02 The Charter of Freedom of Conscience and Democratic Government

Medallion 2: The Charter of Freedom of Conscience and Democratic Government

Location: Right lancet, top

Description:

At the center of the panel stands a colonial legislative figure likely representing Joseph Growdon, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1701. He holds a volume symbolizing Pennsylvania’s Charter of Privileges, also known as the Charter of Liberties, granted by the colony’s proprietor, William Penn, on October 28, 1701. Penn is likely represented in the far right, as his formal appearance and hat in hand convey his authority as proprietor and founder of Pennsylvania.

Also present are two additional men wearing distinct hats. One wears a round hat, inferring a figure rooted in the established order of the Church of England. The other, on the far left of the scene, wears a taller hat that differs in shape and likely evokes styles associated with Protestant dissent such as Quakers or Puritan separatists. Thus, this contrast in attire suggests a distinction between established religious authority of the Church of England and the traditions of dissent that was essential to the founding of Colonial Pennsylvania.

Background:

The scene represented in this window reflects an important stage in the development of religious liberty in the Anglo-American world. Granted by William Penn in 1701, the Charter of Privileges functioned as Pennsylvania’s governing constitution until the American Revolution. The charter strengthened the powers of the elected Assembly, expanded protections for liberty of conscience, and helped establish Pennsylvania as one of the most religiously diverse colonies in British North America.

Penn’s Charter of Privileges not only enabled religious freedom, but also encouraged the migration of dissenting Protestant groups from throughout Europe. The colony quickly became a home to a plethora of Quakers, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, German Reformed settlers, Mennonites, Moravians, and numerous other Protestant groups. In such a diverse ethnic, religious, and linguistic environment systems of accommodation became essential to political stability. Rather than enforcing strict religious uniformity, Pennsylvania developed institutions capable of managing ethnic and religious pluralism within a shared constitutional order.

Precedent for religious toleration in the Anglo-American world had already been set in England following the Glorious Revolution. This revolution (1688-1689) saw the overthrow of King James II and the establishment of William and Mary as monarchs, securing a Protestant succession and reinforcing the authority of the Parliament over the crown. Another key event following the Glorious Revolution was the passing of the Toleration Act of 1689. This act granted limited freedom of worship to Protestant dissenters, marking an important shift away from religious uniformity within the English state. Although it did not establish full religious toleration, it created a key precedent in which differing Protestant traditions could coexist under a unified political order. Pennsylvania carried many of these ideas further in the new world by embedding liberty of conscience directly into its constitution.

American colonists inherited many ideas from England, and the consequences of the Glorious Revolution were essential in how American colonists viewed religion. However, by the time of the American Revolution, these inherited ideas had been reshaped by the unique conditions of the colonies, especially with the presence of diverse linguistic and religious communities sometimes without a clear majority. These earlier colonial experiments in pluralism and liberty of conscience ultimately helped shape the intellectual world inherited by the revolutionary generation, including figures such as Thomas Jefferson, who later advocated for religious freedom that reflected the transformation of limited Protestant toleration into a broader principle of individual liberty. Thus, the scene in this window captures this transition, and reflects a moment in which inherited English ideas of toleration were redefined in America into a more expansive vision of religious liberty, one that would become central to the identity of the emerging nation.

MEM

Intermedallion [Surrounding The Charter of Freedom of Conscience and Democratic Government]

• Sun in Splendor: Top center: This depiction of the sun with a humanlike face is a traditional heraldic device. The alternating straight and wavy rays represent the sun’s light and heat, respectively. It resembles the half-obscured sun-in-splendor (which lacked the heat rays) carved onto the top of the Pennsylvania Assembly Speaker’s chair in Independence Hall; this was the chair from which George Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1789. During the signing of the Constitution at the Speaker’s desk, Benjamin Franklin famously remarked that “Painters have found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have often…looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting, but now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.” The full portrayal of the sun-in-splendor here may be intended to represent the fully risen American Republic.
• Bovine Head: Center lozenge: This simple depiction of a cow’s face is likely a reference to the “Degeneracy Debate” in which Jefferson aggressively defended America’s honor with all the zoological data he could muster. The famous and influential European scientist Comte de Buffon, who had never visited any part of the New World, had published (in an otherwise scholarly 1761 volume of the encyclopedic Histoire naturelle) his theory that America had a horrible climate which caused people and animals to become stunted and pathetic. Although Benjamin Franklin made significant progress in changing Buffon’s opinion during his time representing the fledgling United States in Paris, the theory was being taken up by other European authors in the 1770s and Jefferson was determined to demolish the ridiculous claims. He compiled data tables comparing average weights of various American animals with their European counterparts, showing that they were actually equivalent or larger in size. (He also composed a compelling ethnographic defense of American Indians.) Jefferson’s vindication of American cattle in particular was essential for preserving America’s reputation as a land of opportunity, because it reflected on the health of grazing land. Jefferson finally had the chance to argue with Buffon in person when he became Ambassador to France in 1784, confronting him with a large panther skin. Jefferson was appalled at Buffon’s lingering diminutive impressions of the American moose, and sent him a huge moose carcass from Vermont, which apparently won the argument.

NKH