The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut Part 15

As one of the preliminary steps in the education of the people in Republican principles and aims, John Strong of Norwich in 1804 founded the "True Republican," thus giving a second paper for the dissemination of Republican opinions. From 1792 the "Phenix or Windham Herald" had been dealing telling blows at the Establishment and at the courts of law through a discussion in its columns carried on by Judge Swift, the inveterate foe of the union of Church and State, and a lawyer, frank to avow that partiality existed in the administration of justice. Though both the paper and the judge were strongly Federal in their politics, they were both materially helping the Republican advocates of reform. From the Windham press came, also, a republication of "A Review of the Ecclesiastical Establishments of Europe," edited by R. Huntington, with special reference to the bearing of its arguments upon the conditions existing in Connecticut, where ill.u.s.tration could be found of the absurdities and dangers that the book had been originally written to expose. In 1803 John Leland, representing forty-two Baptist clergymen, twenty licensed exhorters, four thousand communicants, and twenty thousand attendants, sent out another plea for disestablishment in his "Van Tromp lowering his Peak with a Broadside, containing a Plea for the Baptists of Connecticut."

In it he urges that thirteen states have already granted religious liberty, and that many of them have formed newer const.i.tutions since the Revolution. Such should also be the case in Connecticut. Moreover, it could readily be accomplished at the small cost of five cents per man. Such a small sum would pay the expenses of a convention to formulate a const.i.tution and another to ratify it, while five cents more per person would furnish every citizen with a copy of the proposed doc.u.ment, so that each could decide for himself upon the const.i.tutionality of any measure proposed, and would no longer be obliged to read pamphlet after pamphlet or column after column in the newspaper to determine its validity. [203]

All this was preparatory; and the first purely political note of warning and call to battle for a new const.i.tution was sounded by Abraham Bishop at Hartford, May 11, 1804, in his "Oration in Honor of the Election of President Jefferson and the peaceful acquisition of Louisiana." He sums up the situation thus:--

Connecticut has no Const.i.tution. On the day independence was declared, the old charter of Charles II became null and void. It was derived from royal authority, and went down with royal authority. Then, the people ought to have met in convention and framed a Const.i.tution. But the General a.s.sembly interposed, usurped the rights of the people, and enacted that the government provided for in the charter should he the civil const.i.tution of the State. Thus all the abuses inflicted on us when subjects of a crown, were fastened on us anew when we became citizens of a free republic. We still live under the old jumble of legislative, executive and judicial powers, called a Charter. We still suffer from the old restrictions on the right to vote; we are still ruled by the whims of seven men. Twelve make the council. Seven form a majority, and in the hands of these seven are all powers, legislative, executive and judicial. Without their leave no law can pa.s.s; no law can be repealed. On them more than half of the House of the a.s.sembly is dependent for re-appointments as justices, judges, or for promotion in the militia. By their breath are, each year, brought into official life six judges of the Superior Court, twenty-eight of the probate, forty of county courts, and five hundred and ten justices of the peace, and, as often as they please, all the sheriffs. Not only do they make laws, but they plead before justices of their own appointment, and as a Court of Errors interpret the laws of their own making. Is this a Const.i.tution? Is this an instrument of government for freemen? And who may be freemen? No one who does not have a freehold estate worth seven dollars a year, or a personal estate on the tax list of one hundred and thirty-four dollars.... For these evils there is but one remedy, and this remedy we demand shall be applied. _We demand a const.i.tution that shall separate the legislative, executive and judicial power, extend the freeman's oath to men who labor on highways, who serve in the militia, who pay small taxes, but possess no estates._ [204]

Abraham Bishop threw down the gauntlet, and in the following July his party issued a circular letter. It emanated from the Republican General Committee, of which Pierpont Edwards was chairman. It stated "that many very respectable Republicans are of the opinion that it is high time to speak to the citizens of Connecticut plainly and explicitly on the subject of forming a const.i.tution; but this ought not to be done without the approbation of the party." A general meeting was proposed to be held in New Haven on August 29, 1804. In response, ninety-seven towns sent Republican delegates to a.s.semble at the state house in New Haven on that date. Major William Judd of Farmington was chosen chairman. The meeting was held with closed doors, and a series of resolutions was pa.s.sed in favor of adopting a new const.i.tution. It was declared "the unanimous opinion of this meeting that the people of this state are at present without a const.i.tution of civil government," and "that it is expedient to take measures preparatory to the formation of the Const.i.tution and that a committee be appointed to draft an Address to the People of this State on that subject." The address reported by this committee was printed in New Haven on a small half-sheet with double columns, and ten thousand copies were ordered distributed through the state.

