[1]Reverend Jedediah Morse, born at Woodstock, Connecticut, August 23, 1761, died at New Haven, June 9, 1826, was a man of note. He was the author of the first American geography and gazetteer. His connection with the leading public men of his times, particularly with those of the Federalist party, was both extensive and intimate. His travels and correspondence in the interests of his numerous geographical compositions in part promoted this acquaintance; but his outspoken and unflinching support of the measures of government during the Federalist regime did even more to enhance his influence. Morse was graduated from Yale College in 1783 and settled at Charlestown as minister of the Congregational church in that place in 1789. His wife was Elizabeth Ann Breese, granddaughter of Samuel Finley, president of the College of New Jersey. Quite apart from all other claims to public recognition, the following inscription, to be found to this day on a tablet attached to the front of the house in Charlestown wherein his distinguished son was born, would have rendered the name of Jedediah Morse worthy of regard:“Here was born 27th of April, 1791,Samuel Finley Breese Morse.Inventor of the Electric Telegraph.”W. B. Sprague’sAnnals of the American Pulpit, vol. ii, pp. 247–256, contains interesting data concerning Morse’s activities and personality. Sprague also wroteThe Life of Jedidiah Morse, D. D., New York, 1874. (Morse’s surname appears in the sources both as “Jedediah” and “Jedidiah”). Sawyer’sOld Charlestown, etc., p. 299, has an engaging account of Morse’s loyalty to the muse of Federalism, and of the painful, though not serious physical consequences, in which in at least one instance this involved him.Cf.alsoMemorabilia in the Life of Jedediah Morse, D. D., by his son, Sidney E. Morse. A bibliography of thirty-two titles by Morse is appended to the sketch in F. B. Dexter,Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, vol. iv, pp. 295–304.[2]A Sermon, Delivered at the New North Church in Boston, in the morning, and in the afternoon at Charlestown, May 9th, 1798, being the day recommended by John Adams, President of the United States of America, for solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer. By Jedidiah Morse, D. D., Minister of the Congregational Church in Charlestown, Boston, 1798, p. 25.[3]Robison,Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the Secret Meetings of the Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies, Edinburgh, 1797.[4]An early and yet typical example of this unfavorable view of the moral and religious life of the people after the first generation of the Puritans was gone, may be found inThe Result of 1679,—a document prepared by the Synod in response to directions from the Massachusetts General Court, calling for answers to the following questions: “What are the euills that haue provoked the Lord to bring his judgments on New England? What is to be donn that so those euills may be reformed?”. The following brief excerpt fromThe Resultsupplies the point of View: “Our Fathers neither sought for, nor thought of great things for themselves, but did seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things were added to them. They came not into the wilderness to see a man cloathed in soft raiment. But that we have in too many respects, been forgetting the Errand upon which the Lord sent us hither; all the world is witness: And therefore we may not wonder that God hath changed the tenour of his Dispensations towards us, turning to doe us hurt, and consuming us after that he hath done us good. If we had continued to be as once we were, the Lord would have continued to doe for us, as once he did.” The entire document, together with much valuable explanatory comment, may be found in Walker,Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 421–437. Backus,History of New England, vol i, pp. 457–461, contains a group of similar laments.[5]Snow,A History of Boston, p. 333.[6]Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, p. 696.[7]Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, vol. iii, pp. 500et seq.The Preamble of this Act is highly interesting: “For preventing and avoiding the many and great mischiefs which arise from publick stage-plays, interludes and other theatrical entertainments, which not only occasion great and unnecessary expenses, and discourage industry and frugality, but likewise tend generally to increase immorality, impiety and a contempt for religion,—Be it enacted”,etc.[8]Seilhamer,History of the American Theatre, vol. ii, pp. 51et seq.; Winsor,The Memorial History of Boston, vol. iv, ch. v: “The Drama in Boston,” by William W. Clapp, pp. 358et seq.[9]Seilhamer,op. cit., vol. iii, p. 13; Dunlap,History of the American Theatre, vol. i, p. 244; Snow,History of Boston, pp. 333et seq.[10]Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1792–3, pp. 686et seq.[11]The public discussion and legislative phase of the situation, together with the disorders occasioned by the determination of the supporters of the theatre to serve their enterprise at any cost, are well covered by Clapp in the chapter already cited in Winsor’sMemorial History of Boston.Cf.also Seilhamer, vol. iii, pp. 14et seq.; Dunlap, vol. i, pp. 242et seq.; Willard,Memories of Youth and Manhood, vol. i, pp. 324, 325; Bentley,Diary, vol. i. pp 340, 379, 380, 414, 415, 418,etc.[12]The Speech of John Gardiner, Esquire, Delivered in the House of Representatives. On Thursday, the 26th of January, 1792, Boston, 1792, p. 18. Another publication of the same year,The Rights of the Drama: or, An Inquiry into the Origin, Principles, and Consequences of Theatrical Entertainments. By Philo Dramatis(pseud.), discussed the subject in different vein, but with the same object in view. In the final chapter on “The Outlines of a Theatre, it’s Necessary Appendages, a Plan of Regulation, Calculation of Expenses, Profits, &c.”, doubtless by way of turning the balance of public judgment in favor of the establishment of a local theatre, the author suggests that the following ends may be served: the development of native genius, and thus the elevation of America to a high rank in the republic of letters; the reservation of a certain portion of the revenues of the theatre by the Commonwealth, for the care of the poor of Boston, or of the state, and for the support of the University at Cambridge (Harvard), thus easing the burden of taxation. The closing words of this pamphlet, stripped of their bombast, are not unworthy to stand with Gardiner’s: “Whenever I consider this subject, and contemplate the formation of a Theatre, I cannot help feeling a kind of enthusiasm … I anticipate the time when the Garricks and Siddons of America shall adorn the Stage, and melt the soul to pity. But here let me pause.—Let the most rigid Stoic, or the greatest fanatic in religion, or the most notorious dupe to prejudice, once hearken to the tale of the tragic muse, whose office it is to soften, and to subdue the violent passions of the mind, by painting the real misfortunes and distresses, which accompany our journey through life; or attend to the laughable follies, and vain inconsistencies, which daily mark the character of the human species—the deformity of vice—the excellence of virtue—, and, from the representation of the lively Comedy, ‘catch the manners living as they rise,’ and then say, if he can, that lessons of instruction are unknown to the Drama. If these have no effect, let him listen, with mute attention, to the occasional symphonies, which burst from a thousand strings, and accompany, and give life and animation to the Comic scene—and then, if sunk below the brute creation, let him be fortified against the impressions of sensibility. The stoicism of man must surpass our comprehension, if the dramatic scene can be contemplated without emotion; more especially when the representation of life and manners is intended to correct and to enlarge the heart….”[13]Cf.(Boston)Independent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, Thursday, March 28, 1793.[14]Pseud.:Effects of the Stage on the Manners of a People: and the Propriety of Encouraging and Establishing a Virtuous Theatre. By a Bostonian, Boston, 1792. The author is insipid enough; none the less the pamphlet is by no means void of a certain practical-mindedness and good sense as the author argues for the frank acceptance of the theatre as an institution in the city’s life. The following constitute his chief contentions: The theatre, in some form or other, is bound to come, because of the fact that the people generally are interested in the subject of amusement; the tastes and appetites of the people already give painful evidence of serious debasement and corruption; the acceptance of a “Virtuous Theatre” is the only possible expedient if the people are to be saved from worse debauchment.The view taken by the Reverend William Bentley, Salem’s well-known minister, was less specious, though tinged with a mildly pessimistic view of popular tastes. Under date of July 31, 1792, he wrote: “So much talk has been in the Country about Theatrical entertainments that they have become the pride even of the smallest children in our schools. The fact puts in mind of the effect from the Rope flyers, who visited N. England, after whose feats the children of seven were sliding down the fences & wounding themselves in every quarter.”Diary, vol. i, p. 384. Later, he wrote: “The Theatre opened for the first time [in Salem] is now the subject. The enlightened who have not determined upon its utter abolition have yet generally agreed that it is too early introduced into our country.”Ibid., vol. ii, p. 81.Cf. ibid., pp. 258,et seq., 299, 322. It is clear that Bentley was apprehensive.[15]Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. i, pp. 188, 195; Bishop,History of American Manufactures, vol. i, pp. 245et seq.[16]Ibid., p. 250; vol. ii, pp. 501, 502. See also Clark,History of Manufactures in the United States, p. 480.[17]Ibid.Bishop notes the fact that in 1721 a small village of forty houses, near Boston, made 3000 barrels of cider.[18]Ibid., p. 269; Weeden,op. cit., vol. i, pp. 144, 148et seq.[19]The impression that this decline toward a general state of drunkenness set in early will appear from the following excerpt taken from the Synod’s report on “The Necessity of Reformation”, presented to the General Court of Massachusetts in 1679: “VIII. There is much Intemperance. The heathenish and Idolatrous practice of Health-drinking is become too general a Provocation. Dayes of Training, and other publick Solemnityes, have been abused in this respect: and not only English but Indians have been debauched, by those that call themselves Christians, who have put their bottles to them, and made them drunk also. This is a crying Sin, and the more aggravated in that the first Planters of this Colony did (as in the Patent expressed) come into this Land with a design to Convert the Heathen unto Christ…. There are more Temptations and occasions untoThat Sin, publickly allowed of, than any necessity doth require; the proper end of Taverns, &c. being to that end only, a far less number would suffice: But it is a common practice for Town dwellers, yea and Church-members, to frequent publick Houses, and there to misspend precious Time, unto the dishonour of the Gospel, and the scandalizing of others, who are by such examples induced to sin against God.”Cf.Walker,Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, p. 430.[20]Hatch,The Administration of the American Revolutionary Army, pp. 89et seq.The supplies of beer, cider, and rum furnished the armies were not always held to be adequate. After the battle of Brandywine, Congress ordered thirty hogsheads of rum distributed among the soldiers as a tribute to their gallant conduct in that battle.Cf.One Hundred Years of Temperance, New York, 1886, article by Daniel Dorchester on “The Inception of the Temperance Reformation”, p. 113, for comments on the effects of the return of drunken soldiers to the ranks of citizenship.[21]Weeden,op. cit., vol. ii, p. 883, supplies the following concerning the character of the coasting and river trade, which the exigencies of the war greatly stimulated: “A cargo from Boston to Great Barrington and Williamstown contained 11 hdds. and 6 tierces of rum, 3 bbls. of wine, 2 do. of brandy, 1/2 bale of cotton, and 1 small cask of indigo. The proportion of ‘wet goods’ to the small quantity of cotton and indigo is significant, and indicates the prevailing appetites”.