The Rogerines, though strictly orthodox in the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, were opposed by the Connecticut magistrates as teachers of doctrines tending to undermine religion, as a persistently rebellious sect, and as notorious breakers of the peace. In faith and practice, these Rogerines bore some resemblance to the Baptists and also to the Quakers. Hence, they were often called Rogerine-Baptists or Rogerine-Quakers. Like the earlier Baptists and the Quakers, they believed it wrong to take an oath. They differed from the Congregationalists chiefly in their form of administering baptism and the Lord's supper and in their opposition to any paid ministry. Rogers also claimed that there were certain tests of personal regeneration which the Congregationalists denied. John Bolles, one of the later leaders of the sect, declared the Congregational Sunday to be "a great Idol in this Country, and all the Religion built on the Holiness of the pretended Sabbath is Hypocrisy and further that it is contrary to Scripture, for Christians to exercise Authority over one another in matters of Religion." [67] Rogers, with less dignity and more pugnaciousness, called the authorities "the scarlet beast" and the Establishment a "harlot," hurling scriptural texts with rankling, exasperating abusiveness in his determination to prove her customs evil and anti-Christian. Not content with such railing, the Rogerines determined to show no respect to their adversaries' opinions and worship. Thus, while maintaining that there should be nopublicworship, Rogers, after his separation from the Seventh-day Baptists, perversely chose Sunday as the day most convenient for the Rogerines to hold their meetings. They not only exhorted and testified in the streets, but forced their way into the churches, pestering the ministers to argue disputed points. They offended in another way, for, according to the colony law, they profaned the Sabbath by working, claiming that, as all days were holy, all were alike good for work. Fines and imprisonment began in 1677. They were continued in the hope, held by the authorities, that they could suppress the Rogerines by exactions which should melt away their estates. Sometimes these penalties were unjust, as when John Rogers could rightly claim that he was sentenced without benefit of jury, and, at another, that the authorities had seized his son's cattle to settle the father's fines. John Bolles pleaded against the injustice of forcing men "to pay Money for his (the minister's) preaching when they did not hear him and professed it was against their Consciences." [68] But such a plea was many, many years in advance of his time. The Rogerines, important, in their own estimate, as called of God, and angered by opposition, seized upon every scriptural passage that bade them exhort and testify, feeling it their duty to do so both in season and out. Had they been willing to give up this practice in public, they would probably have been left in comparative peace, for Governor Saltonstall wrote to Rogers offering him protection for his followers if they would consent to give up "testifying" and would hold their services quietly and privately. Rogers refused upon the ground that he had a right to use the colony churches for his preaching, since he and his people were obliged to contribute to their maintenance. This was logical, but not acceptable to the Connecticut magistrates, who continued to cool the enthusiasm of the Rogerines by occasional heavy penalties, and to look upon them as a set of fanatics, doomed to self-extinction.
The attitude of the Connecticut authorities at this time toward the Quakers, or Society of Friends, was quite different from that assumed toward the Baptists and Rogerines. A retrospect of their history in the colony shows them to have been the earliest dissenters, and also the ones to whom concessions, though only temporary, were first made. Previous to the Restoration, the Quakers were the only dissenters with whom Connecticut had to deal. They appeared in Massachusetts in 1655, and in the following year New Haven colony found no laws could be too severe for the "cursed sect of the Quakers." The General Court of Connecticut seconded the efforts of both New Haven and Massachusetts to exclude the obnoxious and determined sect, but it soon decided that its fears had been greatly exaggerated, and that mild laws and town legislation were sufficient. Accordingly, town officers were instructed to prevent Quakers settling in the colony, to forbid their books and writings, and to break up their meetings. It was forbidden, however, to lay upon them a fine of more than ten pounds or, under any circumstances, the death penalty.
While New Haven whipped, branded, and transported Quakers,[d] Connecticut mildly enforced her laws against them, [69] and how mildly the following incidents will show. In 1658, John Rous and John Copeland, traveling preachers, reached Hartford. They were allowed to hold a discussion in the presence of the governor and magistrates upon "God is a Spirit." At its close, they were courteously informed that the laws of the colony forbade their remaining in it, and were requested to continue without further delay their journey into Rhode Island. This request was heeded, but while on their way, to quote Rous, "The Lord gave us no small dominion." It would seem as if the wise Quaker had taken the benefit of the law which forbade his remaining "more than fifteen days in a town," and, also, of the friendly curiosity of the people along his route. Rous further testified in behalf of Connecticut that "Among all the colonies found we not like moderation as this; most of the magistrates being more noble than those of the others." [70] A short time after Rous's visit, two Quakers, who persisted in holding services, were arrested and banished.[e] Still later, two women who attempted to conduct services in Hartford met with similar treatment, of whom their historian records: "Except that some extra apparel which they took with them was sold by the jaoler to pay his fee, no act of persecution befell them at Hartford." [71] As late as 1676, when the Congregationalists and the constables of New London, with great violence, broke up a Friends' meeting, held by William Edmundson, he tells us that "the sober people were offended at them," [72] and that on the following Sunday, at "New Hartford" (Hartford), after the regular morning service, he was allowed to speak unhindered. The same afternoon, when he attempted to speak in another meeting-house, the officers, urged on by the minister, "haled me," he writes, "out of the worship-house, and hurt my arm so that it bled." When he asked them if they thought that was the right treatment of a man faint from fasting all day, they, with excuses for the conduct of the minister and the magistrates, hurried him to an inn. There the people were allowed to listen to his discourse, and, the next morning, he was bidden to go freely on his way.
