I had initially dismissed them as inconsequential, but when Massachusetts annexed New Hampshire, it allowed two crucial exemptions in the Live Free or Die province.
The first let all free males vote in town affairs, not just those in good standing in the tax-supported church. And it let them hold land.
What that meant for those joining the Quaker and Baptist movements was that they wouldn’t be disenfranchised for their faith.
That wasn’t the case in the Puritan colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Jnana's Red Barn 