[22]In 1783 Massachusetts had no fewer than sixty-three distilleries. In 1783 this state distilled 1,475,509 gallons of spirits from foreign, and 11,490 gallons from domestic materials. From 1790 to 1800 in the United States, 23,148,404 gallons of spirits were distilled from molasses; of this 6,322,640 gallons were exported, leaving a quantity for home consumption so large as to supply its own comment. Low grain prices, together with the difficulty of gaining access to the molasses markets, hastened a transition to grain distilling near the end of the eighteenth century, with the result that in 1810 Mr. Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, reported not less than 9,000,000 gallons of spirits as having been distilled from grain and fruit in 1801. Bishop,History of American Manufactures, vol. ii, pp. 30, 65, 83, 152; Clark,History of Manufactures in the United States, p. 230.[23]Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 6th ser., vol. iv, Belknap Papers, pt. iii, p. 440.[24]Ibid., p. 508.[25]Diary of William Bentley, vol. ii, p. 92: May 31, 1794: “The observation of holydays at Election is an abuse in this part of the Country. Not only at our return yesterday, did we observe crowds around the new Tavern at the entrance of the Town, but even at this day, we saw at Perkins’ on the neck, persons of all descriptions, dancing to a fiddle, drinking, playing with pennies, &c. It is proper such excesses should be checked.”Cf.alsoibid., pp. 58, 363, 410, 444et seq.Cf.also Earle, Alice Morse,Stage-coach and Tavern Days, New York, 1900.[26]Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 6th Series, vol. iv, Belknap Papers, pt. iii, p. 456. Jeremiah Libbey writes of the situation at Portsmouth, [N. H.?]: “The common allowance of rum to labourers here is half a pint per day, which has been the rule or custom as long as I can remember. There are several persons in this town that are endeavouring to abolish the custom by giving them more wages in lieu of theallowance, as it is call’d; but the custom is so rooted that it is very difficult to break it. The attachment is so great, that in general if you were to offer double the price of the allowance in money it would not be satisfactory to the labourers, and altho’ that is the case & it is the ruin of them and familys in many instances … untill a substitute of beer or some other drink is introduced in general, it will be difficult to get over it”.[27]Diary of William Bentley, vol. i, pp. 167, 175, 217, 218, 244, 247, 248, 255, 256, 281et seq.[28]Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher, vol. i, p. 30.[29]Ibid., p. 24. The description of the meeting of the Consociation, pp. 214et seq., is unusually vivid: “ … the preparation for our creature comforts in the sitting-room of Mr. Heart’s house, besides food, was a broad sideboard, covered with decanters and bottles, and sugar, and pitchers of water. There we found all the various kinds of liquors then in vogue. The drinking was apparently universal. This preparation was made by the society as a matter of course. When the Consociation arrived, they always took something to drink round; also before public services, and always on their return. As they could not all drink at once, they were obliged to stand and wait, as people do when they go to mill. There was a decanter of spirits also on the dinnertable, to help digestion, and gentlemen partook of it through the afternoon and evening as they felt the need, some more and some less; and the sideboard, with the spillings of water, and sugar, and liquor, looked and smelled like the bar of a very active grog-shop. None of the Consociation were drunk; but that there was not, at times, a considerable amount of exhilaration, I can not affirm.” It was Beecher’s judgment that “the tide was swelling in the drinking habits of society.”Ibid., p. 215.[30]Ibid., vol. i, pp. 133, 138, 163, 255, 256, 371; vol. ii. pp. 294, 328et seq.[31]A Discourse on Some Events of the Last Century, delivered in the Brick Church in New Haven, on Wednesday, January 7, 1801. By Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, New Haven, 1801.Cf.this author’sTravels in New England and New York, vol. iv, pp. 353et seq.[32]Dwight’sCentury Sermon, p. 18.[33]Ibid., pp. 18et seq.[34]The testimony of a European traveller should prove as edifying as that of an intimate participant in the country’s life. In 1788, Brissot de Warville visited America. He remarked the change which had come over the people of New England, of Boston in particular. The old “Presbyterian austerity, which interdicted all pleasures, even that of walking; which forbade travelling on Sunday, which persecuted men whose opinions were different from their own” was no longer to be encountered. Yet no evidence of the corruption of morals presented itself to the distinguished traveller. On the contrary, he remarked the general wholesomeness and soundness of domestic life, and the general poise and temperance of a people which, “since the ancient puritan austerity has disappeared”, was able to play cards without yielding to the gambling instinct and to enjoy its clubs and parties without offending the spirit of courtesy and good-breeding. The glow upon the soul of Brissot as he contemplates the prosperity and unaffected simplicity of the people of Boston is evident as he writes: “With what pleasure did I contemplate this town, which first shook off the English yoke! which, for a long time, resisted all the seductions, all the menaces, all the horrors of a civil war! How I delighted to wander up and down that long street, whose simple houses of wood border the magnificent channel of Boston, and whose full stores offer me all the productions of the continent which I had quitted! How I enjoyed the activity of the merchants, the artizans, and the sailors! It was not the noisy vortex of Paris; it was not the unquiet, eager mien of my countrymen; it was the simple, dignified air of men, who are conscious of liberty, and who see in all men their brothers and their equals. Everything in this street bears the marks of a town still in its infancy, but which, even in its infancy, enjoys a great prosperity…. Boston is just rising from the devastations of war, and its commerce is flourishing; its manufactures, productions, arts, and sciences, offer a number of curious and interesting observations.” (Brissot De Warville,New Travels in the United States of America, pp. 70–82.) Equally laudatory comment respecting the state of society in Connecticut is made by Brissot (pp. 108, 109).John Bernard, the English comedian, who was in this country at the close of the eighteenth century, found the state of society very much like that which he had left in his own country. “They wore the same clothes, spoke the same language, and seemed to glow with the same affable and hospitable feelings. In walking along the mall I could scarcely believe I had not been whisked over to St. James’s Park; and in their houses the last modes of London were observable in nearly every article of ornament or utility. Other parts of the state were, however, very different.” (Bernard,Retrospections of America, 1797–1811, p. 29.) Bernard found in New England abundant evidences of progress such as he had not been accustomed to in England, and splendid stamina of character (p. 30). Nothing, apparently, suggested to him that the people were not virile and sound.[35]Bentley,Diary, vol. i, pp. 253et seq., discusses at length “the Puerile Sports usual in these parts of New England”. Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, p. 696, comments on the dearth of public amusement.Cf.alsoibid., p. 864. The changed attitude of the public toward dancing, as reported by Weeden, pp. 696 and 864, doubtless finds its explanation in the growing consciousness that the resources in the way of entertainment deserve to be increased. At the close of the century, however, dancing was still frowned upon. Bentley,Diary, vol. ii, pp. 17, 232, 233, 296, 322, 363.[36]Brissot,New Travels in the United States of America, p. 72: “Music, which their teachers formerly prescribed as a diabolic art, begins to make part of their education. In some houses you hear the forte-piano. This art, it is true, is still in its infancy; but the young novices who exercise it, are so gentle, so complaisant, and so modest, that the proud perfection of art gives no pleasure equal to what they afford.”Cf.also Bentley,Diary, vol. ii, pp. 247et seq., 292.[37]Brissot,New Travels in the United States of America, pp. 86et seq.Brissot generously explains this fact upon the ground that in a country so new, whose immediate concerns were so compelling, and where, also, wealth is not centered in a few hands, the cultivation of the arts and sciences is not to be expected. On the side of invention the situation was far from being as bad as a reading of Brissot might seem to imply. Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 847–858.[38]Goddard,Studies in New England Transcendentalism, p. 18. While the passage cited deals with an earlier situation, the general observation made concerning the well-poised character of the New England type of mind is as valid for the close of the eighteenth century as for the corresponding period of the preceding century; and the failure of New England to take a “plunge … from the moral heights of Puritanism” is all the more impressive in the later period in view of the variety and character of the new incitements and impulses which the people of New England generally felt in the period following the Revolution.[39]Conspicuous in this group was the new merchant class. In the wake of the Revolution came an industrial and commercial revival which profoundly affected the life of New England. While the period of the Confederation, on account of its political disorganization and the chaotic state of public finance and the currency, was characterized by extreme economic depression, on the other hand, the adoption of the Constitution communicated to the centers of industry and commerce a feeling of optimism. The sense that a federal government had been formed, equal to the task of guaranteeing to its citizens the rights and privileges of trade, gave early evidence that the economic impulses of the country had been quickened notably. Such evidence is too abundant and too well known either to permit or to require full statement here, but the following is suggestive: The fisheries of New England, which had been nearly destroyed during the Revolution, had so far revived by 1789 that a total of 480 vessels, representing a tonnage of 27,000, were employed in the industry. At least 32,000 tons of shipping were built in the United States, a very large part of this in New England, in 1791. Before the war the largest amount built in any one year was 26,544 tons. But the record of 1791 was modest. From 1789 to 1810, American shipping increased from 202,000 to 1,425,000 tons. Because of the federal government’s proclamation of strict neutrality with regard to the wars abroad, the carrying trade of the world came largely into the hands of shipowners and seamen of the United States, with the result that the dockyards and wharves of New England fairly hummed with activity. The exports of 1793 amounted to $33,026,233. By 1799 they had mounted to $78,665,522, of which $33,142,522 was the growth, produce, or manufacture of the Union. Within a very few years after the adoption of the Constitution, American merchants had become the warehousers and distributors of merchandise to all parts of the world. The wharves of New England were covered with goods from Europe, the Orient, the West Indies, and from the looms, shops, and distilleries of the nation. Directed by resourceful and far-sighted men who had the instinct for commercial expansion, ships sailed from New England ports for Batavia, Canton, Calcutta, St. Petersburg, Port Louis. They carried with them coffee, fish, flour, provisions, tobacco, rum, iron, cattle, horses; they brought back molasses, sugar, wine, indigo, pepper, salt, muslins, calicoes, silks, hemp, duck. The situation is dealt with in detail by Bishop,History of American Manufactures, vol. ii, pp. 13–82; Clark,History of Manufactures in the United States, pp. 227et seq.; Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 816–857.[40]Winsor,The Memorial History of Boston, vol. iii, pp. 191, 203; Morse,The Federalist Party in Massachusetts, pp. 37, 38;Harvard Theological Review, January, 1916, p. 104.[41]Weeden,Early Life in Rhode Island, pp. 357et seq., calls attention to the spacious and elegant houses which were built at Providence about 1790, and to the new group of merchants which the expansion of trans-oceanic commerce called into existence there. Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, pp. 821et seq., deals with the situation in a larger way.[42]Parker,History of the Second Church of Christ in Hartford, p. 172. The passage contains a vivid picture of the state of polite society in an important Connecticut center. Love,The Colonial History of Hartford, pp. 244et seq., deals with the transformation of social life with particular reference to the disintegration of Puritanism.[43]An outcry against the excesses of fashion began to make itself heard. “An Old Farmer,” writing to theMassachusetts Spy, March 27, 1799, complains on account of the consequent drain upon the purses of husbands and fathers: “I am a plain farmer, and therefore beg leave to trouble you with a little plain language. By the dint of industry, and application to agricultural concerns, I have, till lately, made out to keep square with the world. But the late scarcity of money, together with the extravagance of fashions have nearly ruined me…. I am by no means tenacious of theold way, or ofold fashions. I know that my family must dress different from what I used to when I was young; yet as I have the interest of husbands and fathers at heart, I wish there might be some reformation in the present mode of female dress…. In better times, six or seven yards of Calico would serve to make a gown; but now fourteen yards are scarcely sufficient. I do not perceive that women grow any larger now than formerly…. A few years since, my daughters were not too proud to wear good calfskin shoes; two pair of which would last them a year: But now none will suit them but morroco, and these must be of the slenderest kind…. Young ladies used to be contented with wearing nothing on their heads but what Nature gave them…. But now they dare not appear in company, unless they have half a bushel of gauze, and other stuff, stuck on their heads”. The letter closes with a humorous account of the writer’s embarrassing experience with the trains of the ladies’ dresses on the occasion of a recent visit to church.[44]Swift, Lindsay,The Massachusetts Election Sermons(Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. i, Transactions, 1892–1894), pp. 428et seq.[45]Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 864et seq.[46]Scudder,Recollections of Samuel Breck, with Passages from His Note-Books, pp. 178et seq.Breck visited New England about 1791. He was impressed with the looseness of life and gross lawlessness which he saw. A fairer judgment appears on page 182: “The severe, gloomy puritanical spirit that had governed New England since the days of the Pilgrim forefathers was gradually giving way in the principal towns”,etc.[47]Lauer,Church and State in New England(Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science. Tenth Series), pp. 95et seq.[48]The term “Standing Order” was generally employed in the speech and literature of the period, and had reference to the alliance between the party of the Establishment and the party of the government.[49]The scope of inquiry prescribed by the special object of this dissertation renders both unnecessary and unprofitable the tracing of this struggle in detail. Valuable special studies in this field are available. Among these the following are to be commended as of exceptional usefulness: Burrage,A History of the Baptists in New England; Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut; Reed,Church and State in Massachusetts, 1691–1740; Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America; Ford,New England’s Struggle for Religious Liberty. Lauer’s excellent treatise has already been cited. Of contemporaneous treatments, Backus,A History of New England, with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists, though deficient in literary merit, is doubtless the most trustworthy and replete. The citations made from the latter work refer, unless otherwise indicated, to the edition of 1871 (2 vols.).[50]The Charter Granted by Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, to the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, Boston in New England, 1726, p. 9. The principle of church membership as a qualification for voting was set aside for a property qualification.[51]Backus,History of New England, vol. i, pp. 446et seq.Cf.Reed,Church and State in Massachusetts, 1691–1740, pp. 23et seq.[52]Backus,History of New England, vol. i, p. 448.[53]Charters and “Acts and Laws” of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, With Appended Acts and Laws, Boston, 1726–1735, p. 383. The law provided that “all persons who profess themselves to be of the Church of England”, and who were so situated that “there is a Person in Orders according to the Rules of the Church of England setled [sic], and abiding among them and performing Divine Service within Five Miles of the Habitation, or usual Residence of any Person professing himself as aforesaid of the Church of England”, might have his rate-money reserved for the support of the Episcopal church.[54]Charters and “Acts and Laws” of the Province of Mass.,etc., p. 423. The five-mile limitation formed a part of this legislation, also.[55]Burrage,History of the Baptists in New England, p. 105.[56]Palfrey,A Compendious History of New England, vol. iv, pp. 94, 95.[57]Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, etc., vol. iii, p. 645.[58]Ibid.[59]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 140.[60]Ibid.[61]Ibid.[62]Separatists or Separates were the names by which those were commonly designated who withdrew from the orthodox churches on account of the controversies occasioned by the Great Awakening. See Blake, S. Leroy,The Separates or Strict Congregationalists of New England, Boston, 1902, pp. 17et seq.[63]Hovey,A Memoir of the Life and Times of the Rev. Isaac Backus, p. 171.[64]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 96et seq.Backus himself suffered imprisonment under this act. Seeibid., p. 109.[65]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 235et seq.The process of absorption referred to had much to do with the breaking up of the Separatist movement. Few of these congregations continued to exist until the struggle for religious freedom was fully won. Other contributory causes in the breaking up of the movement were the poverty of the members of these congregations, the difficulties they experienced in securing pastoral care, and the dissensions that arose among them in the exercise of their boasted rights of private judgment, public exhortation, and the interpretation of the Scriptures.[66]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 140et seq.[67]Backus,op. cit., p. 141.[68]Ibid.[69]Cf.Minutes of the Warren Association for 1769, quoted by Burrage,History of the Baptists in New England, pp. 108et seq.Cf.the following, taken from a statement and appeal to Baptists, in theBoston Evening Post, Aug. 20, 1770: “To the Baptists in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, who are, or have been, oppressed in any way on a religious account. It would be needless to tell you that you have long felt the effects of the laws by which the religion of the government in which you live is established. Your purses have felt the burden of ministerial rates; and when these would not satisfy your enemies, your property hath been taken from you and sold for less than half its value…. You will therefore readily hear and attend when you are desired to collect your cases of suffering, and have them well attested; such as, the taxes you have paid to build meeting-houses, to settle ministers and support them, with all the time, money and labor you have lost in waiting on courts, feeing lawyers, &c.; and bring or send such cases to the Baptist Association to be held at Bellingham; when measures will be resolutely adopted for obtaining redress from another quarter than that to which repeated application hath been made unsuccessfully. Nay, complaints, however just and grievous, hath been treated with indifference, and scarcely, if at all credited”. (Quoted by Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 155.)[70]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 156et seq.[71]This standing committee of the Warren Association is itself a token of the strengthened purpose of the Baptists.[72]The address is given in full in Hovey,A Memoir of the Life and Times of Isaac Backus, pp. 218–221. It drew a kindly response from the Provincial Congress, signed by John Hancock as president, pleading the inability of the Congress to give redress and advising the aggrieved parties to submit their case to the General Court of Massachusetts at its next session. This step was taken in September, 1775; but beyond the fact that a bill, drawn to give redress, was once read in the sessions of the Assembly, nothing came at the matter. “Such”, remarks Backus, “is the disposition of mankind”. (Cf.Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 202et seq.Cf.Burrage,History of the Baptists in New England, pp. 113et seq.)[73]The Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Passed from the Year 1780, to the End of the Year 1800, vol. i, pp. 19, 20.[74]Ibid.[75]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 228et seq., for cases of persecution under the operation of the bill of rights.[76]The contribution made by the newspapers must not be overlooked in this connection. From about 1770 on there may be traced a growing disposition on the part of dissenters to air their grievances in the public journals. Supporters of the Establishment were not slow to respond.[77]In addition to the two specifically referred to, Backus published the following:Policy, as well as Honesty, Forbids the Use of Secular Force in Religious Affairs, Boston, 1779;Truth is Great, and Will Prevail, Boston, 1781;A Door Opened for Equal Christian Liberty, etc., Boston, 1783.[78]Backus,op. cit., p. 13.[79]Quoted from Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 223.[80]Walker,History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, pp. 206–209.[81]Cf.A Vindication of the Government of the New-England Churches, etc., Boston, 1772. The first edition of 500 copies was quickly subscribed for, and a second was published the same year.[82]An edition of Wise’s tracts was published as late as 1860, by the Congregational Board of Publication. From that edition the citations are drawn. The following from the “Introductory Notice” is of interest: “ … some of the most glittering sentences of the immortal Declaration of Independence are almost literal quotations from this essay of John Wise [i. e.,Vindication of the Government of New-England Churches]. And it is a significant fact, that in 1772, only four years before the declaration was made, a large edition of both those tracts was published by subscription in one duodecimo volume. The presumption which this fact alone suggests, that it was used as a political text-book in the great struggle for freedom then opening, is fully confirmed by the list of subscribers’ names printed at the end, with the number of copies annexed.” Page xxet seq.[83]Ibid., pp. 48–50, 54, 56.[84]Wise,op. cit., p. 56.[85]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 391–401, furnishes the following table of Baptist strength in New England in the year 1795: Churches, 325; ministers, 232; members, 20,902. Methodism had emerged in New England within the last quarter of the century, and Methodist ministers were indefatigable in their labors. By the close of the century as generous-minded a Congregational minister as Bentley could not altogether cover over his chagrin on account of the growth and influence of the “sects”.Cf.Diary of William Bentley, vol. ii, pp. 127, 409, 419.[86]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 235.Cf.Burrage,History of the Baptist in New England, pp. 121et seq.[87]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, pp. 509–511.[88]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 341.[89]Ibid., pp. 351et seq., 379.[90]Backus,op. cit., pp. 353et seq.[91]Ibid., p. 379.[92]Actual disestablishment did not come in Massachusetts until 1833.[93]Since the particular purpose of this chapter is to explain the bitter spirit existing between the orthodox party and dissenters in New England near the close of the eighteenth century, rather than to re-write the history of the struggle for full religious toleration, much that occurred in the long process of severing the bond between church and state may be passed over. Attention will be focused upon the character rather than the chronology of the struggle.