Most of the Connecticut Quakers were in the border towns. Few, if any, organized societies were formed in Connecticut until about the time of the Revolution. Their scattered converts were ministered to by traveling preachers, and, where possible, members would cross the boundaries to attend the Quarterly or Monthly Meetings in neighboring Rhode Island, or possibly Massachusetts, or on Long Island. These dissenters had quickly perceived the strength of union, and as early as 1661 the Rhode Island Yearly Meeting had been established, with its system of subordinate Quarterly and Monthly Meetings. Soon after, Yearly Meetings at Philadelphia brought reports from the southern and middle colonies. Those at Flushing, Long Island, collected news of converts from New York as far east as the Connecticut River, while the Yearly Meeting at Newport, Rhode Island, heard from all members east of that river. The custom of exchanging yearly letters, giving the gist of these three annual meetings, was soon instituted. After the establishment of the London Yearly Meeting, the frequent exchange of letters with the colonial Quakers, begun in 1662, was reinforced by the exchange of English and American preachers. By similar means, the whole Society the world over was bound closely together. Their common interests were guarded, and every infraction of their liberties known. If in any of the colonies, as in Connecticut, they were oppressed for their refusal to pay ecclesiastical taxes and to bear arms, the facts were known in England. Secular taxes they cheerfully met, but others were against their conscience. They were excellent citizens, and they were everywhere friendly with the Indians. Because of this friendship, and because the Connecticut colony desired the good offices of the Rhode Island authorities during the dangerous King Philip's War, the General Court had decided to show favor to the few Quakers who were then within the colony. Accordingly, in 1675, a bill was passed temporarily releasing the Quakers from fines for absence from public worship, provided "that they did not gather into assemblies within the colony or make any disturbance." How long this law was operative is uncertain, but probably until about 1702. It, is omitted in the revision of the laws of that year, and Gough, in his "History of the People called Quakers," says that the persecuting spirit died away, but was renewed by Connecticut in 1702.[f] We know some of the causes that probably led to its revival, such as the extravagances of the Rogerines, the increase of the Baptists, and the general feeling that the Congregational churches were inherently weak among themselves before this threatening increase of external foes. Moreover, in this same year, there began a very definite propaganda in behalf of an American episcopate. The attempt to revive persecution against the Quakers was unfortunate. They believed in liberty of conscience as a natural, inalienable right, and its practical exercise they meant to have. Their leaders were constant in their loyal addresses and dignified petitions to the throne. The great English Toleration Act had befriended them, and the Act of 1693 had, by substituting affirmation for oath, allowed them to take full advantage of the toleration measure. Such religious liberty as they enjoyed in England, they meant to possess in England's colonies; and when Connecticut, in 1702, again put on the thumb-screws of persecution, these dissenters at once sent a protest across the seas. Their great leader, William Penn, was again in favor at court and with the Queen, who, in Privy Council, October 11, 1705, favorably heard their petition and promptly annulled the Connecticut law of 1657 against "Heretics, Infidels and Quakers," declaring it void and repealed. "The repealing of this Act put a final period to the persecuting of Quakers in New England." [73] To be more exact, it put an end to persecution, but not to occasional fines or to legalized taxes which the Quakers still considered unjust. But as Connecticut had many serious problems on her hands at this time, she thought it prudent to follow the lead of the Crown, and repealed the law of 1657, in so far as it applied to the Quakers.
The year that the Quakers scored this victory, the Episcopalians lodged with the home government a serious complaint of the intolerance that Connecticut showed towards members of the Church of England. They complained that—
they have made a law that no Christians who are not of their community, shall meet to worship God, or have a minister without lycence from their Assembly; which law even extends to the Church of England, as well as other professions tolerated in England. [74]
This was not the first time that such a complaint had been carried to England. As early as 1665 [g] it had been made, within a year after Connecticut had satisfied the Commissioners of Charles II, sending them home convinced that the Church of England services would be allowed in the colony as soon as there were settlers who desired them."[h] As there were no Episcopalians in the colony then, nor for nearly thirty years afterwards, and as Connecticut was in high favor with the Stuarts, little heed was paid to the complaint at the time, nor until long years afterwards, when it was coupled with graver offenses.
Back of the personal affront to the sovereign in the persecution or oppression of members of the Church of England, there were graver causes of offense such as the Crown regarded as mistakes, or even misdemeanors. For many years Connecticut had been virtually an independent and sovereign state within her own borders. Her charter was a most liberal one. She had sought approval for it from the sovereigns, William and Mary, and, while she had been unable to obtain for it the crown's expressed approval, she had secured from the best legal talent a judgment declaring it still valid. She continued to be practically exempt from external interference with her domestic policy for a number of years after the Revolution of 1688, yet from that time on there was always at the English court a party, at first largely influenced by Sir Edmund Andros and his following, who were either jealous of Connecticut's charter or envious of her prosperity. They were always scheming and ready to prejudice the king against his colony, or to antagonize the Board of Trade.
Within her own borders, Connecticut was peaceful, prosperous, and contented. For the most part, she was free from the harassing danger of Indian war. She readily contributed her share for the common defense of the colonies, and sent her loyal quotas to fight for England's territorial claims. For many years, Connecticut was shrewd enough to steer clear of the disastrous inflation of paper currency which overtook her sister colonies. Many strangers were attracted by her prosperity, so that, notwithstanding frequent emigrations of her people, she trebled her population about once in twenty years all through the first century of her existence.[i] With this increasing population came, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, members of the Church of England, who settled in Stratford and in the towns adjacent to New York.[j] They quickly found that their previous impressions were erroneous, and that Connecticut would not tolerate their religious services. Consequently, a report of the religious condition in Connecticut was made in England, in 1702, at about the time the Quakers complained of renewed persecution and at a time when the enemies of the colony were extremely active in charging her with misconduct.
A report of Connecticut's ecclesiastical constitution and of her oppression of dissenters was made to the Bishop of London by John Talbot, who, with George Keith, had traveled through Connecticut on his way from New York to Boston. These men were missionary priests of the Church of England. In New London, Governor Saltonstall, then the minister of that town, knowing that there were a few Church-of-England men in the place, had met the travelers, "civilly entertained them at his house," and "invited them to preach in his church." [75] The Governor might not, the magistrates certainly did not, feel so kindly disposed toward Talbot a year or so later, when it was found that, upon his return to New York, he had written home to his superiors in England, earnestly advocating an American episcopate. True, he urged that the American bishop should have ecclesiastical powers only, and that those ecclesiastico-civil in character, such as the probating of wills, granting of marriage licenses, and the presentation of livings, should remain in the hands of the colonial governors. But the Connecticut authorities were not forgetful of Laud's purpose in 1638 to appoint a bishop over New England, and its frustration by the political unrest at home. They recalled that the revival of such a project had floated as a rumor about those royal commissioners of 1664 to whom they had given such satisfactory, if evasive, answers. Moreover, an Order in Council of 1685, of which there is external evidence, though the order itself is not recorded, had vested ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the colonies in the Bishop of London. [76] Connecticut knew also that four years later, in 1689 (the year that Episcopacy erected King's Chapel, Boston, with its royal endowment of £100 per year), the first commissary had been dispatched to Virginia to superintend the churches there. The Crown, as yet, had deemed it unwise to thrust an episcopate upon its dissenting colonies, and, except for a short time before Queen Anne's death, it was to take no interest in the plans for the American episcopate until some forty years later, when the King thought to discern in it some political advantage. But early in 1700, when complaints were lodged against Connecticut, there was a strong party within the English Church itself who were most anxious to see the episcopal bond between the mother country and her colonies strengthened. For this purpose, they had sent to America, in 1695, the Reverend Thomas Bray to report upon the conditions and churchly sentiment within the colonies. His report was published under the title, "A Memorial representing the State of Religion in the Continent of North America." It was an appeal for episcopal oversight, and resulted in the formation in England, in 1701, of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. To this organization belonged all the English bishops with all their influential following. The Society regularly maintained missionary churches and missionary priests throughout the colonies. Candidates for this priesthood were required to submit to a thorough examination as to their fitness. Before sailing, they were required to report to the Bishop of London as their Diocesan and to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their Metropolitan. They were required to send full semi-annual reports of their work and to include in them any other information that promised to be of interest or advantage to the Society. John Talbot and George Keith were two of these missionaries.
