Maryland Act of Toleration

The colony of Maryland was granted by an Anglican king with an assumption that the Church of England would be its official church of the colony. Cecilius Calvert, founded the Maryland colony in 1634 and wanted it to be a haven for Catholics fleeing England as a result of persecution and as a source of profit for their generation and the others to follow. Maryland was formed by the Calvert family as a home for all refugees. He also advised the colonists who were mostly Catholics to be tolerant and practice religions in peace. The Ordinance of 1639, which was the first comprehensive law for the people, stressed on the rights of man, but did not specifically specify any religious group in particular But later, with the inflow of large number of Protestants, it was felt that an act had to be passed to protect the Catholics from those who did not follow the Anglican Church of Britain. This act popularly known as the Act Concerning Religion was passed by the assembly of the Maryland colony on September 21, 1649. One of the provisions of the Act was that it provided freedom of worship to all Christians who believed in the trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Sprit. Until the Civil War , peace prevailed in the colony. But the Protestants captured power with the death of Governor Leonard Calvert in 1647.They passed the Maryland Act of Toleration and it turned out to be in favor as the to be in their favor as religious tolerance mentioned in the Act was ambiguous .This was however, the first step towards religious tolerance in the British American Colonies in the North of America. It was however revoked in between and finally after the Glorious Revolution of 1692 it was altogether withdrawn. The idea of religious tolerance however reverberates in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.