[94]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 238; Fiske,The Beginnings of New England, pp. 123et seq.[95]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, p. 121; Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 243.[96]Cobb,op. cit., pp. 244, 246.[97]Ibid., pp. 240et seq.; Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 62et seq., 68.[98]It was the judgment of Isaac Backus that “oppression was greater in Connecticut, than in other governments in New England”. (History of New England, vol. ii, p. 404.)[99]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 244. Cobb’s statement concerning the lack of harshness and ungentleness which characterized the attitude of the supporters of the state church toward dissent is extreme. The controlling spirit of the Standing Order was doubtless a positive concern for the welfare of the Establishment rather than a desire to weed out dissent; but the clash of interests became so sharp and bitter that motives did not remain unmixed, and in many an instance dissent in Connecticut was compelled to reckon with a spirit of actual persecution.[100]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. i, p. 21.[101]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, pp. 246et seq.[102]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. i, p. 311.[103]Ibid., pp. 356, 362; vol. ii, pp. 99, 240; vol. iii, pp. 78, 82et seq.[104]Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 13, 18, 101, 216et seq.[105]Ibid., vol. iv, pp. 67, 127, 136et seq.[106]Ibid., vol. vii, p. 554.[107]Ibid., pp. 334, 335.[108]Ibid., vol. iii, p. 183.[109]Ibid., vol. i, pp. 437et seq.[110]Ibid., vol. iii, p. 104.[111]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 247.[112]Walker,The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 465et seq.[113]Walker,A History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, pp. 202et seq.; Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 133et seq.[114]Walker,The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 491–494.[115]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. v, pp. 51et seq.[116]Ibid.[117]Ibid.[118]Walker,The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 502–506, where “The Saybrook Meeting and Articles” are printed in full. For expositions, see Backus,History of New England, vol. i, pp. 470et seq.; Palfrey,A History of New England, vol. iii, p. 342; Dexter,The Congregationalism of the last Three Hundred Years, pp. 489, 490.[119]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. v, p. 87.[120]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, p 151.[121]Cf. supra,p. 53.[122]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. v, p. 50. It seems clear that either through neglect or evasion a considerable number of congregations failed to qualify under the law. In any event the legislature deemed itself warranted in passing an act, May, 1721, imposing a fine of five shillings on persons convicted of not having attended “the publick worship of God on the Lord’s day in some congregation by law allowed.” (Seeibid., vol. vi, p. 248.) Churches which for doctrinal or other reasons withdrew from the Establishment suffered serious embarrassments on account of this law respecting the licensing of congregations.[123]Ibid., vol. v, p. 50. Any infraction of this law was to be punished by a heavy fine. Failure to pay the fine involved heavy bail or imprisonment.[124]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 191et seq.[125]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. vi, p. 106.[126]The Pub. Records of the Colony of Conn., vol. vi, pp. 237, 257. Unlike the Massachusetts exemption laws passed on behalf of these two bodies, these were perpetual.[127]Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society: Talcott Papers, vol. v, pp. 9–13; Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 98et seq.[128]Parker,History of the Second Church of Christ in Hartford, pp. 117, 119;Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, vol. iv:The Bradford Annals, pp. 318et seq.; Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 57et seq., 79et seq.For the account of the difficulties of a particular Separatist congregation, see Dutton,The History of the North Church in New Haven, pp. 25–28.Cf.The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. xi, pp. 323et seq.; also Beardsley,The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, vol. i, p. 140.[129]The bigoted and unfeeling spirit which controlled the authorities is well expressed in the act of May, 1743. Proceeding on the assumption that the Separatists, taking advantage of the act of May, 1708, were responsible for the disruptive tactics and measures of the times, by means of which “some of the parishes established by the laws of this Colony … have been greatly damnified, and by indirect means divided and parted,” the General Court repealed the act in question, and put in its place the following: “And be it further enacted, that, for the future, if any of His Majesty’s good subjects, being protestants, inhabitants of this Colony, that shall soberly dissent from the way of worship and ministry established by the laws of this Colony, that such persons may apply themselves to this Assembly for relief, where they shall be heard.And such persons as have any distinguishing character, by which they may be known from the presbyterians or congregationalists, and from the consociated churches established by the laws of this Colony, may expect the indulgence of this Assembly[Italics mine.—V. S.], having first before this Assembly taken the oaths and subscribed the declaration provided in the act of Parliament in cases of like nature.” (The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. viii, p. 522.Cf.Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 58.)[130]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. viii, p. 454.[131]Ibid., p. 456.[132]The Pub. Records of the Colony of Conn., vol. viii, p. 456.[133]Ibid., p. 457.[134]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 57.[135]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, pp. 274et seq.Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 244et seq.[136]Cf. supra,Footnote 129.[137]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 59et seq., 62, 65et seq., 77et seq., 81et seq.[138]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 248–262. The difficulties experienced by three congregations in New Haven, Canterbury, and Enfield, are dealt with in detail.[139]A revision of Connecticut laws took place in 1750. The unjust legislation of 1742–43 and of the following years was quietly left out.[140]Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, vol. iii, pp. 398et seq.[141]Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, in America, p. 21.[142]Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, in America, p. 21.[143]Parker,History of the Second Church of Hartford, pp. 170, 171.Cf.Beecher,Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, p. 302. The latter’s account of the situation is much softened by his sympathies with the dominant party.[144]By this time dissenters and Anti-Federalists had largely consolidated their interests. The political program of the latter drew upon the former all the suspicions and antagonisms which the Standing Order entertained toward the foes of Federalism. The acrimonious discussion which arose at this time over the disposition of the Western Reserve and the funds thus derived, admirably illustrates the cross-currents of religious and political agitation in the last decade of the century.Cf.Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 380–392.[145]This is readily explicable in view of the fact that most of the magistrates were adherents of the Establishment. The comment of Backus touches the pith of the matter, as dissenters saw it: “Thus the civil authority in the uppermost religious party in their State, was to judge the consciences of all men who dissented from their worship.” (History of New England, vol. ii, p. 345.)[146]Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, p. 418.[147]In September, 1818, by the adoption of the new state constitution, the long wearisome struggle was brought to an end, and State and Church in Connecticut were separated completely.[148]This point of view was tersely set forth in the election sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Payson, at Boston, May 27, 1778: “Let the restraints of religion once be broken down, as they infallibly would be by leaving the subject of public worship to the humours of the multitude, and we might well defy all human wisdom and power to support and preserve order and government in the state.”—Quoted by Backus,Church History of New England, from 1620 to 1804(ed. of 1844, Philadelphia), pp. 204et seq.[149]The state of feelings shared by the supporters of the Establishment at the time when the blow fell severing the bond between the church and state in Connecticut, is vividly expressed by Beecher: “It was a time of great depression…. It was as dark a day as ever I saw. The injury done to the cause of Christ, as we then supposed, was irreparable. For several days I suffered what no tongue can tellfor the best thing that ever happened to the State of Connecticut.” (Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, p. 304.)[150]This was the view propounded by President Ezra Stiles, of Yale, in his election sermon of May 3, 1783: “Through the liberty enjoyed here, all religious sects will grow up into large and respectable bodies. But the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations, however hitherto despised, will, by the blessing of Heaven continue to hold the greatest figure in America, and, notwithstanding all the fruitless labors and exertions to proselyte us to other communions, become more numerous than the whole collective body of our fellow protestants in Europe.” (Quoted by Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 312.)To this exposition and bold forecast Backus took decided objections, on the grounds (1) thatpersecutionand nottolerancehad promoted the growth of sects in America, and (2) that the numerical increase of the Congregationalists and Presbyterians in this country did not justify any such prediction.Cf. ibid., pp. 403–407.[151]Perhaps no man more boldly stated this interpretation of the motives that inspired the Standing Order than Abraham Bishop, leader of the forces of Republicanism in Connecticut and arch-enemy of “ecclesiastical aristocrats.” “The religion of the country is made a stalking horse for political jockies … Thanksgiving and fasts have been often improved for political purposes and the miserable gleanings from half a year’s ignorance of the true interests of our country have been palmed on the people, by the political clergy, as a pious compliance with the governor’s very pious proclamations…. The union of Church and State … [is] the grand fortress of the ‘friends of order and good government.’” (Oration delivered at Wallingford, New Haven, 1801, pp. 46, 83.) That “the church is in danger” has for some time past been one of the most frequent and frantic of all the absurd cries heard in the land, and that New England through her clannishness has produced “patriarchs in opinion” who assume the prerogative of dictating the opinions of the people on all subjects, are further trenchant comments of the same orator. (Ibid., pp. 13, 17.) Bishop’s observations respecting the alleged specious and insincere character of those public utterances by which “the friends of order and good government” sought to preserve thestatus quo, are equally pointed. “The sailor nailed the needle of his compass to the cardinal point and swore that it should not be always traversing. So does the New England friend of order: but he cautiously conceals the oppression and imposture, which sustains these habits…. This cry ofsteady habitshas a talismanic effect on the minds of our people; but nothing can be more hollow, vain and deceitful. Recollect for a moment that everything valuable in our world has been at one time innovation, illuminatism, modern philosophy, atheism…. Our steady habits have calmly assumed domination over the rights of conscience and suffrage. Certainly the trinitarian doctrine is established by law and the denial of it is placed in the rank follies. Though we have ceased to transport from town to town, quakers, new lights, and baptists; yet the dissenters from our prevailing denomination are, even at this moment, praying for the repeal of those laws which abridge the rights of conscience.” (Ibid., pp. 14, 16.)