Talbot's appeal for the American episcopate was seconded in 1705 by fourteen clergymen from the middle colonies who convened at Burlington, N. J., to frame a petition to the English archbishop and bishops. In it they set forth the necessity in America of a bishop to ordain and to supply other ecclesiastical needs. The petitioners added that a bishop was also necessary to counteract "the inconveniences which the church labors under by the influence which seditious men's counsels have upon the public administration and the opposition which they make to the good inclinations of well-affected persons." [77] In this appeal for a bishop stress was laid upon the cost and dangers of a trip to England for ordination, [78] and also to the frequent loss of converts from the independent ministry because of the lack of ordination privileges in America. These references, and also that to the "counsel of seditious men," could not be agreeable to large numbers of dissenting colonists. They would not be viewed with favor in Connecticut, where, by 1705, Episcopalians had become so numerous that a wealthy New Yorker, Colonel Heathcote by name, and a man thoroughly acquainted with his New England neighbor, undertook to look after the Church-of-England men as unfortunate brethren of a common faith. He appealed to the English Society for the Propagating[k] of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to extend its missions into Connecticut. He asked that Rector Muirson be stationed at Rye, New York. Colonel Heathcote's idea was:—
to first plant the church securely in Westchester on the border of Connecticut; and secondly, from that point to act upon Connecticut, which was wholly Puritan and withal not a little bigoted and uncharitable.
Naturally, whatever of tolerance the Connecticut people might have shown two traveling preachers would turn to opposition when they saw the deliberate and well-organized attempt of this proselyting church, this old enemy of their forefathers, to invade their colony and undermine their own Establishment. Consequently, when, in company with Mr. Muirson, Colonel Heathcote began itinerating through southwestern Connecticut, ministers and magistrates frequently opposed and threatened them. The people occasionally welcomed them. They did not object to hear and to criticise the strangers, and were sometimes willing to have their good neighbors, if they chanced to be Church-of-England men, enjoy the ministrations of these passing visitors. In some places, however, the civil officers went so far as to go about among the people, even from house to house, to dissuade them from attending Mr. Muirson's services,[l] and, at Fairfield, the meeting-house was closed lest it should be "defiled by idolatrous worship and superstitious ceremonies." [79] The Episcopalians themselves later acknowledged that, until 1709, they suffered little persecution beyond "that of the tongue." [m] When they were not permitted to organize churches, and were forced to pay taxes for the support of Congregationalism, they complained bitterly to their friends in England, and such oppression was listed among the many other misdemeanors, which, at this time, were cited against the former "dutiful colony of Connecticut."
One of the schemes that Connecticut's enemies sought to carry out, both for their own advancement, and as a proposed punishment for an unruly colony, was a consolidation of the New England provinces under a royal governor. This consolidation was approached when Governor Fletcher of New York was appointed military chief of Connecticut. His attempt, in 1693, to enforce his military authority over Connecticut troops engaged in protecting the northern frontier, resulted in his failure, and in his angry report to the home authorities of Connecticut's insubordination and disloyalty. The colony at great expense sent Major Fitz-John Winthrop to England to answer these charges. He was successful in proving that Connecticut had not exceeded her charter rights in her determination to appoint her own military officers; that, in the wars, she had faithfully contributed her share to the common defense; and moreover, that it was essential that she should have the immediate control of her own troops to quell internal disorder, should it arise, or to repel the sudden approach of an enemy upon her exposed borders. Major Winthrop also succeeded in having the colony's military obligations defined as the furnishing to the common defense of a number of her militia, proportionate to her population and to be under their own officers, and in war time a further draft of a hundred and twenty men to be under the direct control of the governor of New York. Notwithstanding the splendid success of Winthrop's mission, this same charge of insubordination was repeated in a long and later list of grievances against the colony.
The consolidation scheme was revived by the appointment of Governor Bellomont over New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and as military head of Rhode Island and Connecticut; but the governor never tried to enforce his authority in Connecticut. In 1701 and 1706, bills aiming at this proposed consolidation were introduced into Parliament. That of 1701 failed of consideration from "shortness of time and multiplicity of issues." In 1704 an attempt was made to secure the appointment of a royal governor over Connecticut through an Order in Council, but that body preferred to leave the matter to Parliament,—hence the bill of 1706 favoring consolidation which failed of passage in the Lords. It failed largely because of the energy and eloquence of Sir Henry Ashurst, the Connecticut agent.
