We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ..." -- US Declaration of Independence, 1776

1. Freedom of religion was recognized in early civilizations -- China, India, Greece, Rome, Islam

Great ethical systems in history

CHINA-- Confucius (551 - 479 BCE), a philospher who taught that human institutions should be blanced towards the ideal society based on respect for others and a sense of duty to the society. Confucius supported government by a virtuous central authority, but saw that it was limited by natural morality. Later interpretations of his teachings (for example, from Mencius), argued that a king might be overthrown if he were to lose the "mandate of heaven" by taking action that was not correct. This implies that the just purpose of government is derived in large part from its protection of human welfare.

Confucius' best known idea is that "What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." The idea is found in many other ethical and religious traditions.

Confucius also said, “A wise man does not promote a person for what he says, neither does he undervalue what is said because of the person who says it.” As Chinese law professor Gu Chunde noted: "From this we can see that Confucianism protects freedom of ideology and speech, allowing the independent existence of speech, whether it is right or wrong. It encourages people to criticize the government."

The concept of religious tolerance is also inherent in Confucian teaching, and probably influenced European Englightenment thinkers when the "Life and Works of Confucius" was widely circulated in Europe in 1687,

INDIA -- Buddha (563-483 BCE), a revered religious figure, taught that the Eightfold Path could relieve human suffering. These precepts were: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. "Right speech" involved abstaining from lying, from divisive or abusive speech, and avoiding idle chatter.

One of the best known adherents of Buddhism was King Ashoka (273 - 232 BCE). In 256 BCE, Ashoka issued the Seven Pillar Edicts promoting religious tolerance and Buddhist principles of compassion and justice. Good can be attained in different ways, Ashoka said, "but all of them have as their root restraint in speech, that is, not praising one's own religion, or condemning the religion of others without good cause. If there is cause for criticism, it should be done in a mild way."

"But it is better to honor other religions for this reason: By so doing, one's own religion benefits, and so do other religions, while doing otherwise harms one's own religion and the religions of others. Whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and condemns others with the thought 'Let me glorify my own religion,' only harms his own religion."

GREECE AND ROME -- The classical Mediterranean civilizations aspired to a high degree of freedom. This was partly attained during the Golden Age of Pericles 443 - 429 BCE, in which uninhibited free speech, called parrhesia, was highly esteemed.

When citizens attended assembly, heralds asked "What man has good advise to give the polis and wishes to make it know" Near the meeting place was the Areopagus, the market in Athens where the courts also met. Ares was the Greek name for Mars, the god of war.

Despite the ideal of free speech, Athenian philosopher Socrates was condemned for his outspoken criticism of life in Ancient Greece and was given a choice: live in exile or die by drinking hemlock. He chose hemlock, and is seen at left taking the cup while his followers grieve. Socrates' crime was have corrupted the youth of Athens with his free thinking. "I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live," he said.

A major center of scholarship emerged from the Greek tradition in Alexandria, Egypt in the third century BCE. Scholars from all over the ancient world, including India from the court of King Ashoka, are known to have worked together in a spirit of scholarship and mutual respect.

Like their counterparts in Greece, Romans had political freedom, including some freedom of speech, in the early years of the republic. Official state censorship began as early as 443 BCE with the establishment of the official office of "censor." At the end of the Republic, beginning with the reign of Julius Ceasar (49 B.C.) even limited political rights were lost.

One advocate of free speech was Cato the Younger (Marcus Porcius Cato) (95-46 BC). He was the chief political antagonist of Julius Caesar and the Triumvirate and was called "the conscience of Rome" by Roman historian Livy. The Cato Letters of the colonial period (early 1700s) and the Washington-based Cato Institute of the late 20th century are references to the Roman philosopher.

In terms of foreign policy, Roman rulers tended to allow local cultures and leaders to remain intact after conquest, and to show tolerance for the free exchange of ideas. Pliny the younger (c. 100 AD) writing to a Roman consul departing for Greece: "Consider that you are sent ... to regulate the condition of free cities ... to a society of men who ... breathe the spirit of manhood and liberty ... Revere their Gods...(and) their ancient glory ...Grant to every one his full dignity, priviledge, and yes, the indulgence of his very vanity ..."

It is important to note that the early Christians were persecuted until the conversion of Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan, 313 CE, which proclaimed religious tolerance.

ISLAM -- Religious tolerance and the Constitution of Medina, 622 CE.