The issue was fairly before the people. From the Federal side, just before the September elections, came David Daggett's "Count the Cost,"

in which he ably reviewed the Republican manifesto, impugning the motives of the leaders of the Republican party, and eloquently urging every friend of the Standing Order and every freeman to "count the cost" before voting with the Republicans for the proposed reform.

The fall election of 1804 was lost to the Republicans, for while they made many gains here and there throughout the state, [q] the immediate slight access to the Federal ranks showed that the people generally were not yet ready for a const.i.tutional change.

As one result of the defeat at the polls, there arose a wider sympathy for the defeated party. When the legislature met in October, the Federal leaders resolved to administer punishment to the defeated Republicans. So strong was the popular feeling, and so determined the att.i.tude of the legislature, that it summoned before it all five of the justices of the peace [r] who had attended the New Haven convention of August 29, to show why they did not deserve to be deprived of their commissions. Their oath of office ran "to be true and faithful to the Governor and Company of this state, and the Const.i.tution and government thereof." What right, the Federals asked, had they to attack a const.i.tution they had sworn to uphold? At the same time, several of the militia, known to be of Republican sympathies, were also deposed or superseded. Mr. Pierpont Edwards was allowed to make the defense for the justices. Mr. Daggett appeared for the state. Reviewing the proceedings of the Republican meeting, Mr. Daggett traced the history of the government of the colony and state in order to demonstrate that the charter was peculiarly a const.i.tution of the people, "_made by the people_ and in a sense not applicable to any other people." He declared the New Haven "address" an outrage upon decency, and it to be the duty of the a.s.sembly to withdraw their commissions from men who questioned the existence of the const.i.tution under which they held them. The day after the hearing, a bill to revoke the commissions was pa.s.sed unanimously by the governor and council, and by a majority of eleven in the Lower House, the vote standing 67 yeas to 56 nays. This attempt to stifle public opinion won a general acknowledgment that the minority were oppressed. The feeling of sympathy thus roused was increased by the death of Major Judd, who had been taken ill after his arrival in New Haven. His partisans a.s.serted that his death was caused by his efforts to save himself and friends, and his consequent obligation to appear at the trial when really too ill to be about. The day after his death, the Republicans published and distributed broadcast his "Address to the people of the State of Connecticut on the subject of the removal of himself and four other justices from office."

From this time forward the minority thoroughly realized that it was "not a matter of talking down but of voting down their opponents."

Their leaders also understood it. Bishop entered the lists, not only against his political antagonist David Daggett, but against such men as Professor Silliman, Simeon Baldwin, Noah Webster, Theodore Dwight, and against the clergy, led by President Dwight, Simon Backus, Isaac Lewis, John Evans, and a host of secondary men who turned their pulpits into lecture desks and the public fasts and feasts into electioneering occasions. Their general plea was that religion preserved the morals of the people, and consequently their civil prosperity, and hence the need for state support. Occasionally one would insist that it was a matter of conscience with the Presbyterians which made them enforce ecclesiastical taxes and fines, and that all had been given the dissenters that could be; that the Presbyterians had "yielded every privilege they themselves enjoyed and subjected them (the dissenters) to no inconvenience, not absolutely indispensable to the countenance of the practice" (of dissent). David Daggett maintained that there was a just and wide-spread alarm lest the Republicans should undermine all religion, and therefore it behooved all the friends of stable government to support the Standing Order.

