1 mo. 1811 To the Legislature of Virginia
The Memorial and Petition of the
religious society of friends commonly
called Quakers
Respectfully showeth:
That your Memo-
rialists
expanding the high regard with which
the Legislature will be disposed to
consider every
Subject with which the Legislature will be
dis-
posed to consider ever ry affecting the great
principals
of civil and religious liberty beg leave
to solicit your attention to the
militia laws of
this Commonwealth and to the incompatibility
which
sometimes results between the requisition of
Law and the obligations of
religious duty.
For this enlightened age and country and before this
Legislature your
memorialists conceive it unnecessary
to urge the unalienable rights of
conscience as to
adduce any arguments to show that the relations
between man and his maker Creator neither can
nor ought to be
prescribed by any human authority.
It is unnecessary because the
preposition is self
evident and especially because it is one of the
fun-
damental principals when which the civil and
political
institutions of this country are
established.