Sir Henry also succeeded in getting a copy of the various charges against the colony, which were thought to justify annulling her charter, and in obtaining a grant of time to submit them to the Connecticut General Court for a reply. The colony found that it was charged with encouraging violations of the Navigation Laws; with holding in contempt the Courts of Admiralty; with failing to furnish troops and to place them under officers of the Crown; with executing capital punishment without any authority in her charter; with encouraging manufactures, contrary to the known wishes of the Crown; with irregular and unjust court proceedings; with treating contumaciously the royal commissioners sent to settle the Mohegan land controversy; with injustice to the Quakers; with forbidding services of the Church of England; and with disallowing appeals to England. These were the more important complaints. In behalf of the colony, Sir Henry appeared before the Privy Council, and in able argument showed that many of the charges were without foundation; that some of the colony's acts which were complained of as unlawful were well within her charter privileges; and that the decisions of her courts, far from being illegal, had, in nearly every case, when brought to the attention of the English government, been approved by it. Further than this, the Connecticut agent obtained a stay in the proceedings of the Mohegan case,[n] though it was soon reopened and seriously menaced the colony until the settlement in her favor in 1743. In the famous Liveen or Hallam case, Connecticut opposed an appeal to the Crown, because such an appeal would give the Privy Council the right to interpret the charter and pass upon the colony laws.[o] Though Sir Henry Ashurst had succeeded in having many of the charges dropped, the danger had been so great to the colony that he privately advised the government to conciliate the Crown by protesting its immediate readiness to fulfill all military obligations, and, as a further proof of loyalty, to repeal at once the old law of 1657 against heretics which Queen Anne had just annulled (October 11, 1705) at the request of the Quakers. The General Court, as we have seen, followed his advice, and repealed the law in so far as it concerned Quakers. But this was not enough to satisfy other dissenters in the colony. The Rev. John Talbot had arrived in England in 1706 to plead in person [80] for an American bishop, and Colonel Heathcote in 1707 wrote [81] with respect to the Episcopalians in Connecticut that it would be absolutely necessary to procure an order from the Queen freeing the Church of England people from the established rates, or they would always be so poor as to be dependent upon the Society for Propagating the Gospel. He further asked the repeal of the law whereby the Connecticut magistrates "refuse liberty of conscience to those of the established (English) church." Colonel Heathcote adds that it would not be much more than had been granted to the Quakers, and that it "would be of the greatest service to the Church than can at first sight be imagined."
So great was the importunity of the Connecticut Episcopalians, that, in 1708, Governor Saltonstall wrote to England to disarm their complaints against the colony. It looked as if religious discontent might become a dangerous thing. Royal disfavor certainly would be. It might be better to condone the lack of religious uniformity among a few scattered dissenters, differing among themselves, and to endure it,—obnoxious as it was,—than to suffer the loss of the Connecticut charter. Moreover, this tendency to the spread of nonconformity might be controlled by judicious legislation. Furthermore, it would be politic to have upon the colony lawbook some relief for dissenters from its Establishment similar to the English statutes relieving nonconformists there from adherence to the Church of England. Hence the Toleration Act, and, of necessity, the proviso in the act of the following session of the General Court whereby it approved the Saybrook Platform.
The Toleration Act was of no benefit to Rogerine or Quaker, who by their principles were forbidden to take the oath of allegiance that it demanded. It was of little practical advantage to Baptist or Episcopalian, but it was a move in the right direction. According to its terms, dissenters, before the county courts, could qualify for organization into distinct religious bodies by taking the oath of fidelity to the crown, by denying transubstantiation and by declaring their sober dissent from Congregationalism. They could have such liberty, provided that it in no way worked to the detriment of the church established in the colony,—that is, the law did not exclude any dissenter "from paying any such (established) minister or town dues as are or shall hereafter be due from him."
At best, such toleration would provide a rigorous test of a dissenter's sincerity. He would have nothing of worldly advantage to gain and much to lose as a "come-outer" from the Establishment. Social prestige would remain almost entirely within the state church. It would be to a man's pecuniary advantage to stay within its fold. Without it, he would be doubly taxed; by the State for the support of Congregationalism, by his conscience to maintain the church it approved. If he lapsed in duty toward his own, he would easily become a marked man among his few co-religionists. If he failed to attend regularly the church of his choice, the ancient law of the colony would hale him before the judge for neglect of public worship, and fine him for the benefit of a form of religion which he viewed with aversion as unscriptural, if not also anti-Christian. In a new and thinly settled country where life was hard and money scarce, this double taxation was of itself almost prohibitive of dissent. And yet this Toleration Act, notwithstanding its meagre terms, and which, considered in the light of the twentieth century, implies one of the worst forms of tyranny, was a measure of undreamed-of and dangerous liberality if looked at from the point of view of the sixteenth century, or even from that of many princes of the eighteenth. The very summer following the passage of this act saw London crowded with refugees from the religious tyranny of the Palatinate, whose Elector was determined to force the people, after over a hundred and thirty years of Protestantism, back to Rome because he was himself a Romanist, and IMPERII RELIGIO RELIGIO POPULI. The Connecticut law-makers had a good deal of faith in this same principle, though they never had resorted, and did not wish to do so, to extreme penalties to secure religious uniformity. The solidarity of the people and the geographical position of the colony had contributed largely to a uniform church life. Far from the usual ports of entry, the early dissenters had for the most part passed her by. But at the beginning of the eighteenth century, watching the signs of the times elsewhere, and aware of the cosmopolitan element creeping into her population, the Connecticut authorities were ready to admit that soon it might be necessary to modify somewhat the old dictum that the religion of the government must be the religion of all its people. England had seen fit to make such modification, and her test of roughly twenty years had shown conclusively that religious toleration and civil disorders were not synonymous, as had formerly been believed. The Connecticut colony had no particular desire to follow in England's steps. If it had, after-history would have associated it in men's minds less with the Puritanical narrowness of New England and more with such tolerance as was shown in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Rhode Island. Tolerance, Connecticut thought, might work well under a government like that of England, but her leaders were not convinced that it would be altogether wise for their own land. They, therefore, had preferred to postpone as long as they could the possible evil day. Now that toleration could no longer be delayed, they had admitted it most guardedly, and at once had proceeded to strengthen their own church foundations by the establishment of the Saybrook system of ecclesiastical government.
[a] "For the ease of such as soberly dissent from the way of worship and ministrie established by the ancient laws of this government, and still continuing, that if any such persons shall at the countie court of the countie they belong to, qualifie themselves according to an act made in the first year of the late King William and Queen Mary, granting libertie of worshipping God in a way separate from that which is by law established, they shall enjoy the same libertie and privilege in any place in this colonie without let, or hindrance or molestation whatsoever. Provided always that nothing herein shall be construed to the prejudice of the rights and privileges of the churches as by law established or to theexcluding any person from paying any such minister or town dues as are or shall hereafter be due from him." (The italics are mine. M. L. G.)Conn. Col. Rec. v, 50.
Failure to comply with the law was punished by a heavy fine, and in default thereof, by heavy bail or by imprisonment until the time for trial.
[b] Later in 1707, Mr. Wightman and Mr. John Bulkley, Congregationalist minister of Colchester, by permission of the authorities, who were troubled by the rumor that the Baptists and Seventh-day Baptists were about to begin proselytizing in earnest in Connecticut, entered into a public debate as to the merits of their respective religious beliefs. Not much came of it to the Congregationalists, who had expected to see Mr. Wightman's arguments annihilated, while the Baptists had a fine opportunity to publish broadcast their views. Such a discussion was steadily forbidden Browne and Barrowe in 1590. A century had developed sufficient toleration to make interesting, as well as permissible, a public discussion of divergent beliefs.