[1]Reverend Jedediah Morse, born at Woodstock, Connecticut, August 23, 1761, died at New Haven, June 9, 1826, was a man of note. He was the author of the first American geography and gazetteer. His connection with the leading public men of his times, particularly with those of the Federalist party, was both extensive and intimate. His travels and correspondence in the interests of his numerous geographical compositions in part promoted this acquaintance; but his outspoken and unflinching support of the measures of government during the Federalist regime did even more to enhance his influence. Morse was graduated from Yale College in 1783 and settled at Charlestown as minister of the Congregational church in that place in 1789. His wife was Elizabeth Ann Breese, granddaughter of Samuel Finley, president of the College of New Jersey. Quite apart from all other claims to public recognition, the following inscription, to be found to this day on a tablet attached to the front of the house in Charlestown wherein his distinguished son was born, would have rendered the name of Jedediah Morse worthy of regard:
“Here was born 27th of April, 1791,Samuel Finley Breese Morse.Inventor of the Electric Telegraph.”
W. B. Sprague’sAnnals of the American Pulpit, vol. ii, pp. 247–256, contains interesting data concerning Morse’s activities and personality. Sprague also wroteThe Life of Jedidiah Morse, D. D., New York, 1874. (Morse’s surname appears in the sources both as “Jedediah” and “Jedidiah”). Sawyer’sOld Charlestown, etc., p. 299, has an engaging account of Morse’s loyalty to the muse of Federalism, and of the painful, though not serious physical consequences, in which in at least one instance this involved him.Cf.alsoMemorabilia in the Life of Jedediah Morse, D. D., by his son, Sidney E. Morse. A bibliography of thirty-two titles by Morse is appended to the sketch in F. B. Dexter,Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, vol. iv, pp. 295–304.
[2]A Sermon, Delivered at the New North Church in Boston, in the morning, and in the afternoon at Charlestown, May 9th, 1798, being the day recommended by John Adams, President of the United States of America, for solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer. By Jedidiah Morse, D. D., Minister of the Congregational Church in Charlestown, Boston, 1798, p. 25.
[3]Robison,Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the Secret Meetings of the Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies, Edinburgh, 1797.
[4]An early and yet typical example of this unfavorable view of the moral and religious life of the people after the first generation of the Puritans was gone, may be found inThe Result of 1679,—a document prepared by the Synod in response to directions from the Massachusetts General Court, calling for answers to the following questions: “What are the euills that haue provoked the Lord to bring his judgments on New England? What is to be donn that so those euills may be reformed?”. The following brief excerpt fromThe Resultsupplies the point of View: “Our Fathers neither sought for, nor thought of great things for themselves, but did seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things were added to them. They came not into the wilderness to see a man cloathed in soft raiment. But that we have in too many respects, been forgetting the Errand upon which the Lord sent us hither; all the world is witness: And therefore we may not wonder that God hath changed the tenour of his Dispensations towards us, turning to doe us hurt, and consuming us after that he hath done us good. If we had continued to be as once we were, the Lord would have continued to doe for us, as once he did.” The entire document, together with much valuable explanatory comment, may be found in Walker,Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 421–437. Backus,History of New England, vol i, pp. 457–461, contains a group of similar laments.
[5]Snow,A History of Boston, p. 333.
[6]Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, p. 696.
[7]Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, vol. iii, pp. 500et seq.The Preamble of this Act is highly interesting: “For preventing and avoiding the many and great mischiefs which arise from publick stage-plays, interludes and other theatrical entertainments, which not only occasion great and unnecessary expenses, and discourage industry and frugality, but likewise tend generally to increase immorality, impiety and a contempt for religion,—Be it enacted”,etc.
[8]Seilhamer,History of the American Theatre, vol. ii, pp. 51et seq.; Winsor,The Memorial History of Boston, vol. iv, ch. v: “The Drama in Boston,” by William W. Clapp, pp. 358et seq.
[9]Seilhamer,op. cit., vol. iii, p. 13; Dunlap,History of the American Theatre, vol. i, p. 244; Snow,History of Boston, pp. 333et seq.
[10]Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1792–3, pp. 686et seq.
[11]The public discussion and legislative phase of the situation, together with the disorders occasioned by the determination of the supporters of the theatre to serve their enterprise at any cost, are well covered by Clapp in the chapter already cited in Winsor’sMemorial History of Boston.Cf.also Seilhamer, vol. iii, pp. 14et seq.; Dunlap, vol. i, pp. 242et seq.; Willard,Memories of Youth and Manhood, vol. i, pp. 324, 325; Bentley,Diary, vol. i. pp 340, 379, 380, 414, 415, 418,etc.
[12]The Speech of John Gardiner, Esquire, Delivered in the House of Representatives. On Thursday, the 26th of January, 1792, Boston, 1792, p. 18. Another publication of the same year,The Rights of the Drama: or, An Inquiry into the Origin, Principles, and Consequences of Theatrical Entertainments. By Philo Dramatis(pseud.), discussed the subject in different vein, but with the same object in view. In the final chapter on “The Outlines of a Theatre, it’s Necessary Appendages, a Plan of Regulation, Calculation of Expenses, Profits, &c.”, doubtless by way of turning the balance of public judgment in favor of the establishment of a local theatre, the author suggests that the following ends may be served: the development of native genius, and thus the elevation of America to a high rank in the republic of letters; the reservation of a certain portion of the revenues of the theatre by the Commonwealth, for the care of the poor of Boston, or of the state, and for the support of the University at Cambridge (Harvard), thus easing the burden of taxation. The closing words of this pamphlet, stripped of their bombast, are not unworthy to stand with Gardiner’s: “Whenever I consider this subject, and contemplate the formation of a Theatre, I cannot help feeling a kind of enthusiasm … I anticipate the time when the Garricks and Siddons of America shall adorn the Stage, and melt the soul to pity. But here let me pause.—Let the most rigid Stoic, or the greatest fanatic in religion, or the most notorious dupe to prejudice, once hearken to the tale of the tragic muse, whose office it is to soften, and to subdue the violent passions of the mind, by painting the real misfortunes and distresses, which accompany our journey through life; or attend to the laughable follies, and vain inconsistencies, which daily mark the character of the human species—the deformity of vice—the excellence of virtue—, and, from the representation of the lively Comedy, ‘catch the manners living as they rise,’ and then say, if he can, that lessons of instruction are unknown to the Drama. If these have no effect, let him listen, with mute attention, to the occasional symphonies, which burst from a thousand strings, and accompany, and give life and animation to the Comic scene—and then, if sunk below the brute creation, let him be fortified against the impressions of sensibility. The stoicism of man must surpass our comprehension, if the dramatic scene can be contemplated without emotion; more especially when the representation of life and manners is intended to correct and to enlarge the heart….”
[13]Cf.(Boston)Independent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, Thursday, March 28, 1793.
[14]Pseud.:Effects of the Stage on the Manners of a People: and the Propriety of Encouraging and Establishing a Virtuous Theatre. By a Bostonian, Boston, 1792. The author is insipid enough; none the less the pamphlet is by no means void of a certain practical-mindedness and good sense as the author argues for the frank acceptance of the theatre as an institution in the city’s life. The following constitute his chief contentions: The theatre, in some form or other, is bound to come, because of the fact that the people generally are interested in the subject of amusement; the tastes and appetites of the people already give painful evidence of serious debasement and corruption; the acceptance of a “Virtuous Theatre” is the only possible expedient if the people are to be saved from worse debauchment.
The view taken by the Reverend William Bentley, Salem’s well-known minister, was less specious, though tinged with a mildly pessimistic view of popular tastes. Under date of July 31, 1792, he wrote: “So much talk has been in the Country about Theatrical entertainments that they have become the pride even of the smallest children in our schools. The fact puts in mind of the effect from the Rope flyers, who visited N. England, after whose feats the children of seven were sliding down the fences & wounding themselves in every quarter.”Diary, vol. i, p. 384. Later, he wrote: “The Theatre opened for the first time [in Salem] is now the subject. The enlightened who have not determined upon its utter abolition have yet generally agreed that it is too early introduced into our country.”Ibid., vol. ii, p. 81.Cf. ibid., pp. 258,et seq., 299, 322. It is clear that Bentley was apprehensive.
[15]Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. i, pp. 188, 195; Bishop,History of American Manufactures, vol. i, pp. 245et seq.
[16]Ibid., p. 250; vol. ii, pp. 501, 502. See also Clark,History of Manufactures in the United States, p. 480.
[17]Ibid.Bishop notes the fact that in 1721 a small village of forty houses, near Boston, made 3000 barrels of cider.
[18]Ibid., p. 269; Weeden,op. cit., vol. i, pp. 144, 148et seq.
[19]The impression that this decline toward a general state of drunkenness set in early will appear from the following excerpt taken from the Synod’s report on “The Necessity of Reformation”, presented to the General Court of Massachusetts in 1679: “VIII. There is much Intemperance. The heathenish and Idolatrous practice of Health-drinking is become too general a Provocation. Dayes of Training, and other publick Solemnityes, have been abused in this respect: and not only English but Indians have been debauched, by those that call themselves Christians, who have put their bottles to them, and made them drunk also. This is a crying Sin, and the more aggravated in that the first Planters of this Colony did (as in the Patent expressed) come into this Land with a design to Convert the Heathen unto Christ…. There are more Temptations and occasions untoThat Sin, publickly allowed of, than any necessity doth require; the proper end of Taverns, &c. being to that end only, a far less number would suffice: But it is a common practice for Town dwellers, yea and Church-members, to frequent publick Houses, and there to misspend precious Time, unto the dishonour of the Gospel, and the scandalizing of others, who are by such examples induced to sin against God.”Cf.Walker,Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, p. 430.
[20]Hatch,The Administration of the American Revolutionary Army, pp. 89et seq.The supplies of beer, cider, and rum furnished the armies were not always held to be adequate. After the battle of Brandywine, Congress ordered thirty hogsheads of rum distributed among the soldiers as a tribute to their gallant conduct in that battle.Cf.One Hundred Years of Temperance, New York, 1886, article by Daniel Dorchester on “The Inception of the Temperance Reformation”, p. 113, for comments on the effects of the return of drunken soldiers to the ranks of citizenship.
[21]Weeden,op. cit., vol. ii, p. 883, supplies the following concerning the character of the coasting and river trade, which the exigencies of the war greatly stimulated: “A cargo from Boston to Great Barrington and Williamstown contained 11 hdds. and 6 tierces of rum, 3 bbls. of wine, 2 do. of brandy, 1/2 bale of cotton, and 1 small cask of indigo. The proportion of ‘wet goods’ to the small quantity of cotton and indigo is significant, and indicates the prevailing appetites”.
