ABSTRACT
Religion is the highest fact in the Rights of Man from its being the most exclusively private and individual, while it is also a universal, concern, of any in which man is interested. Religion is, in its widest sense, "the tendency of human nature to the Infinite;" and its principle is manifested in the pursuit of perfection in any direction whatever. The Christian religion is specified as being the highest fact in the rights of man from its embodying the principle of natural religion—that religion is at once an individual, a universal, and an equal concern. The Catholic religion is modified by the spirit of the time in America; and its professors are not a set of men who can be priest-ridden to any fatal extent. At all events, every American is required by his democratic principles to let every man alone about his religion.
