Original Language of NH Constitution, Article 6, Part I
New Hampshire Constitution, Pt. I Bill of Rights, Art. 6. Morality and Piety. (1784)
As morality and piety, rightly grounded on evangelical principles, will
give the best and greatest security to government, and will lay in the
hearts of men the strongest obligations to due subjection, and as the
knowledge of these is most likely to be propagated through a society
by the institution of the public worship of the Deity, and of public
instruction in morality and religion, therefore, to promote those
important purposes the people of this state have a right to empower, and
do hereby fully empower the legislature to authorize from
time to time
the several towns, parishes, bodies corporate, or religious societies
within this state to make adequate provision at their own expense for
the support and maintenance of public protestant teachers of piety,
religion, and morality;
Provided, notwithstanding, that the several towns, parishes, bodies
corporate, or religious societies, shall, at all times have the
exclusive right of electing their own public teachers, and of
contracting with them for their support and maintenance. [Exclusive
Right clause] And no person of any one particular religious sect or
denomination shall ever be compelled to pay towards the support of the
teacher or teachers of another persuasion, sect, or denomination.
And every denomination of christians demeaning themselves quietly, and
as good subjects of the State, shall be equally under the protection of
the law: And no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another
shall ever be established by law. [Free Toleration clause]
And nothing herein shall be understood to affect any former contracts
made for the support of the ministry; but all such contracts shall
remain and be in the same state as if this constitution had not been
made.
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