[22]In 1783 Massachusetts had no fewer than sixty-three distilleries. In 1783 this state distilled 1,475,509 gallons of spirits from foreign, and 11,490 gallons from domestic materials. From 1790 to 1800 in the United States, 23,148,404 gallons of spirits were distilled from molasses; of this 6,322,640 gallons were exported, leaving a quantity for home consumption so large as to supply its own comment. Low grain prices, together with the difficulty of gaining access to the molasses markets, hastened a transition to grain distilling near the end of the eighteenth century, with the result that in 1810 Mr. Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, reported not less than 9,000,000 gallons of spirits as having been distilled from grain and fruit in 1801. Bishop,History of American Manufactures, vol. ii, pp. 30, 65, 83, 152; Clark,History of Manufactures in the United States, p. 230.
[23]Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 6th ser., vol. iv, Belknap Papers, pt. iii, p. 440.
[24]Ibid., p. 508.
[25]Diary of William Bentley, vol. ii, p. 92: May 31, 1794: “The observation of holydays at Election is an abuse in this part of the Country. Not only at our return yesterday, did we observe crowds around the new Tavern at the entrance of the Town, but even at this day, we saw at Perkins’ on the neck, persons of all descriptions, dancing to a fiddle, drinking, playing with pennies, &c. It is proper such excesses should be checked.”Cf.alsoibid., pp. 58, 363, 410, 444et seq.Cf.also Earle, Alice Morse,Stage-coach and Tavern Days, New York, 1900.
[26]Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 6th Series, vol. iv, Belknap Papers, pt. iii, p. 456. Jeremiah Libbey writes of the situation at Portsmouth, [N. H.?]: “The common allowance of rum to labourers here is half a pint per day, which has been the rule or custom as long as I can remember. There are several persons in this town that are endeavouring to abolish the custom by giving them more wages in lieu of theallowance, as it is call’d; but the custom is so rooted that it is very difficult to break it. The attachment is so great, that in general if you were to offer double the price of the allowance in money it would not be satisfactory to the labourers, and altho’ that is the case & it is the ruin of them and familys in many instances … untill a substitute of beer or some other drink is introduced in general, it will be difficult to get over it”.
[27]Diary of William Bentley, vol. i, pp. 167, 175, 217, 218, 244, 247, 248, 255, 256, 281et seq.
[28]Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher, vol. i, p. 30.
[29]Ibid., p. 24. The description of the meeting of the Consociation, pp. 214et seq., is unusually vivid: “ … the preparation for our creature comforts in the sitting-room of Mr. Heart’s house, besides food, was a broad sideboard, covered with decanters and bottles, and sugar, and pitchers of water. There we found all the various kinds of liquors then in vogue. The drinking was apparently universal. This preparation was made by the society as a matter of course. When the Consociation arrived, they always took something to drink round; also before public services, and always on their return. As they could not all drink at once, they were obliged to stand and wait, as people do when they go to mill. There was a decanter of spirits also on the dinnertable, to help digestion, and gentlemen partook of it through the afternoon and evening as they felt the need, some more and some less; and the sideboard, with the spillings of water, and sugar, and liquor, looked and smelled like the bar of a very active grog-shop. None of the Consociation were drunk; but that there was not, at times, a considerable amount of exhilaration, I can not affirm.” It was Beecher’s judgment that “the tide was swelling in the drinking habits of society.”Ibid., p. 215.
[30]Ibid., vol. i, pp. 133, 138, 163, 255, 256, 371; vol. ii. pp. 294, 328et seq.
[31]A Discourse on Some Events of the Last Century, delivered in the Brick Church in New Haven, on Wednesday, January 7, 1801. By Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, New Haven, 1801.Cf.this author’sTravels in New England and New York, vol. iv, pp. 353et seq.
[32]Dwight’sCentury Sermon, p. 18.
[33]Ibid., pp. 18et seq.
[34]The testimony of a European traveller should prove as edifying as that of an intimate participant in the country’s life. In 1788, Brissot de Warville visited America. He remarked the change which had come over the people of New England, of Boston in particular. The old “Presbyterian austerity, which interdicted all pleasures, even that of walking; which forbade travelling on Sunday, which persecuted men whose opinions were different from their own” was no longer to be encountered. Yet no evidence of the corruption of morals presented itself to the distinguished traveller. On the contrary, he remarked the general wholesomeness and soundness of domestic life, and the general poise and temperance of a people which, “since the ancient puritan austerity has disappeared”, was able to play cards without yielding to the gambling instinct and to enjoy its clubs and parties without offending the spirit of courtesy and good-breeding. The glow upon the soul of Brissot as he contemplates the prosperity and unaffected simplicity of the people of Boston is evident as he writes: “With what pleasure did I contemplate this town, which first shook off the English yoke! which, for a long time, resisted all the seductions, all the menaces, all the horrors of a civil war! How I delighted to wander up and down that long street, whose simple houses of wood border the magnificent channel of Boston, and whose full stores offer me all the productions of the continent which I had quitted! How I enjoyed the activity of the merchants, the artizans, and the sailors! It was not the noisy vortex of Paris; it was not the unquiet, eager mien of my countrymen; it was the simple, dignified air of men, who are conscious of liberty, and who see in all men their brothers and their equals. Everything in this street bears the marks of a town still in its infancy, but which, even in its infancy, enjoys a great prosperity…. Boston is just rising from the devastations of war, and its commerce is flourishing; its manufactures, productions, arts, and sciences, offer a number of curious and interesting observations.” (Brissot De Warville,New Travels in the United States of America, pp. 70–82.) Equally laudatory comment respecting the state of society in Connecticut is made by Brissot (pp. 108, 109).
John Bernard, the English comedian, who was in this country at the close of the eighteenth century, found the state of society very much like that which he had left in his own country. “They wore the same clothes, spoke the same language, and seemed to glow with the same affable and hospitable feelings. In walking along the mall I could scarcely believe I had not been whisked over to St. James’s Park; and in their houses the last modes of London were observable in nearly every article of ornament or utility. Other parts of the state were, however, very different.” (Bernard,Retrospections of America, 1797–1811, p. 29.) Bernard found in New England abundant evidences of progress such as he had not been accustomed to in England, and splendid stamina of character (p. 30). Nothing, apparently, suggested to him that the people were not virile and sound.
[35]Bentley,Diary, vol. i, pp. 253et seq., discusses at length “the Puerile Sports usual in these parts of New England”. Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, p. 696, comments on the dearth of public amusement.Cf.alsoibid., p. 864. The changed attitude of the public toward dancing, as reported by Weeden, pp. 696 and 864, doubtless finds its explanation in the growing consciousness that the resources in the way of entertainment deserve to be increased. At the close of the century, however, dancing was still frowned upon. Bentley,Diary, vol. ii, pp. 17, 232, 233, 296, 322, 363.
[36]Brissot,New Travels in the United States of America, p. 72: “Music, which their teachers formerly prescribed as a diabolic art, begins to make part of their education. In some houses you hear the forte-piano. This art, it is true, is still in its infancy; but the young novices who exercise it, are so gentle, so complaisant, and so modest, that the proud perfection of art gives no pleasure equal to what they afford.”Cf.also Bentley,Diary, vol. ii, pp. 247et seq., 292.
[37]Brissot,New Travels in the United States of America, pp. 86et seq.Brissot generously explains this fact upon the ground that in a country so new, whose immediate concerns were so compelling, and where, also, wealth is not centered in a few hands, the cultivation of the arts and sciences is not to be expected. On the side of invention the situation was far from being as bad as a reading of Brissot might seem to imply. Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 847–858.
[38]Goddard,Studies in New England Transcendentalism, p. 18. While the passage cited deals with an earlier situation, the general observation made concerning the well-poised character of the New England type of mind is as valid for the close of the eighteenth century as for the corresponding period of the preceding century; and the failure of New England to take a “plunge … from the moral heights of Puritanism” is all the more impressive in the later period in view of the variety and character of the new incitements and impulses which the people of New England generally felt in the period following the Revolution.
[39]Conspicuous in this group was the new merchant class. In the wake of the Revolution came an industrial and commercial revival which profoundly affected the life of New England. While the period of the Confederation, on account of its political disorganization and the chaotic state of public finance and the currency, was characterized by extreme economic depression, on the other hand, the adoption of the Constitution communicated to the centers of industry and commerce a feeling of optimism. The sense that a federal government had been formed, equal to the task of guaranteeing to its citizens the rights and privileges of trade, gave early evidence that the economic impulses of the country had been quickened notably. Such evidence is too abundant and too well known either to permit or to require full statement here, but the following is suggestive: The fisheries of New England, which had been nearly destroyed during the Revolution, had so far revived by 1789 that a total of 480 vessels, representing a tonnage of 27,000, were employed in the industry. At least 32,000 tons of shipping were built in the United States, a very large part of this in New England, in 1791. Before the war the largest amount built in any one year was 26,544 tons. But the record of 1791 was modest. From 1789 to 1810, American shipping increased from 202,000 to 1,425,000 tons. Because of the federal government’s proclamation of strict neutrality with regard to the wars abroad, the carrying trade of the world came largely into the hands of shipowners and seamen of the United States, with the result that the dockyards and wharves of New England fairly hummed with activity. The exports of 1793 amounted to $33,026,233. By 1799 they had mounted to $78,665,522, of which $33,142,522 was the growth, produce, or manufacture of the Union. Within a very few years after the adoption of the Constitution, American merchants had become the warehousers and distributors of merchandise to all parts of the world. The wharves of New England were covered with goods from Europe, the Orient, the West Indies, and from the looms, shops, and distilleries of the nation. Directed by resourceful and far-sighted men who had the instinct for commercial expansion, ships sailed from New England ports for Batavia, Canton, Calcutta, St. Petersburg, Port Louis. They carried with them coffee, fish, flour, provisions, tobacco, rum, iron, cattle, horses; they brought back molasses, sugar, wine, indigo, pepper, salt, muslins, calicoes, silks, hemp, duck. The situation is dealt with in detail by Bishop,History of American Manufactures, vol. ii, pp. 13–82; Clark,History of Manufactures in the United States, pp. 227et seq.; Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 816–857.
