of building homes for themselves & posterity. and of erecting temples where they & theirs might worship their Creator according to the dictates of their conscience. Through they had wandered far from the homes of their childhood, still they had been taught to believe, that a Citizen of <​born in any​> one state, in this great , might remove to another and enjoy all the rights & immunities of Citizens of the State of his adoption, That wherever waved the American flag. beneath its stars and stripes an American Citizen might look for protection, <​&​> justice and <​for​> liberty in person and in conscience. They bought farms, built houses erected churches, some tilled the earth, others bought and sold merchandize, and others again toiled in the shop of the mechanic, They were industrious and moral & they prospered and though often persecuted and villified for their difference in religious opinion from their fellow Citizens, they were hope <​happy​>, They saw their society increasing in numbers their farms teemed with plenty, and they fondly looked forward to a future big wiht [with] hope That there was prejudice against them <​they​> knew, that slanders were propagated against them they deplored, yet they felt [p. 2]