The Flushing Remonstrance led to the guarantee of religious freedom in the New World.
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Remonstrance Sets Tone For The Future
By LIZ GOFF
FLUSHING- Nov. 18, 1664: John Bowne returned to his home in Flushing today, jubilant at his success in overturning a ban on religious expression within the colony.\
Bowne’s role in securing religious freedom dates back to 1661, when he arrived in Flushing and built his home there.
The origin of Bowne’s odyssey date back to 1657, when a religious group known as the Society of Friends, or the Quakers, settled in New Amsterdam. Shortly thereafter, the governor of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant, banned all forms of religious worship except that of the Dutch Reformed Church.
The citizens of Flushing believed that the town should be open to all forms of religious expression. The town clerk, Edward Hart, drew up a document called “The Flushing Remonstrance,” which said the town would be open to everyone for free expression of religious views.
The document is a response to the law that bans Quakers. The signers say that they cannot condemn the Quakers, in part, because:
“Wee desire therefore in this case not to judge least we be judged, neither to condemn least we be condemned, but rather let every man stand or fall to his own Master. Wee are bounde by the law to do good unto all men, especially to those of the household of faith. And though for the present we seem to be unsensible for the law and the Law giver, yet when death and the Law assault us, if wee have our advocate to seeke, who shall plead for us in this case of conscience betwixt God and our own souls; the powers of this world can neither attach us, neither excuse us, for if God justifye who can condemn and if God condemn there is none can justifye.”
The Flushing Remonstrance was signed on Dec. 27, 1657, by 28 freeholders of the town, setting off a seven-year struggle for freedom of religious worship in the colony of New Netherland.
After settling in Flushing, Bowne allowed the banned Quakers to worship in his home. For this, Stuyvesant had Bowne arrested and imprisoned on a ship, which was sent out of the country, “to wherever the ship shall land.”
The ship docked in Ireland, where Bowne began a part of his odyssey that eventually took him to Holland – where he pleaded against Stuyvesant’s ban before officials of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam.
Bowne succeeded and returned to Flushing with freedom of religious worship restored to New Netherlands.
A Lasting Impression
In the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the First Amendment simplifies the matter and could not be more clear:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
More than 125 years since the Flushing Remonstrance had been penned, the concept had taken a foothold in the New World. Men and women had the right to practice their faith as they saw fit – all thanks to a handful of property owners in Queens who stood their ground, who defied great leaders and won the right for themselves and for all mankind.
