Rhode Island contributed proportionately her share of men to the great struggle. Rhode Island men were in every great battle under Washington. Rhode Island has been greatly criticized for not quickly adopting the Constitution. She was the last to adopt it. Her conception of religious and civic liberty in combination was such that she was not willing to lose easily the liberty which she had obtained for herself and which she freely advocated for others. Her part in the great struggle was so great that her motive for delay in adopting the Constitution should never be questioned. Her ideal of liberty, unique to Rhode Island then, is the generally accepted one now throughout America and back of every great politicial reform in lands beyond our borders. Ex-Governor Russell Brown, on Rhode Island Day at the World’s Columbian Exposition, said: The history of our State is a birthright which neither lands nor gold can buy, for full as it is of stirring and passionate events, there is not an incident in our annals that can bring the scarlet of shame to the cheek of civilized man. Roger Williams the first settler, the thrice-exiled friend of the weak and oppressed, by his revolt against Puritan intolerance and his sacrifice for soul liberty, baptized Rhode Island’s early days with glory sufficient for any State. VI THE TORCH-BEARERS OF THE IDEAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS UNTIL LIBERTY ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD I believe all our Baptist ministers in town, except two, and most of our brethren in the country were on the side of the Americans in the late dispute.... To this hour we believe that the independence of America will, for a while, secure the liberty of this country, but if that continent had been reduced, Britain would not have long been free.--_Doctor Rippon, of London, England, to President Manning, of Rhode Island College, written in 1784._ Nor need any one dream that Jefferson and Madison could have carried this measure by their genius and influence. They were opposed by many men whose transcendent services, or unequalled oratory, or wealth, position, financial interests, or intense prejudices would have enabled them easily to resist their unsupported assaults. Like a couple of first-class engineers on a tender with a train attached, but no locomotive, would Jefferson and Madison have appeared without the Baptists. They furnished the locomotive for these skilled engineers which drew the train of religious liberty through every persecuting enactment in the penal code of Virginia.--_Wm. Cathcart, D. D., in “The Baptists and the American Revolution.”_