The Republicans vigorously contested the elections of 1804,1805, and 1806. Their second general convention, that of August, 1806, at Litchfield, was more outspoken in its criticism, and so much bolder in its demands that many conservative people hesitated to follow its programme. The Republican gains were so small that after 1806 there was a lull in the agitation for const.i.tutional reform for some years. It was well understood that the religious establishment was the greatest clog upon the government. It was also thoroughly understood by many that its destruction meant the destruction of the Federal party in Connecticut. Consequently the Federal patronage distributed the several thousand offices within the gift of Church and State with a "liberality equalled only by the fidelity with which they were paid for." So firm was the Federal control over the state that even in 1804 they risked antagonizing the Episcopalians by again refusing to charter the Ches.h.i.+re Academy as a college with authority to confer degrees in art, divinity, and law. In the face of a strong protest, it was refused again in 1810. The House approved this last pet.i.tion, but the Council rejected it. Naturally, the Episcopalians felt still more aggrieved when in 1812 the charter was once more refused; but still they did not desert the Federal party. The latter clung to the spoils of office for their partisans, to the old restrictive franchise, and to the obnoxious Stand-up Law, nor were they less disdainful of the dissenters and of the Republican minority.

Yet many of their best men had come to feel that there was wrong and injustice done the minority; that there should be a stop put to the open ignoring of Democratic lawyers, numbering in their ranks many men of wide learning and of great practical ability; that the spectacle of a Federal state-attorney prosecuting Republican editors was not edifying, and that the imprisonment of such offenders and their trial before a hostile judiciary opened that branch of the state government to damaging and dangerous suspicion. [205]

In July, 1812, a meeting was called in Judge Baldwin's office in New Haven, with President Dwight in the chair, to organize a Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Good Morals. At this meeting the political situation was thoroughly discussed, and measures were taken to cope with it.

I am persuaded [wrote the Rev. Lyman Beecher to Rev. Asahel Hooker in the following November] that the time has come when it becomes every friend of the State to wake up and exert his whole influence to save it from innovation.... That the effort to supplant Governor Smith [s]

will be made is certain unless at an early stage the noise of rising opposition will be so great as to deter them; and if it is made, a separation is made in the Federal party and a coalition with Democracy, which will in my opinion be permanent, unless the overthrow by the election should throw them into despair or inspire repentance.

If we stand idle we lose our habits and inst.i.tutions piecemeal, as fast as innovations and ambitions shall dare to urge on the work.

My request is that you will see Mr. Theodore Dwight, expressing to him your views on the subject, ... and that you will in your region touch every spring, _lay_ or clerical, which you can touch prudently, that these men do not steal a march upon us, and that the rising opposition may meet them early, before they have gathered strength. Every blow struck now will have double the effect it will after the parties are formed and the lines drawn. I hope we shall not act independently, but I hope we shall all act, who fear G.o.d or regard men. [206]

Writing of the meeting to organize the Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Formation of Good Morals, Dr. Beecher in his "Autobiography" gives a sketch of the politics of the time that had led up to the occasion. One of the prominent actors of the time, he tells us that this meeting, composed of prominent Federalists of all cla.s.ses, was unusual, for--

it was a new thing in that day for the clergy and laymen to meet on the same level and co-operate. It was the first time there had ever been such a consultation in our day. The ministers had always managed things themselves, for in those days the ministers were all politicians. They had always been used to it from the beginning.... On election day they had a festival, and, fact is, when they got together they would talk over who should be Governor, and who Lieutenant-Governor, and who in the Upper House, and their councils would prevail. Now it was a part of the old steady habits of the state ... that the Lieutenant-Governor should succeed to the governors.h.i.+p. And it was the breaking up of this custom by the civilians, against the influence of the clergy, that first shook the stability of the Standing Order and the Federal party in the state. Lieutenant Governor Treadwell (1810) was a stiff man, and the time had come when many nlen did not like that sort of thing. He had been active in the enforcement of the Sabbath laws, and had brought on himself the odium of the opposing party. Hence of the civilians of our party, David Daggett and other wire-pullers, worked to have him superseded, and Roger Griswold, the ablest man in Congress, put in his stead. That was rank rebellion against the ministerial candidate. But Daggett controlled the whole of Fairfleld County bar, and Griswold was a favorite with the lawyers, and the Democrats helped them because they saw how it would work; so there was no election by the people, and Treadwell was acting Governor till 1811, when Griswold was chosen. The lawyers, in talking about it, said: "We have served the clergy long enough; we must take another man, and they must look out for themselves." Throwing Treadwell over in 1811 broke the charm and divided the party; persons of third-rate ability on our side who wanted to be somebody deserted; all the infidels in the state had long been leading on that side ... minor sects had swollen and complained of certificates. Our efforts to reform morals by law were unpopular. [t]

