The Flushing Remonstrance, 1657.
Kenneth T. Jackson contends in a NY Times Op-Ed piece that it was when "religious freedom was born on this continent." The document was signed by a handful of remarkable citizens in New Amsterdam and presented to Peter Stuyvesant upon his issuing an ordinance punishing anyone found guilty of harboring Quakers.
The towns people framed this heart-felt and eloquent response, claiming "if any of these said persons come in love unto us, we cannot in conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free egress and regress unto our town."
Although some were jailed and some forced to recant, Jackson argues that "the door had been opened" to the ultimate tolerance of a Quakerism in that colony by 1663.
An important door, indeed.
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