[c] The report to the Commission of Trade and Foreign Plantations made in 1680 gave:
"26 Answ. Our people in this colony are some strict Congregational men, others more large Congregational men, and some moderate Presbyterians, and take the Congregational men of both sorts, they are the greatest part of the people in the colony.
"There are 4 or 5 Seven-day men, in our Colony, and about so manyQuakers.
"17 Answ. (1) Great care is taken for the instruction of ye people in ye X'tian religion, by ministers catechising of them and preaching to them twice every Sabbath daye and sometimes on lecture dayes; and so by masters of famalayes instructing and catechising the children and servants being so required by law. In our corporation there are twenty-six towns and twenty-one churches. There is in every town in the colony a settled minister except in two towns newly begun."—This was equivalent to one minister to 460 persons, or to about 90 families.—Conn. Col. Rec.iii, 300. Trumbull'sHist. of Conn.i, 397.
[d] Humphrey Norton in the New Haven colony was whipped severely, burnt in the hand with the letter "H" for heretic, and banished for being a Quaker. The next year, for testifying against the treatment of Norton, William Bond, Mary Dyer, and Mary Whetherstead were apprehended by the same authorities, and forcibly carried back to Rhode Island.—H. Rogers,Mary Dyer, p. 36. For the Quaker Laws of both colonies see Note 69.
[e] The notorious William Ledra of later Massachusetts fame was one of these.
[f] This year a law was passed requiring every person to carefully apply himself on the Lord's day to the duties of religion. SeeNew Haven Hist. Soc. Papers, ii, 399.
[g] "Articles of Misdemeanor vs. Connecticut, July, 1665. "They deny to the inhabitants the exercise of the religion of the church of England; arbitrarily fining those who refuse to come to their congregational assemblies."
Law Book of Conn, printed 1670. "It is ordered that when the ministry of the word is established according to the Gospel, throughout this Colony, every person shall duly resort and attend thereunto respectively upon the Lord's day, upon public fast days and days of thanksgiving as are generally kept by appointment of authority; and any person … without necessary cause, withdrawing himself from the public ministry of the word, he shall forfeit for his absence from every such meeting five shillings."—Conn. Col. Rec. iii, 294.
[h] They reported that the colony would "not hinder any from enjoying the sacraments and using the common prayer book, provided that they hinder not the maintenance of the public minister."—Hutchinson,Hist, of Mass., p. 412.
Dr. Beardsley suggests that influential citizens may have assured them that the laws would be modified to accommodate Episcopalians.—E. E. Beardsley,Hist. of the Episcopal Church, i, p. 116.
[i] Population in 1656, 800; 1665, 9000; 1670-80, 10,000-14,000; 1689, 17,000-20,000; 1730, approximately, 50,000; 1756, 130,000; 1761, 145,000; 1776, 200,000; 1780, 237,946—F. B. Dexter, Estimates of the Population of the American Colonies, inAmerican Antiquarian Society Proceedings, 2d series, vol. 5.
[j] Up to 1680, there was only one Episcopal clergyman in New England, Father Jordan, of Portsmouth, N. H. There was an Episcopal clergyman at the fort in New York, and outside of Virginia and Maryland only two others in North America. There were a few Episcopal families in Stratford in 1690.
[k] Or "Propagation,"—as it is most frequently called.
[l] Mr. Muirson's report after his first visit to Stratford was that he had had "a very numerous congregation both forenoon and afternoon." He continues, "I baptized about twenty-four persons the same day…. "The Independents threatened me and all who were instrumental in bringing me thither, with prison and hard usage. They are very much incensed to see the Church (Rome's sister, as they ignorantly call her) is likely to gain ground among 'em, and use all stratagem they can invent to defeat my enterprise,"—Church Doc. Conn., i, p. 17.
Colonel Heathcote wrote, "The Ministers are very uneasy at our coming amongst them, and abundance of pains were taken to persuade and terrify the people from hearing Mr. Muirson, but it availed nothing;"—not even the threat to jail the rector for holding services contrary to the colony law which the magistrates had read to him at his lodgings.—Church Doc. Conn., i, p. 20.
[m] "We received no persecution than that of the tongue until December, 1709."—Ibid., i, p. 42.
[n] The Mohegan Indians had sold certain lands to the colony in 1659, Major John Mason acting as agent. These lands had been conveyed to English proprietors. John Mason, the major's grandson, representing his own and other interests, pretended that both his grandfather and the Indians had been overreached and wronged by the colony in the transaction; that the colony had taken more land than agreed upon from the Indians, and had also seized some that belonged by private purchase to the Mason heirs. For the sake of peace and the credit of magnanimity, the government offered to the chief, Owaneco, who represented the Indians, to pay them again for the land, but Mason and his party resolved to prevent such a settlement. One of them went to England with a false report of extortion practiced upon the savages, and a commission was sent out to investigate. Connecticut was willing to answer the commissioners if they sought facts for a report, but when they assumed the right to decide the question judicially, the colony could only protest against their pretensions. The commissioners adjudged the land in dispute to the Indians and the Mason party, and charged the colony nearly £600 and costs. The colony appealed to the Crown and won the case in 1743; but it was again appealed by Mason, and in this fashion dragged along until after the Revolution, when the Indians were content to accept the reservation allotted by the State to them.—C. W. Bowen,Boundary Disputes, pp. 25-27.
[o] John Liveen of New London in 1689 left property to the "ministry of the town." Major Fitz-John Winthrop and his brother-in-law Edward Palmes were executors. Major Winthrop was absent with the army on the northern frontier, but made no objection to the probating of the will at a special court in New London in 1689. This probating Major Palmes, a former friend of Andros, declared void, since Andros had ruled that all wills should be probated at Boston. Upon special application of Mrs. Liveen, in 1690, the county court probated a copy of the will, since Palmes held the original. To this probating the latter also objected on the ground that, though the court had been again legalized, the "ministry" referred to must be that recognized by the English law and not the Congregational ministry of the town,—the only one then existing. The colonial courts decided against him, and John and Nicholas Hallam, the widow's sons by a former marriage, virtually accepted the terms of the will and the court's decision by being parties to the sale of a portion of the Liveen estate, the ship "Liveen." The estate could not be wholly settled; so the town continued to receive a regular dividend until after the widow's death in 1698. Then the sons attempted to contest the will. The Court of Assistants confirmed the proceedings of the lower courts. Not satisfied with this decision, Nicholas Hallam went to England in 1700-1702, and was allowed to plead his case before the Privy Council. Sir Henry Ashurst held that the charter gave the right of final decision, but the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations thought otherwise, and it looked as if Hallam was to win his case, when he was ordered to return to America and, because of technicalities, to retake all the testimony. In 1704, because of his acknowledged signature in the sale of the "Liveen," the suit was decided in favor of the colony.—F. M. Caulkins,Hist. of New London, pp. 222-228.
Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God; for I am the Lord your God.—Leviticus, xxv, 17.
The dissenters found the terms of the Toleration Act too narrow; the conditions under which they could enjoy their own church life too onerous. Consequently, they almost immediately began to agitate for a larger measure of liberty, and persisted in their demands for almost twenty years before obtaining any decided success.
Foremost among the dissenters pressing for greater liberty, for exemption from taxes for the benefit of Congregational worship, and for the same privileges in the support of their own churches as the members of the Connecticut Establishment enjoyed, were the Episcopalians. The year following the passage of the Toleration Act witnessed the first persecution of these people beyond that of tongue and pen. Fines and imprisonments began in earnest and were continued, more or less frequently, for many years. Even as late as 1748, the Episcopalians of Reading were fined for reading the Prayer-book and for working on public fast-days. Still later, in 1762, there was occasional oppression, as in the case of the New Milford Episcopalians. They desired to build a church, but had to wait for the county court to approve the site chosen. The court was averse to the building of the church, and accordingly was a long time in complying with this technicality. Meanwhile, the Episcopalians could not build, neither would they attend Congregational worship, and the magistrates, refusing to recognize the services held in private houses, fined them for absence from public worship. This treatment was abandoned as soon as it became known that the rector had counseled his people to submit, as he intended to send a copy of the court's proceedings to England to be passed upon as to their legality. It was such petty, yet costly, persecution as this that became frequent after 1709, and from which the Episcopalians were determined to escape.
These Church-of-England men were increasing in numbers in the colony, and, at the passage of the Toleration Act, were quite hopeful that the Rev. John Talbot's mission to England to secure a bishop for America would prove successful. Although he was not successful in obtaining the episcopate, his mission received so much encouragement from those in high places that, upon Talbot's return, a home for the prospective bishop was purchased, in 1712, in Burlington, New Jersey. It was known that Queen Anne was much interested in the proposed bishopric, and letters were exchanged between the leaders of the movement in England and the prominent Independent clergymen in the colonies, in order to sound the state of public opinion. A bill for the American expansion of the Church of England, as a branch to be severed from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London and to be planted in the colonies under a bishop with full ecclesiastical powers, was prepared and was ready for presentation in Parliament when the Queen's death, August 1, 1714, caused its withdrawal, and felled the hopes of Churchmen. George I had too many temporal affairs to occupy his mind to burden himself with the intricate rights, powers, and privileges of a new episcopate, sought by a few colonials scattered through the American wilderness;—too many vexatious secular affairs in the colonies, and too heavy war-clouds darkening his European horizon. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in 1715, made one futile attempt to interest the king, and then gave up any hope of the immediate appointment of an American bishop.
In the Connecticut colony, the Episcopalians had so increased that, in 1718, there was in Stratford a church of one hundred baptized persons, thirty-six communicants, and a congregation that frequently numbered between two and three hundred people. They were ministered to by traveling missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. When these Stratford people appealed to the Society for a settled minister, they complained that "there is not any government in America but has our settled Church and minister, but this of Connecticut." [82] Still all the Society could then do was to send a missionary priest, and to keep alive in England, among the powerful Church party there, so keen an interest that it would seize upon the first opportunity to use its great influence and to compel the English government to force the Connecticut authorities to comply with the demands of the colonial Churchmen for the unrestricted enjoyment of their religion. Such an interest was kept up by the regular, full reports which the Society required of all its missionaries. And these reports, be it remembered, were expected to contain news of any kind, and of everything that happened in the colony of Connecticut, or elsewhere, that could possibly be turned to advantage in influencing the home authorities, in pushing the interests of the English Establishment in America, and in strengthening its membership there. Although, after the death of Queen Anne, the king's indifference checked the movement for the American episcopate, its friends did not abandon it, and a persistent effort for its success was soon begun. One of its prime movers was the Rev. George Pigott, missionary to Stratford, Connecticut, in 1722.
Under Mr. Pigott, the Church of England in Connecticut made a most encouraging and important gain, when, in 1722, Timothy Cutler, Rector of Yale College, and six of his associates proclaimed their dissatisfaction with Congregationalism, or, as they termed it, "the Presbyterianism" of the Connecticut established church. They asserted that "some of us doubt the validity, and the rest are more fully persuaded of the invalidity of the Presbyterian ordination in opposition to the Episcopal."
Three of these men remained in "doubt," and continued within the Congregational church.[a] Four of them, Rector Timothy Cutler, Tutor Daniel Brown, Rev. James Wetmore of North Haven, and Rev. Samuel Johnson of West Haven, went to England to receive Episcopal ordination.[b] The story of their conversion is to Churchmen an illustration of the scriptural command, "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you after many days." The Connecticut authorities had chosen the Rev. Timothy Cutler because of his eloquence, and had sent him to Stratford to counteract the early successes of the Church-of-England missionary priests, who were at work among the people there. Later, in 1719, Cutler, because of his abilities, was chosen President, or Rector, of Yale, as, in the early days, the head of the college was called. The seeds of doubt had entered his mind during his Stratford pastorate. He and his associates found many books in the college library that, instead of lessening, increased their doubts. After presiding for three years over the greatest institution of learning in the colony, which had for its object the preparation of men for service in civil office and, even more in those days, for service in religion, Rector Cutler, together with his associates, announced their change of faith. The colony was taken by storm, and there spread throughout its length and breadth, and throughout New England also, a great fear that Episcopacy had made acoup d'etatand was shortly to become the established church of her colonies as well as of England herself. Naturally, among the colonial Churchmen, it excited the largest hope "of a glorious revolution among the ecclesiastics of the country, because the most distinguished gentlemen among them are resolutely bent to promote her (the Church's) welfare and embrace her baptism and discipline, and if the leaders fall in there is no doubt to be made of the people." [83]
These hopes were in a degree confirmed by the conversion of one or two more ministers, and by the Yale men that the classes of 1723, 1724, 1726, 1729, and 1733 gave to Episcopacy. By the impetus of these conversions, within a generation, "the Episcopal Church under a native born minister had penetrated every town, had effected lodgment in every Puritan stronghold, and had drawn into her membership large numbers of that sober-minded, self-contained, tenacious people who constitute the membership of New England to-day."[84] After the conversions of 1722, the movement for the apostolic episcopate in America became more determined, and never wholly ceased until the consecration of Samuel Seabury as bishop of Connecticut in 1784.
