This is an IHeart podcast.

And we return to our American stories.

And up next, a story from our friend Larry Reed, President Emeritus of the Foundation

for Economic Education or Fee, on a document and event that helped establish a very important

principle in our country. Take it away, Larry.

To the right, honorable, Governor of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant.

You have been pleased to send unto us a certain prohibition or command that we should not receive

or entertain any of those people called Quakers because they are supposed to be by some seducers

of the people. For our part, we cannot condemn them in this case.

Neither can we stretch out our hands against them.

We desire, therefore, in this case, not to judge, lest we be judged,

neither to condemn, lest we be condemned,

but rather let every man stand or fall to his own master.

We are bound by the law to do good unto all men, especially to those of the household of faith.

With those words, Edward Hart, the town clerk of what is now the Queen's neighborhood of Flushing, New York,

began a powerful 650-word document known as the Flushing Remonstrance.

It was December 27, 1657.

Hart wrote on behalf of the 30 inhabitants of the village who also boldly signed their names below his.

This was a defiant shot across the bow of the state personified by Governor Stuyvesant.

It was an act of resistance and an early declaration in favor of the freedom of peaceful worship.

Moreover, it was not a self-serving stand for the freedom simply of those who signed it.

None of them were Quakers, but rather a defense of the freedom of others.

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