[40]Winsor,The Memorial History of Boston, vol. iii, pp. 191, 203; Morse,The Federalist Party in Massachusetts, pp. 37, 38;Harvard Theological Review, January, 1916, p. 104.
[41]Weeden,Early Life in Rhode Island, pp. 357et seq., calls attention to the spacious and elegant houses which were built at Providence about 1790, and to the new group of merchants which the expansion of trans-oceanic commerce called into existence there. Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, pp. 821et seq., deals with the situation in a larger way.
[42]Parker,History of the Second Church of Christ in Hartford, p. 172. The passage contains a vivid picture of the state of polite society in an important Connecticut center. Love,The Colonial History of Hartford, pp. 244et seq., deals with the transformation of social life with particular reference to the disintegration of Puritanism.
[43]An outcry against the excesses of fashion began to make itself heard. “An Old Farmer,” writing to theMassachusetts Spy, March 27, 1799, complains on account of the consequent drain upon the purses of husbands and fathers: “I am a plain farmer, and therefore beg leave to trouble you with a little plain language. By the dint of industry, and application to agricultural concerns, I have, till lately, made out to keep square with the world. But the late scarcity of money, together with the extravagance of fashions have nearly ruined me…. I am by no means tenacious of theold way, or ofold fashions. I know that my family must dress different from what I used to when I was young; yet as I have the interest of husbands and fathers at heart, I wish there might be some reformation in the present mode of female dress…. In better times, six or seven yards of Calico would serve to make a gown; but now fourteen yards are scarcely sufficient. I do not perceive that women grow any larger now than formerly…. A few years since, my daughters were not too proud to wear good calfskin shoes; two pair of which would last them a year: But now none will suit them but morroco, and these must be of the slenderest kind…. Young ladies used to be contented with wearing nothing on their heads but what Nature gave them…. But now they dare not appear in company, unless they have half a bushel of gauze, and other stuff, stuck on their heads”. The letter closes with a humorous account of the writer’s embarrassing experience with the trains of the ladies’ dresses on the occasion of a recent visit to church.
[44]Swift, Lindsay,The Massachusetts Election Sermons(Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. i, Transactions, 1892–1894), pp. 428et seq.
[45]Weeden,Economic and Social History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 864et seq.
[46]Scudder,Recollections of Samuel Breck, with Passages from His Note-Books, pp. 178et seq.Breck visited New England about 1791. He was impressed with the looseness of life and gross lawlessness which he saw. A fairer judgment appears on page 182: “The severe, gloomy puritanical spirit that had governed New England since the days of the Pilgrim forefathers was gradually giving way in the principal towns”,etc.
[47]Lauer,Church and State in New England(Johns Hopkins University Studies in History and Political Science. Tenth Series), pp. 95et seq.
[48]The term “Standing Order” was generally employed in the speech and literature of the period, and had reference to the alliance between the party of the Establishment and the party of the government.
[49]The scope of inquiry prescribed by the special object of this dissertation renders both unnecessary and unprofitable the tracing of this struggle in detail. Valuable special studies in this field are available. Among these the following are to be commended as of exceptional usefulness: Burrage,A History of the Baptists in New England; Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut; Reed,Church and State in Massachusetts, 1691–1740; Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America; Ford,New England’s Struggle for Religious Liberty. Lauer’s excellent treatise has already been cited. Of contemporaneous treatments, Backus,A History of New England, with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists, though deficient in literary merit, is doubtless the most trustworthy and replete. The citations made from the latter work refer, unless otherwise indicated, to the edition of 1871 (2 vols.).
[50]The Charter Granted by Their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, to the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, Boston in New England, 1726, p. 9. The principle of church membership as a qualification for voting was set aside for a property qualification.
[51]Backus,History of New England, vol. i, pp. 446et seq.Cf.Reed,Church and State in Massachusetts, 1691–1740, pp. 23et seq.
[52]Backus,History of New England, vol. i, p. 448.
[53]Charters and “Acts and Laws” of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, With Appended Acts and Laws, Boston, 1726–1735, p. 383. The law provided that “all persons who profess themselves to be of the Church of England”, and who were so situated that “there is a Person in Orders according to the Rules of the Church of England setled [sic], and abiding among them and performing Divine Service within Five Miles of the Habitation, or usual Residence of any Person professing himself as aforesaid of the Church of England”, might have his rate-money reserved for the support of the Episcopal church.
[54]Charters and “Acts and Laws” of the Province of Mass.,etc., p. 423. The five-mile limitation formed a part of this legislation, also.
[55]Burrage,History of the Baptists in New England, p. 105.
[56]Palfrey,A Compendious History of New England, vol. iv, pp. 94, 95.
[57]Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, etc., vol. iii, p. 645.
[58]Ibid.
[59]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 140.
[60]Ibid.
[61]Ibid.
[62]Separatists or Separates were the names by which those were commonly designated who withdrew from the orthodox churches on account of the controversies occasioned by the Great Awakening. See Blake, S. Leroy,The Separates or Strict Congregationalists of New England, Boston, 1902, pp. 17et seq.
[63]Hovey,A Memoir of the Life and Times of the Rev. Isaac Backus, p. 171.
[64]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 96et seq.Backus himself suffered imprisonment under this act. Seeibid., p. 109.
[65]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 235et seq.The process of absorption referred to had much to do with the breaking up of the Separatist movement. Few of these congregations continued to exist until the struggle for religious freedom was fully won. Other contributory causes in the breaking up of the movement were the poverty of the members of these congregations, the difficulties they experienced in securing pastoral care, and the dissensions that arose among them in the exercise of their boasted rights of private judgment, public exhortation, and the interpretation of the Scriptures.
[66]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 140et seq.
[67]Backus,op. cit., p. 141.
[68]Ibid.
[69]Cf.Minutes of the Warren Association for 1769, quoted by Burrage,History of the Baptists in New England, pp. 108et seq.Cf.the following, taken from a statement and appeal to Baptists, in theBoston Evening Post, Aug. 20, 1770: “To the Baptists in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, who are, or have been, oppressed in any way on a religious account. It would be needless to tell you that you have long felt the effects of the laws by which the religion of the government in which you live is established. Your purses have felt the burden of ministerial rates; and when these would not satisfy your enemies, your property hath been taken from you and sold for less than half its value…. You will therefore readily hear and attend when you are desired to collect your cases of suffering, and have them well attested; such as, the taxes you have paid to build meeting-houses, to settle ministers and support them, with all the time, money and labor you have lost in waiting on courts, feeing lawyers, &c.; and bring or send such cases to the Baptist Association to be held at Bellingham; when measures will be resolutely adopted for obtaining redress from another quarter than that to which repeated application hath been made unsuccessfully. Nay, complaints, however just and grievous, hath been treated with indifference, and scarcely, if at all credited”. (Quoted by Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 155.)
[70]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 156et seq.
[71]This standing committee of the Warren Association is itself a token of the strengthened purpose of the Baptists.
[72]The address is given in full in Hovey,A Memoir of the Life and Times of Isaac Backus, pp. 218–221. It drew a kindly response from the Provincial Congress, signed by John Hancock as president, pleading the inability of the Congress to give redress and advising the aggrieved parties to submit their case to the General Court of Massachusetts at its next session. This step was taken in September, 1775; but beyond the fact that a bill, drawn to give redress, was once read in the sessions of the Assembly, nothing came at the matter. “Such”, remarks Backus, “is the disposition of mankind”. (Cf.Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 202et seq.Cf.Burrage,History of the Baptists in New England, pp. 113et seq.)
[73]The Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Passed from the Year 1780, to the End of the Year 1800, vol. i, pp. 19, 20.
[74]Ibid.
[75]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 228et seq., for cases of persecution under the operation of the bill of rights.
[76]The contribution made by the newspapers must not be overlooked in this connection. From about 1770 on there may be traced a growing disposition on the part of dissenters to air their grievances in the public journals. Supporters of the Establishment were not slow to respond.
[77]In addition to the two specifically referred to, Backus published the following:Policy, as well as Honesty, Forbids the Use of Secular Force in Religious Affairs, Boston, 1779;Truth is Great, and Will Prevail, Boston, 1781;A Door Opened for Equal Christian Liberty, etc., Boston, 1783.
[78]Backus,op. cit., p. 13.
[79]Quoted from Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 223.
[80]Walker,History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, pp. 206–209.
[81]Cf.A Vindication of the Government of the New-England Churches, etc., Boston, 1772. The first edition of 500 copies was quickly subscribed for, and a second was published the same year.
[82]An edition of Wise’s tracts was published as late as 1860, by the Congregational Board of Publication. From that edition the citations are drawn. The following from the “Introductory Notice” is of interest: “ … some of the most glittering sentences of the immortal Declaration of Independence are almost literal quotations from this essay of John Wise [i. e.,Vindication of the Government of New-England Churches]. And it is a significant fact, that in 1772, only four years before the declaration was made, a large edition of both those tracts was published by subscription in one duodecimo volume. The presumption which this fact alone suggests, that it was used as a political text-book in the great struggle for freedom then opening, is fully confirmed by the list of subscribers’ names printed at the end, with the number of copies annexed.” Page xxet seq.
[83]Ibid., pp. 48–50, 54, 56.
[84]Wise,op. cit., p. 56.
[85]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 391–401, furnishes the following table of Baptist strength in New England in the year 1795: Churches, 325; ministers, 232; members, 20,902. Methodism had emerged in New England within the last quarter of the century, and Methodist ministers were indefatigable in their labors. By the close of the century as generous-minded a Congregational minister as Bentley could not altogether cover over his chagrin on account of the growth and influence of the “sects”.Cf.Diary of William Bentley, vol. ii, pp. 127, 409, 419.
[86]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 235.Cf.Burrage,History of the Baptist in New England, pp. 121et seq.
[87]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, pp. 509–511.
[88]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 341.
[89]Ibid., pp. 351et seq., 379.
[90]Backus,op. cit., pp. 353et seq.
