Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917) It was on this date, October 15, 1917, that American historian Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. was born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger in Columbus, Ohio. The son of a prominent American historian of the same name (and taking his father’s middle name during his writing career), Arthur Jr. attended Phillips Exeter Academy […]

“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever… All men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.”

“When a religion is good,” wrote Franklin, “I conceive it will support itself; and when ... its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

Just as it was freethinkers who made the world safer for children, decreased crime, ensured the right to divorce, revived education, equalized marriage, and ended slavery and torture; it was freethinkers who revived law and carried it forward to the institution we know today.