their religion. By doing this, all the people can be heard and can be accounted for as for giving their input in their nation’s matters. Not only did this help end religious persecution, it helped our nation grow democratically by starting freedom of speech, by starting the nation’s voting process for a representative government, and by starting the basis for our democratic government today. Also, many others sought out to come up with the same idea or at least the same basis like William Penn. He formed a haven in Pennsylvania. This haven helped him and his Quakers to escape religious persecution in England and in the early Americas. He also wanted to bring equality to all the citizens living with Penn and the Quakers. With all the people being equal in Pennsylvania, an equal and representative government supporting the peoples’ needs was created which again is the basis for our democratic government today. One more person, Roger Williams, believed also that the church couldn’t run the government. He said that their needs to be a separation of church and state since all people don’t believe in the same religion therefore religious laws that don’t suit that specific person couldn’t rule them. This led to Roger Williams leaving the Massachusetts Bay colony and establishing his own providence called Rhode Island. After separating the church and state in Rhode Island, the church could no longer rule the government with unequal rights by issuing rules that follow more church related ideas. Roger Williams also had the right to due this because he had freedom of speech to tell the church and any one else what his opinion on the matter was. He also shows his individualism by doing what he believed was right. Many others saw wisdom in what Roger said so they also moved to Rhode Island. This providence was truly democratic by having all the people vote on what is governed in the providence and always kept the basis of equality in mind. All of these events help support and start a democratic government by respecting and listening to all the beliefs of the people.