A decided change took place in Connecticut's policy upon the death of Governor Saltonstall in 1724, and under his successor in office, former Lieutenant-Governor Joseph Talcott. The new governor was a Hartford man, more liberal in his ecclesiastical opinions and opposed to severe measures against dissenters. Hardly had Governor Talcott taken office when Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, wrote him, urging in behalf of the Episcopalians a remittance of ecclesiastical taxes. "If I ask anything," wrote the Bishop, "inconsistent with the laws of the country, I beg pardon; but if not, I hope my request for favors for the Church of England will not appear unreasonable." The Bishop accompanied his letter with a paper, a copy of a circular letter to the different colonial governors, in which, among other matters relating to his clergy, he professed his readiness to discipline them if necessary "in order to contribute to the peace and honor of the government." This proposal was due, in part, to the scandalous reputation in New England which the southern settled clergy bore. Because of this reputation, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had from the first made a special point of the morals of their missionary priests. Indeed, these priests, themselves, had warned the Society that, if it expected any returns from its missions in New England, it would have to take great pains to send out a superior class of men. Governor Talcott replied to Bishop Gibson, under date of December 1, 1725,[c] "that there is but one Church of England minister in this colony, [d] and the church with him have the same protection as the rest of our Churches and are under no constraint to contribute to the support of any other minister." After reflecting upon the number and character of the few persons in another town or two "who claim exemption from rates," Governor Talcott quotes the colony law for the support of the ministry in every town, and adds that, upon the death of an incumbent, the townspeople "are quickly supplied by persons of our own communion, educated in our public schools of Learning; which through divine blessing afforded us, we have sufficiency of those who are both learned and exemplary in their lives." This was a polite way of informing the bishop that Connecticut preferred to do without his missionaries. It was one thing for the tolerant governor to grant exemption from Congregational taxes in the case of an influential church like that of Stratford, and quite another to extend the same toleration to every scattered handful of people who might claim to be members of the Church of England, and who might welcome the coming of her missionary priests.
The Episcopalians, however, were not content to rest their privileges upon their numerical power in each little town, or upon the personal favor of the magistrates. They therefore continued their agitation for exemption from support of Congregationalism and from fines for neglecting its public worship. Under the lead of the wardens and vestry of Fairfield, they obtained favor with the General Court in 1727,[e] when an act was passed, "providing how taxes levied upon members of the Church of England for the support of the Gospel should be disposed of," and exempting said members from paying any taxes "for the building of meeting houses for the present established Churches of this government." The law further declared that if within the parish bounds—
there be a Society of y'e Church of England, where there is a person in orders, according to y'e Canons of y'e Church of England, settled and abiding among them and performing divine service so near to any person that hath declared himself of y'e Church of England, that he can conveniently and doth attend y'e public worship there, then the collectors, having first indifferently levied y'e tax, as aforesaid, shall deliver y'e taxes collected of such persons declaring themselves, and attending as aforesaid, unto y'e minister of y'e Church of England, living near unto such persons; which minister shall have power to receive and recover y'e same, in order to his support in y'e place assigned to him.
But if such proportion of any taxes be not sufficient in any Society of y'e Church of England to support y'e incumbent there, then such Society may levy and collect of them who profess and attend as aforesaid, greater taxes, at their own discretion, to y'e support of their ministers.
And the parishoners of y'e Church of England, attending as aforesaid, are hereby excused from paying any taxes for y'e building meeting houses for y'e present Established Churches of this government.[85]
After the passing of this law, the magistrates contented themselves with occasional unfair treatment of the weaker churches. They sometimes haggled over the interpretation of the terms "near" and "conveniently" as found in the law. They objected to the appointment of one missionary to several stations or towns. They also did not always enforce upon the Presbyterian collectors strict accuracy in making out their lists, and when the Episcopalians sought redress for unreturned taxes or unjust fines, they found their lawsuits blocked in the courts. The magistrates, also, showed almost exclusive preference for Congregationalists as bondsmen for strangers settling in the towns, while the courts continued to frequently refuse or to delay the approval of sites chosen for the erection of Episcopal churches.
Finally, there was a certain amount of political and social ostracism directed against Churchmen. A notable attempt to defraud the Episcopalians of a due share of the school money, derived from the sale of public lands and from the emission of public bills, was defeated in 1738 by a spirited protest, setting forth the illegality of the proceeding, the probable indignation of the King at such treatment of his good subjects and brethren in the faith, and by pointing to the fact, as recently shown by a test case in Massachusetts, that the Connecticut Establishment itself could not exist without the special consent of the King. [86] The petition was signed by six hundred and thirty-six male inhabitants of the colony. They asserted in their protest that they had a share in equity derived from the charter; that they bore their share of the expenses of the government; and that the teaching of the Church of England made just as good citizens as did that of the Presbyterian Church. The public lands, from the sale of which the school money was derived, were those along the Housatonic river. The money was appropriated according to a law enacted in 1732 which distributed it among the older towns as a reward for good schools. But, in 1738, the legislature passed a bill by which a majority vote of the town or parish could divert the money to the support of "the gospel ministry as by law in the colony established." Naturally this new law operated against all dissenters, who, equally anxious with the Congregationalists to have good schools, were an ignored minority whenever the latter chose to vote the money to the support of their church. As a result of this spirited protest of the Episcopalians, the enactment of 1738 was repealed two years later "because of misunderstanding." Notwithstanding such hardships as the Episcopalians suffered in Connecticut, their own writers declare that, at this period of colonial history, the Churchmen in Connecticut had less to complain of than their co-religionists in New York and in the southern colonies.
While the Episcopalians were agitating for a larger liberty than that granted by the Toleration Act, the other dissenters, Rogerines, Quakers, and Baptists, were not idle.
