The Flushing Remonstrance was a 1657 petition to Director-General of New Netherland Peter Stuyvesant, in which several citizens requested an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship. It is considered a precursor to the United States Constitution's provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights.
According to Kenneth T. Jackson, the Flushing Remonstrance was remarkable for four reasons: it articulated a fundamental right that is as basic to American freedom as any other, the authors backed up their words with actions by sending it to an official not known for tolerance, they stood up for others and were articulating a principle that was of little discernible benefit to themselves, and the language of the remonstrance is as beautiful as the sentiments they express.
Read more about Flushing Remonstrance: Events, Signers, Later History
Famous quotes containing the word remonstrance:
“There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)