Finally the Episcopalians went over to the Democrats. The Episcopal split was due to a foolish and arbitrary proceeding on the part of the Federals. In the spring of 1814, a pet.i.tion was presented to the General a.s.sembly for the incorporation of the Phoanix Bank of Hartford, offering "in conformity to the precedents in other states, to pay for the privilege of the incorporation herein prayed for, the sum of sixty thousand dollars to be collected (being a Premium to be advanced by the stockholders) as fast as the successive instalments of the capital stock shall be paid in; and to be appropriated, if in the opinion of your Honors it shall be deemed expedient, in such proportion as shall by your Honors be thought proper, to the use of the Corporation of Yale College, of the Medical Inst.i.tution, established in the city of New Haven, and to the corporation of the Trustees of the Fund of the Bishop of the Episcopal church in this state, or for any purpose whatever, which to your Honors may seem best." The capital asked for was $1,500,000. "The purpose of this offer [u] a was a double one,--creating an interest in favor of the Bank Charter among Episcopalians and retaining their influence on the side of the Charter Government, as there was no inconsiderable amount of talent among them." The Bishop's Fund, slowly gathering since 1799, amounted to barely $6000. This bonus would give it a good start, and conciliate the Episcopalians, still indignant at the refusal of the a.s.sembly to incorporate their college. When presented to the a.s.sembly, the Lower House favored the bank charter; the Council, rejecting it, appointed a committee to consider its request. They soon originated an act of incorporation, granting a capital of $1,000,000, and ordered the bonus to be paid into the treasury. An act of incorporation, rather than a pet.i.tion, was, they claimed, the way established by custom of granting bank charters. The same session of the legislature originated bills giving $20,000 to the Medical Inst.i.tution of Yale College, and one of the same amount to the Bishop's Fund, "in conformity to the offer of the pet.i.tioners for the Ph?nix Bank, and out of the first moneys received from it as a bonus." The bill for the medical school was pa.s.sed unanimously by the House; that for the Bishop's Fund uniformly voted down. [v] The Episcopalians, to whom the Republicans were quick to offer their sympathy, a.s.serted that by the "grant to Yale the legislature had _committed themselves in good faith_ to make the grant to the two other corporations connected with it in the same pet.i.tion." [w] Stripped of formal and courteous wording, the pet.i.tion, both in letter and in spirit, had offered its conditions to all, if accepted by one; or, if refused at all, the opportunity to divert the money from all three recipients to some other and quite different use which should be approved by the legislature.

The further bad faith of both branches of the a.s.sembly increased the enmity of the Episcopalians. In the spring of 1815, they pet.i.tioned for their first installment of $10,000. They were told that the treasury was empty, and that war time was no time to attend to such matters. In the fall, in answer to their second pet.i.tion, they found the Lower House still hostile; the majority of the Council, including the governor, in their favor, until the discussion came up, when the Council, with one exception, sided with the House. The explanation of the change appeared to the Episcopalians to be due to the fact that during the session the Medical School had pet.i.tioned for the balance of the $30,000, and seemed likely to receive it at the spring meeting. This was too much for the Episcopalians, and thereafter the Democrats claimed nine tenths of their vote. The sect was estimated in 1816 to contain from one eleventh to one thirteenth of the population. The Democratic-Republicans had won over discontented radicals, a majority of the dissatisfied dissenters, a few conservatives, and now the indignant Episcopalians. Their political hopes rose higher, but the War of 1812-1814 interfered, subst.i.tuting national interests for local ones, yet all the while adding recruits to the Republican ranks, so that at its close there was a strong party. There was also a Federal faction in process of disintegration. The result was that when the const.i.tutional reform movement again became the issue of the day, though supported by the Republicans, the question at issue soon drew to itself a new political combine which under various forms kept the name of the Toleration Party, and which eventually won the victory for religious freedom and disestablishment.