The constitution (or charter) of Medina was written by the Islamic prophet Muhammad to help bring together warring factions of Arabs and communities of Jews. It states that non-Muslim citizens have equal political and cultural rights as Muslims and specifically says that non-Muslims have the right of autonomy and freedom of religion.

Religious tolerance is also found in the Qur’an, which states: “Whosoever will, let him believe and whosoever will, let him disbelieve" (Qur’an, 18: 29).

The modern rejection of European political traditions by many Islamic nations is a complex problem deserving more discussion than is possible here; however, the historic understanding of the ideal of freedom in Islamic socieites is becoming more appreciated in the 21st century.

For example, a United Nations project to recover and preserve manuscripts from the Mali and Songhai Empires univeristy, based in Timbuktu, has uncovered a center of Islamic culture and learning in the 14th through 17th centuries.

The Renaissance and Reformation in Europe from the 1100s to 1600s was a rebirth of culture, of arts, sciences and humanities that students should find very familiar. Most people are familiar with this era in early modern Europe, but we could summarize it as a time between the 1200s and 1600s in which the nation state emerges, the authority of the church is challenged, and changes in technology and culture are challenging the old medieval world view

Magna Carta (1215)

The Norman invasion of England in 1066 created a two-tiered society with many inequities. In 1215, a group of English barons forced the Norman King John to sign the Magna Carta (Latin for great charter). It guaranteed fundamental rights such as trial by jury and due process. At first, these rights applied only to English nobles, but over time they were extended to all. The Magna Carta was the end of absolute power for English monarchs, although attempts by James I and James II in the 1600s to restore absolute power resulted in two major political upheavals -- the English Civil War (1642) and the Glorious Revolution (1688).

Despite the Magna Carta, free political or religious speech was not tolerated.

In 1275, Parliament outlawed "any slanderous News ... or false news or tales where by discord or slander may grow between the King and the people ..."

Printing expands the Protestant Reformation 1500s

The most important factor in accelerating change at this time was the printing press. We can see its impact by comparing two prominent reformers – Jan Hus, who founded the Moravian protestant Church, was born before the printing press, and Martin Luther, who founded the Lutheran Church, was born after the printing press was well established in Europe.

Both of them were outraged at corruption in the church. But the ideas of Jan Hus traveled very slowly because at this time all written communication was transcribed by hand, and so they had very little impact. In contrast, Martin Luther’s denunciation of the church in 1517 was known throughout Germany in a week and all across Europe within a month. We might say that Hus lit a candle, but Luther set Europe on fire.

Johann Gutenberg developed moveable type in Germany in the 1450s. The immediate impact was to make the Bible and religion in general accessible to ordinary people without the help of the church. The long-term impact was to completely revolutionize European culture. Compare, for instance, the impact to two reformers: one active before, and the other after, the printing press:

Jan Huss (1371-1415), dean of the school of philosophy at the University of Prague, was martyr to the cause of religious freedom. Outraged at the selling of indulgences, Huss openly debated various claims about the papacy from the pulpit, but had no way to disseminate his views widely. He was was found guilty of heresy and executed in 1415.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) used the printing press to publish his 98 theses  Oct. 31, 1517 -- basically, a list of demands for church reform. Like Hus, he was outraged at the sale of indulgences. But by this time, ideas could spread rapidly throughout Europe. Most of Northern Europe, especially Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden and parts of Germany, broke away from the Catholic Church of Rome and adopted Lutheranism or Calvinism.

Henry VIII of England broke away from Rome and created the Church of England in the 1535-1540 period, executing several hundred dissenters and seizing church lands. The king also took over a church-run system of censorship, licensing printers through the Stationers Company and punishing them for religious and political dissent through the Star Chamber and the courts.

The Counter-Reformation fails

Untold millions of people were imprisoned, executed or killed in religious wars in the 1500s-1600s period.The mere possession of a publication on the "List of Prohibited Books" could lead to execution by Church authorities.

In England, the Counter-Reformation came to a head around 1553 when Queen Mary I ("Bloody Mary"). the Catholic queen, took the throne. Hundreds were executed, including the three bishops of Oxford. (Depicted in the engraving to the left). Subsequent English queens and kings, although proclaiming religious tolerance, continued to repress political speech. One important moment was the Nov. 5, 1605 attempt to blow up the Protestant King and Parliament by Guy Fawkes and other Catholic revolutionaries,

Another famous persecution of this era was that of Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). Galileo was an Italian mathematician and a professor at the Universties of Padua and Pisa. He carried out many studies in mathematics and technology involving water pumps, engines, compasses and telescopes and other instruments.

