Christendom where
religious belief was free, and when even the Commons of England had openly
declared against toleration, Calvert founded a community wherein no man
was to be molested for his faith. At a time when absolutism had struck
down representative government in England and it was doubtful if a
Parliament of freemen would ever meet again, he founded a community in
which no laws were to be made without the consent of the freemen.

The _Ark_ and the _Dove_ were names of happy omen. The one saved from the
general wreck the germs of political liberty; and the other bore the olive
branch of religious peace."(309)

When the rule of the Catholic Proprietary was overthrown and the Puritans
had gained the ascendency in the Province, the new Commissioners issued
writs of election to a general assembly--writs of a tenor hitherto unknown
in Maryland. No man of the Roman Catholic faith could be elected as a
burgess, or even cast a vote. The Assembly obtained by this process of
selection, justified its choice. It at once repealed the Toleration Act of
1649 and created a new one, more to its mind, which also bore the title:
"An Act concerning Religion," but it was toleration with a difference. It
provided that none who professed the Popish religion should be protected
in the Province, but were to be restrained from the exercise thereof.

For Protestants it provided that no one professing faith in Christ was to
be restrained from the exercise of his religion, "provided that this
liberty be not extended to Popery, or Prelacy, nor to such as under the
profession of Christ, hold forth and practice licentiousness. That is,
with the exception of the Roman Catholics and churchmen, together with the
Brownists, Quakers, Anabaptists, and other miscellaneous Protestant sects,
all others might profess their faith without molestation."(310)

After the overthrow of the Puritan authority, and the advent to power of
the members of the Church of England, the second act of the Assembly was
to make the Protestant Episcopal Church the established church of the
Province.

The Act imposed an annual tax of forty pounds of tobacco per poll on all
taxables for the purpose of building churches, and maintaining the clergy.
In 1702 it was re-enacted with a toleration clause: "Protestant Dissenters
and Quakers were exempted from the penalties and disabilities, and might
have separate meeting-houses, provided that they paid their forty pounds
per poll