FOOTNOTES:

[a] This party, called for short "Republican," stood for the principles known as "democratic,"--the appellation of the party itself since 1828. This was the school of Jefferson.

[b] There were men of mark among the Anti-Federalist leaders, such as William Williams of Lebanon, a signer of the Declaration, Gen. James Wadsworth of Durham, and Gen. Erastus Wolcott of East Windsor,--these three were members of the Council; Dr. Benjamin Gale of Killingworth, Joseph Hopkins, Esq., of Waterbury, Col. Peter Bulkley of Colchester, Col. William Worthington of Saybrook, and Capt. Abraham Granger of Suffield. At the ratification of the Const.i.tntution the Tote stood 128 to 40. Afterwards for about ten years, in the conduct of state politics, there was little friction, for in local matters the Anti-Federalists were generally conservatives."

[c] Two deputies were allowed every town rated at $60,000. In 1785 Oliver Ellsworth had prepared a bill limiting towns of 20,000 or under to one deputy. It pa.s.sed the Senate, but was defeated in the House.--_The Const.i.tution of Connecticut_, 1901, State Series, p. 105.

[d] In his pamphlet Dr. Gale advises that each town nominate one man, and from the nominations in each county, the General a.s.sembly elect two, four or six delegates from each county to meet and frame a new const.i.tution, since "any legislature is too numerous a body, and too unskilled in the science of government to properly perform such a task" (p. 29).--J. Hammond Trumbull, _Hist. Notes on the Const.i.tution of Conn._, p. 17, and Wolcott's Ma.n.u.script in _Ma.s.s. Hist. Soc. Col._ vol. iv.

[e] A similar method of election applied to the representatives in Congress. Eighteen names were voted on in May for nomination, of which the seven highest were listed for election in September.

[f] Bishop Seabury's church, St. James of New London, had neglected to ohserve President Was.h.i.+ngton's proclamation of a national thanksgiving on February 19, 1795, which fell in Lent. This roused some antagonism, and was made the subject of a sharp and rather censorious newspaper attack upon the Episcopalians. At the same time a few Federal Congregationalists were further stirred by Bishop Seabury's signature, viz. "Samuel, Bishop of Connecticut and Rhode Island," to a proclamation that the prelate had issued, urging a contribution in behalf of the Algerine captives. This signature was regarded as a "pompous expression of priestly pride." Governor Huntington was a personal friend of Bishop Seabury. Moreover, at this particular time, the congregation to which the Governor belonged in Norwich was wors.h.i.+ping in the Episcopal church during the rebuilding of their own meeting-house, which had been destroyed by fire. The Governor had previously been approached with a suggestion that the fasts and feasts of the Congregationalists and Episcopalians should be made to coincide, or at least that the annual fast day should not be appointed for any time between Easter Week and Trinity Sunday, and that the public thanksgivings, when occasion required them, should, if possible, not be appointed during Lent. In 1795, the annual fast day would have fallen upon the Thursday in Holy Week. In order to avoid laying any stress upon the sanct.i.ty of certain days of the week, and because Governor Huntington wished to turn the public mind away from the petty controversy, he appointed the fast day on Good Friday. In 1796, the annual fast fell in the Lenten season. In 1797, in order to avoid having the fast interfere with the regular sessions of the County Courts, and at the same time to avoid its falling in Easter week, Governor Trumbull appointed it again on Good Friday. The arrangement was accepted with satisfaction by the Episcopalians and with no objections from the Congregationalists, and thereafter it became the custom. (Bishop Seabury had been elected to the bishopric of Rhode Island in 1790.)--William DeLoss Love, Jr., _Fasts and Thanksgivings of New England_, pp. 346-361.

[g] Early in his career he had written a versification of the Psalms, in 1788 his _Conquest of Canaan_, and later _Triumph of Infidelity_. President Dwight taught the seniors rhetoric, logic, ethics, and metaphysics, and the graduate students in theology. In 1805 he was appointed to the professors.h.i.+p of the latter study.