Galileo's astronomical observations convinced him of the truth of Nicholas Copernicus' heliocentric theory. Between 1612 and 1632 he skirted dangerous confrontation with church authorities, but was finally forced to recant his views publicly under threat of torture.

All across Europe, millions of people were killed in the name of Christianity during the religious wars of the 1500s and 1600s

Religious fighting in France began with a political struggle and a series of massacres in the 1560s. It quickly spread. The fighting more or less ended with the Edict of Nantes, issued on April 13, 1598 by Henry IV of France, granting French Protestants (also known as Huguenots) substantial rights in a Catholic nation. The revocation of the edict in 1685 did not lead to more massacres, but did lead to an exodus of French intellectuals and craftsmen.

In the Netherlands, fighting took place between Protestands and Catholic troops loyal to King Phillip II of Spain. Germany was torn apart by the Thirty Years War between the Catholic League and the Protestant Union, (1616-1648) and death toll was around 14 million.

The fighting and oppression took place on both sides: The historic massacres of the Catholics by Protestants, such as the one led by Oliver Cromwell in Ireland were so well remembered that they continued to spur sporadic religious conflicts in the late 20th century.

John Milton (1608-1674) -- The marketplace of ideas

The poet most famous for Paradise Lost is also known for a 1644 plea to Parliament in a speech he called the Areopagetica: "Who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?" (The name Areopagetica was a reference to the Athenian marketplace and also to a speech by Isocrates called the Areopagitic Discourse or Areopagiticus (about 355 BCE).

This period was time of religiously inspired revolution and civil war in England. Parliament broke with the king, and in 1649, political disputes led to the execution of King Charles I.

In many cases, people who rebelled at intolerance of the Catholic Church were themselves intolerant. Milton, for example, did not want to let Catholics publish freely.

But some Puritans, such as the more radical Levellers, were in favor of complete religious freedom. They said religious censorship kept people ignorant and that ignorance "fitted only to serve the unjust ends of tyrants and oppressors."

English Civil War and Glorious Revolution of 1688

After King Charles I was executed in 1649, Oliver Cromwell and then his son Richard ruled. But Richard was unfit and in 1660, Britons welcomed Charles II back from exile. Soon Parliament and the king are at odds again. Charles II didn't oppose Parliament openly but worked behind the scenes. As a result, Charles II ensured that English kings were firmly in power again, although a king would never rule without Parliament again. In 1688 James II tried, and he was deposed.

The English call the rebellion of 1688 the Glorious Revolution because there was a major change of government effected without bloodshed. James fled England without a fight. Parliament called in William, the ruler of Holland, and made him king. Parliament was now firmly in command of English politics. William agreed to religious toleration and to Parliament's claims to authority.

In 1689, William and Mary agreed to a Declaration of Rights that guaranteed basic freedom to British subjects to petition the king and to bear arms. It also prohibited excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment. While the British Bill of Rights protected fewer individual rights than the American Bill of Rights adopted a century later, it was an acknowledgement that Britons were due a large measure of freedom.

Also, in 1689 the Act of Toleration acknowledges civil rights for Roman Catholics and Dissenters. (See the Anglican Timeline ) In 1693, a college named for William and Mary was founded in Virginia.

Summing up the English Civil War by comparing Rome and England, Voltaire said:

" The Romans never knew the dreadful folly of religious wars, an abomination reserved for devout preachers of patience and humility. Marious and Sylla, Caesar and Pompey, Anthony and Augustus, did not draw their swords and set the world in a blaze merely to determine whether the flamen should wear his shirt over his robe, or his robe over his shirt... But here follows a more essential difference between Rome and England, which gives the advantage entirely to the later - viz., that the civil wars of Rome ended in slavery, and those of the English in liberty. The English are the only people upon earth who have been able to prescribe limits to the power of kings by resisting them; and who, by a series of struggles, have at last established that wise Government where the Prince is all powerful to do good, and, at the same time, is restrained from committing evil... " (Link to Voltaire's letters)

John Locke (1632-1704) -- Social Contract, Tolerance
An English philosopher, naturalist and physician who helped start the Enlightenment in England and France, Locke's ideas were a major inspiration for the U.S. Constitution, as well as inspiring the framework of government in many other nations. He was the author of, among other works, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The book opposed press licensing in 1694 and advanced two important ideas:

1) People and government had a social contract and government existed to serve the people, not the other way around;
2) People had natural rights to life, liberty and property.