[91]Ibid., p. 379.
[92]Actual disestablishment did not come in Massachusetts until 1833.
[93]Since the particular purpose of this chapter is to explain the bitter spirit existing between the orthodox party and dissenters in New England near the close of the eighteenth century, rather than to re-write the history of the struggle for full religious toleration, much that occurred in the long process of severing the bond between church and state may be passed over. Attention will be focused upon the character rather than the chronology of the struggle.
[94]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 238; Fiske,The Beginnings of New England, pp. 123et seq.
[95]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, p. 121; Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 243.
[96]Cobb,op. cit., pp. 244, 246.
[97]Ibid., pp. 240et seq.; Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 62et seq., 68.
[98]It was the judgment of Isaac Backus that “oppression was greater in Connecticut, than in other governments in New England”. (History of New England, vol. ii, p. 404.)
[99]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 244. Cobb’s statement concerning the lack of harshness and ungentleness which characterized the attitude of the supporters of the state church toward dissent is extreme. The controlling spirit of the Standing Order was doubtless a positive concern for the welfare of the Establishment rather than a desire to weed out dissent; but the clash of interests became so sharp and bitter that motives did not remain unmixed, and in many an instance dissent in Connecticut was compelled to reckon with a spirit of actual persecution.
[100]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. i, p. 21.
[101]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, pp. 246et seq.
[102]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. i, p. 311.
[103]Ibid., pp. 356, 362; vol. ii, pp. 99, 240; vol. iii, pp. 78, 82et seq.
[104]Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 13, 18, 101, 216et seq.
[105]Ibid., vol. iv, pp. 67, 127, 136et seq.
[106]Ibid., vol. vii, p. 554.
[107]Ibid., pp. 334, 335.
[108]Ibid., vol. iii, p. 183.
[109]Ibid., vol. i, pp. 437et seq.
[110]Ibid., vol. iii, p. 104.
[111]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 247.
[112]Walker,The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 465et seq.
[113]Walker,A History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, pp. 202et seq.; Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 133et seq.
[114]Walker,The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 491–494.
[115]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. v, pp. 51et seq.
[116]Ibid.
[117]Ibid.
[118]Walker,The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, pp. 502–506, where “The Saybrook Meeting and Articles” are printed in full. For expositions, see Backus,History of New England, vol. i, pp. 470et seq.; Palfrey,A History of New England, vol. iii, p. 342; Dexter,The Congregationalism of the last Three Hundred Years, pp. 489, 490.
[119]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. v, p. 87.
[120]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, p 151.
[121]Cf. supra,p. 53.
[122]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. v, p. 50. It seems clear that either through neglect or evasion a considerable number of congregations failed to qualify under the law. In any event the legislature deemed itself warranted in passing an act, May, 1721, imposing a fine of five shillings on persons convicted of not having attended “the publick worship of God on the Lord’s day in some congregation by law allowed.” (Seeibid., vol. vi, p. 248.) Churches which for doctrinal or other reasons withdrew from the Establishment suffered serious embarrassments on account of this law respecting the licensing of congregations.
[123]Ibid., vol. v, p. 50. Any infraction of this law was to be punished by a heavy fine. Failure to pay the fine involved heavy bail or imprisonment.
[124]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 191et seq.
[125]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. vi, p. 106.
[126]The Pub. Records of the Colony of Conn., vol. vi, pp. 237, 257. Unlike the Massachusetts exemption laws passed on behalf of these two bodies, these were perpetual.
[127]Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society: Talcott Papers, vol. v, pp. 9–13; Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 98et seq.
[128]Parker,History of the Second Church of Christ in Hartford, pp. 117, 119;Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, vol. iv:The Bradford Annals, pp. 318et seq.; Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 57et seq., 79et seq.For the account of the difficulties of a particular Separatist congregation, see Dutton,The History of the North Church in New Haven, pp. 25–28.Cf.The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. xi, pp. 323et seq.; also Beardsley,The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, vol. i, p. 140.
[129]The bigoted and unfeeling spirit which controlled the authorities is well expressed in the act of May, 1743. Proceeding on the assumption that the Separatists, taking advantage of the act of May, 1708, were responsible for the disruptive tactics and measures of the times, by means of which “some of the parishes established by the laws of this Colony … have been greatly damnified, and by indirect means divided and parted,” the General Court repealed the act in question, and put in its place the following: “And be it further enacted, that, for the future, if any of His Majesty’s good subjects, being protestants, inhabitants of this Colony, that shall soberly dissent from the way of worship and ministry established by the laws of this Colony, that such persons may apply themselves to this Assembly for relief, where they shall be heard.And such persons as have any distinguishing character, by which they may be known from the presbyterians or congregationalists, and from the consociated churches established by the laws of this Colony, may expect the indulgence of this Assembly[Italics mine.—V. S.], having first before this Assembly taken the oaths and subscribed the declaration provided in the act of Parliament in cases of like nature.” (The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. viii, p. 522.Cf.Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 58.)
[130]The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. viii, p. 454.
[131]Ibid., p. 456.
[132]The Pub. Records of the Colony of Conn., vol. viii, p. 456.
[133]Ibid., p. 457.
[134]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 57.
[135]Cobb,The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, pp. 274et seq.Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 244et seq.
[136]Cf. supra,Footnote 129.
[137]Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, pp. 59et seq., 62, 65et seq., 77et seq., 81et seq.
[138]Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 248–262. The difficulties experienced by three congregations in New Haven, Canterbury, and Enfield, are dealt with in detail.
[139]A revision of Connecticut laws took place in 1750. The unjust legislation of 1742–43 and of the following years was quietly left out.
[140]Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, vol. iii, pp. 398et seq.
[141]Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, in America, p. 21.
[142]Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, in America, p. 21.
[143]Parker,History of the Second Church of Hartford, pp. 170, 171.Cf.Beecher,Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, p. 302. The latter’s account of the situation is much softened by his sympathies with the dominant party.
[144]By this time dissenters and Anti-Federalists had largely consolidated their interests. The political program of the latter drew upon the former all the suspicions and antagonisms which the Standing Order entertained toward the foes of Federalism. The acrimonious discussion which arose at this time over the disposition of the Western Reserve and the funds thus derived, admirably illustrates the cross-currents of religious and political agitation in the last decade of the century.Cf.Greene,The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut, pp. 380–392.
[145]This is readily explicable in view of the fact that most of the magistrates were adherents of the Establishment. The comment of Backus touches the pith of the matter, as dissenters saw it: “Thus the civil authority in the uppermost religious party in their State, was to judge the consciences of all men who dissented from their worship.” (History of New England, vol. ii, p. 345.)
[146]Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut, p. 418.
[147]In September, 1818, by the adoption of the new state constitution, the long wearisome struggle was brought to an end, and State and Church in Connecticut were separated completely.
[148]This point of view was tersely set forth in the election sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Payson, at Boston, May 27, 1778: “Let the restraints of religion once be broken down, as they infallibly would be by leaving the subject of public worship to the humours of the multitude, and we might well defy all human wisdom and power to support and preserve order and government in the state.”—Quoted by Backus,Church History of New England, from 1620 to 1804(ed. of 1844, Philadelphia), pp. 204et seq.
[149]The state of feelings shared by the supporters of the Establishment at the time when the blow fell severing the bond between the church and state in Connecticut, is vividly expressed by Beecher: “It was a time of great depression…. It was as dark a day as ever I saw. The injury done to the cause of Christ, as we then supposed, was irreparable. For several days I suffered what no tongue can tellfor the best thing that ever happened to the State of Connecticut.” (Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, p. 304.)
[150]This was the view propounded by President Ezra Stiles, of Yale, in his election sermon of May 3, 1783: “Through the liberty enjoyed here, all religious sects will grow up into large and respectable bodies. But the Congregational and Presbyterian denominations, however hitherto despised, will, by the blessing of Heaven continue to hold the greatest figure in America, and, notwithstanding all the fruitless labors and exertions to proselyte us to other communions, become more numerous than the whole collective body of our fellow protestants in Europe.” (Quoted by Backus,History of New England, vol. ii, p. 312.)
To this exposition and bold forecast Backus took decided objections, on the grounds (1) thatpersecutionand nottolerancehad promoted the growth of sects in America, and (2) that the numerical increase of the Congregationalists and Presbyterians in this country did not justify any such prediction.Cf. ibid., pp. 403–407.
[151]Perhaps no man more boldly stated this interpretation of the motives that inspired the Standing Order than Abraham Bishop, leader of the forces of Republicanism in Connecticut and arch-enemy of “ecclesiastical aristocrats.” “The religion of the country is made a stalking horse for political jockies … Thanksgiving and fasts have been often improved for political purposes and the miserable gleanings from half a year’s ignorance of the true interests of our country have been palmed on the people, by the political clergy, as a pious compliance with the governor’s very pious proclamations…. The union of Church and State … [is] the grand fortress of the ‘friends of order and good government.’” (Oration delivered at Wallingford, New Haven, 1801, pp. 46, 83.) That “the church is in danger” has for some time past been one of the most frequent and frantic of all the absurd cries heard in the land, and that New England through her clannishness has produced “patriarchs in opinion” who assume the prerogative of dictating the opinions of the people on all subjects, are further trenchant comments of the same orator. (Ibid., pp. 13, 17.) Bishop’s observations respecting the alleged specious and insincere character of those public utterances by which “the friends of order and good government” sought to preserve thestatus quo, are equally pointed. “The sailor nailed the needle of his compass to the cardinal point and swore that it should not be always traversing. So does the New England friend of order: but he cautiously conceals the oppression and imposture, which sustains these habits…. This cry ofsteady habitshas a talismanic effect on the minds of our people; but nothing can be more hollow, vain and deceitful. Recollect for a moment that everything valuable in our world has been at one time innovation, illuminatism, modern philosophy, atheism…. Our steady habits have calmly assumed domination over the rights of conscience and suffrage. Certainly the trinitarian doctrine is established by law and the denial of it is placed in the rank follies. Though we have ceased to transport from town to town, quakers, new lights, and baptists; yet the dissenters from our prevailing denomination are, even at this moment, praying for the repeal of those laws which abridge the rights of conscience.” (Ibid., pp. 14, 16.)