[h] Dr. Dwight's _Theology Explained_ was not published until 1818, after his death, and his _Travels_ not until 1821-22.

[i] Except among the backwoodsmen of Kentucky in 1799-1803.

[j] The Society was granted a charter in 1802. In 1797 interest in the missions was intensified by the free distribution of seventeen hundred copies of the report of missionary work in England and America.

[k] The Rev. Jedidiah Champion of Lifcchfield, an ardent Federalist, on the Sunday following the news of the election of Adams and Jefferson, prayed fervently for the president-elect, closing with the words, "0 Lord! wilt Thou bestow upon the Vice-President a double portion of Thy grace, _for Thou knowest he needs it._" This was mild, for Jefferson was considered by the New England clergy to be almost the equal of Napoleon, whom one of them named the "Scourge of G.o.d."

[l] Pierpont Edwards, b. April 8, 1750, graduated at Princeton, 1768, died April 5, 1826.

Timothy Dwight, b. May 14, 1752, died January 11, 1817.

Aaron Burr, b. February 6, 1756, Vice-President 1801-05, died September 14, 1836.

Theodore Dwight, b. December 15, 1754, educated for the law under Pierpont Edwards, and practiced it for a time in New York city with his cousin, Aaron Burr. He broke the partners.h.i.+p because of difference in politics, and went to Hartford. He became a member of the governor's council, 1809-1815; secretary of the Hartford Convention, 1814. He established the _Connecticut Mirror_ in 1809; founded and conducted the _Albany Daily Advertiser_, 1815-16, and the _Daily Advocate_, New York, 1816-36. He died June 12, 1846.

[m] The crimes against religion punishable by law were Blasphemy (by whipping, fine, or imprisonment); Atheism, Polytheism, Unitarianism, Apostaey (by loss of employment, whether ecclesiastical, civil, or military, for the first offense).--_Swift's System of Law_, ii, 320, 321.

[n] _Oration delivered in Wallingford on the eleventh of March 1801, before the Republicans of the State of Connecticut at the General Thanksgiving for the election of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency, and of Aaron Burr to the Vice-Presidency, of the United States of America 1801._

See the appendix to the Oration for an account of the New Haven episode.

[o] "Connecticutensis," or David Daggett, also replied in _Three Letters to Abraham Bishop._ Theodore Dwight's _Oration at New Haven before the Society of the Cincinnati, July 7, 1801,_ took up the const.i.tutionality of the charter government.

[p] Later chief justice.

[q] Windham County was steadily Republican after this election.

[r] Major William Judd of Farmington, Jabez H. Tomlinson of Stratford, Augur Judson of Huntington, Hezekiah Goodrich of Chatham, and Nathaniel Manning of Windham.

[s] Federalist.

[t] To preserve our inst.i.tutions and reform public morals, to bring back the keeping of the Sabbath was our aim ... We tried to do it by resuscitating and enforcing the law (That was our mistake, but we did not know it then.) and wherever I went I pushed that thing; Bear up the laws--execute the laws.... We took hold of it in the a.s.sociation at Fairfield, June, 1814, ... recommending among other things a pet.i.tion to Congress." (_Autobiography_, i, 268.) At this meeting originated the famous pet.i.tion against Sunday mail.

Dr. Beeeher urged a domestic missionary society to build up waste places in Connecticut. His sermon "Reformation of Morals practicable and desirable" warned against "profane and profligate men of corrupt minds and to every good work reprobate."

[u] Judge Church.

[v] The final speech in favor of the bill was made by Nathan Smith, a lawyer of New Haven. When he had finished his eloquent setting forth of the benefits and dangers attendant upon pa.s.sing the bill, there was an unusual and solemn silence. Dr. Gillett says if the bill had been promptly put to vote it would probably have been pa.s.sed, but the churchlike silence was broken by a shrill voice piping forth, "Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, what shall we sing?" The laughter which followed broke the orator's charm and sealed the fate of the bill.

[w] See _Columbian Register_ of June 17, 1820, for a full account of the Bishop's Fund and the final award of the bonus.