David Hume (1711-76) -- Press freedom is no threat
Journalist and historian who rejected absolutes, (and who inspired the opposing view in Immanuel Kant), andwhose philosophy echoed Greek stoics and Romans like Cicero. He wrote Essays, Moral and Political in two volumes in 1741 and 1742 and a history of England.

Hume saw freedom of th press as offering no threat to rulers, however much it might be abused.

Press freedom can not excite popular tumults or rebellions because "a man reads a book or pamphlet alone coolly. There is none present from whom he can catch the passion by contagion."

John Stuart Mill (1773-1836) Scotish philosopher / historian expanded on Milton's Marketplace of ideas by arguing that:

1) A censored opinion may be true and the accepted view may be in error
2) Even error may contain particle of truth
3) Truth may be held as prejudice, not rationally
4) Truth loses vitality if not contested from time to time.

"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

Francois Voltaire (1694-1778) -- Defend your right to say it.

By far the most famous of the French philosophs, (Francois-Marie Arouet,) known by his assumed name of Voltaire, was a prolific journalist, novelist and political thinker whose writing had a tremendous impact on the American revolution. He was educated by the Jesuits and began writing verse early. He was twice exiled from Paris and twice imprisoned in the Bastile. In 1726 he fled to England. Some years after his return he became historian of France, and gentleman of the French king's bedchamber; from 1750 to 1753 he lived at the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia, an enlightened despot, but he found they did not agree on many things. He spent the last period of his life, from 1758 to 1778, on his estate of Ferney, near Geneva, where he produced much of his best work. He also helped Benjamin Franklin advance the cause of the American Revolution in Paris during the late 1770s.

Voltaire believed, more than anything else, in toleration, the rule of law and freedom of opinion.

Links to Voltaie's writing:
On the absurdity of loving a Patrie and
on the English Parliament

Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) -- Separation of powers

Montesquieu argued in his 1748 book On the spirit of the laws that the best government would be one in which power was balanced among three groups of officials. He thought England - which divided power between the king (who enforced laws), Parliament (which made laws), and the judges of the English courts (who interpreted laws) - was a good model of this.

Montesquieu called the idea of dividing government power into three branches the "separation of powers." He thought it most important to create separate branches of government with equal but different powers. That way, the government would avoid placing too much power with one individual or group of individuals.

Montesquieu also believed that if the powers of government were limited, people would be free to follow their natural inclinations and do the right thing.

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778)- Noble Savage

The "mad Socrates" of the French Revolution, author of the Social Contract, Rousseau believed that people in their native state are essentially good. He is remembered for the idea of the "noble savage."

Rousseau was one of the first modern writers to seriously attack the institution of private property, and therefore is considered a forebear of modern socialism and Communism (see Karl Marx).

Rousseau also questioned the assumption that the will of the majority is always correct. He argued that the goal of government should be to secure freedom, equality, and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority. One of the primary principles of Rousseau's political philosophy is that politics and morality should not be separated. When a state fails to act in a moral fashion, it ceases to function in the proper manner and ceases to exert genuine authority over the individual. The second important principle is freedom, which the state is created to preserve.

Thomas Jefferson on religious freedom

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites." -- Thomas Jefferson (Bartlett's 16th Ed., p.343)

"What, but education, has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbors? And what chains them to their present state of barbarism and wretchedness, but a bigotted veneration for the supposed superlative wisdom of their fathers, and the preposterous idea that they are to look backward for better things, and not forward, longing, as it should seem, to return to the days of eating acorns and roots, rather than indulge in the degeneracies of civilization? And how much more encouraging to the achievements of science and improvement is this, than the desponding view that the condition of man cannot be ameliorated, that what has been must ever be, and that to secure ourselves where we are, we must tread with awful reverence in the footsteps of our fathers. This doctrine is the genuine fruit of the alliance between Church and State; the tenants of which, finding themselves but too well in their present condition, oppose all advances which might unmask their usurpations, and monopolies of honors, wealth, and power, and fear every change, as endangering the comforts they now hold". -- Thomas Jefferson, Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia

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