The efforts of the Rogerines were marked more by violence than by success. They had become less fanatic, and persecution had died away during the first ten years following the passage of the Toleration Act. All might have gone smoothly had they not suddenly stirred Governor Saltonstall to renewed dislike, the magistrates to fresh alarm, and the people to great contempt and indignation. This they accomplished by a sort of mortuary tribute to their leader, John Rogers, who died in 1721. This tribute took the form of renewed zeal, and was marked by a revival of some of their most obnoxious practices. The Rogerines determined to break up the observance of the Puritan Sabbath. Immediately, an "Act for the Better Detecting and more effectual Punishment of Prophaneness and Immorality" was passed. It was especially directed against the Rogerines. Its most striking characteristic was that it changed the policy of the government from the time-honored Anglo-Saxon theory that every man is innocent until proved guilty, to the doctrine that a man, accused, must be guilty until proved innocent. In so oft-recurring a charge as that of being absent from public worship, it became lawful to exact fines unless the accused could prove before a magistrate that he had been present. But this first act did not dampen sufficiently the renewed zeal of the Rogerines, and for two years there was a continuance of sharp legislation to reduce their disorderliness. They were fined five shillings for leaving their houses on Sunday unless to attend the orthodox worship, and twenty shillings for gathering in meeting-houses without the consent of the ministers. They were given a month, or less, in the house of correction, and at their own expense for board, for each offense of unruly or noisy behavior on Sunday near any meeting-house; for unlawful travel or behavior on that day; and for refusal to pay fines assessed for breaking any of the colony's ecclesiastical laws. These laws [87] were enforced one Sunday in 1725 against a company of Rogerines who were going quietly on their way through Norwich to attend services in Lebanon. The outburst of religious fervor spent itself in two or three years. Governor Talcott did not believe in strong repressive measures, and it was soon conceded that the ignoring of their eccentricities, if kept within reasonable bounds, was the most efficient way to discourage the Rogerines. Summarizing the influence of this sect, we find that they contributed nothing definite to the slow development of religious toleration in Connecticut. If anything, their fanaticism hindered its growth, and they gained little for themselves and nothing for the cause. As the years went on and their little sect were permitted to indulge their peculiar notions, and the props of the State were not weakened nor the purity of religion vitally assailed, the Rogerines contributed their mite towards convincing mankind, and the Connecticut people in particular, that brethren of different creeds and religious practices might live together in security and harmony without danger to the civil peace.
During the seventeen years that Governor Talcott held office, 1724-41, the life of the colony was marked by its notable expansion through the settlement of new towns, [f] and by the dexterity with which its foreign affairs—its relations to England and its boundary disputes with its neighbors—were conducted. The last dragged on for years, calling for several expensive commissions and causing much confusion. The Massachusetts line was determined in 1713; that of Rhode Island in 1728; and that of New York in 1735. Connecticut, in all these cases, had to be wary lest the attempts to settle these disputed claims should weary, antagonize, or anger the King.[88] Many of the old charges were renewed, and Connecticut was no longer regarded as a "dutiful" colony, but rather as one altogether too independent, from whom it might be wise to wrest her charter, subjecting her to a royal governor. As early as 1715, her colonial agent had been advised to procure a peaceable surrender of the charter. To this proposal, Governor Saltonstall had returned a courteous and dignified refusal. But the danger was always cropping up. Governor Talcott's English official correspondence is full of details concerning Connecticut's increasing anxiety concerning the attitude and the decisions of the home government; over the dangers consequent to her institutions or to her charter. It was repeatedly suggested that that charter should be surrendered, modified in favor of the King's supervision, or annulled. In the Governor's letters, one follows the intricacies of the boundary disputes, of the complicated Mohegan case, and sounds the dangers to the colony from the disposition and decisions of the Crown.[89]
One case in particular demands a passing consideration because of its far-reaching effects, and because it paralleled in time the legislation in the colony which broadened the Toleration Act. This was the famous case of John Winthrop against his brother-in-law, Thomas Lechmere, to recover real estate left by the elder Winthrop to his son and daughter. The suit brought up the whole question of land entail in Connecticut, and, with it, the possibility of an economic and social revolution in the colony which would have been the death-blow to its prosperity. Winthrop, by appealing the case to England, brought Connecticut into still greater disfavor, and risked the loss of the charter, together with many special privileges in religion and politics which the colony enjoyed through a liberal interpretation of that instrument. In the course of the suit, the constitutional relations of Crown and colony had to be threshed out.
John Winthrop's father died in 1717, when, according to Connecticut, but not English, law of primogeniture, Winthrop received as eldest son a double portion of his father's real estate, and his sister, Thomas Lechmere's wife, the rest. Winthrop's brother-in-law was not a man wholly to be trusted to deal justly with his wife's property; but this, in itself, was a very small factor in the suit. Winthrop was at variance with the Connecticut authorities, and was dissatisfied with his share both of his father's property and of his uncle's, whose heir he was. No matter how much his own personal interests might endanger the colony, Winthrop resolved to have all the property due him as eldest son and heir under English law. He appealed his case to England, taking it directly from the local probate court, and ignoring the Court of Assistants, where he might have obtained some redress. Moreover, to influence the decision in his favor he included in his list of grievances many of the old offenses charged against Connecticut. He did this, even while acknowledging that the colonial Intestate Act, framed in 1699,[90] was but the embodiment of custom that had existed from the beginning of the colony. While this case dragged on, it was again intimated to Connecticut that the surrender of her charter, or at least the substitution of an explanatory charter, might be an acceptable price for the royal confirmation of her Intestate Law. Finally, Winthrop went to England, and was given a private hearing, at which no representative of the colony was present. As a result of this hearing, an order in Council was issued February 15, 1728, annulling the Connecticut Intestate Act as contrary to the laws of England and as exceeding charter rights. Moreover, the colonial authorities were ordered to measure off the lands, claimed by Winthrop, and to restore them to him.
Of course, it would take some time to obey the order. Meanwhile, if this restitution were made, if the decision were submitted to, it would invalidate so many land titles as to threaten the very existence of Connecticut's economic structure. The colony sought the best legal talent obtainable. For seventeen years Connecticut continued this expensive lawsuit, urging always her willingness to comply in the case of Winthrop, if only the decision be made a special one and not a precedent,—if only an order in Council, or an act of Parliament, would reinstate the Connecticut Intestate Law. Her agents in England were instructed to demonstrate how well the colonial division of property had worked, and that under the English division, where all real estate went to the eldest son, if it were practiced in a new and heavily wooded country, whose chief wealth was agriculture, the rental of lands would yield income barely sufficient to pay taxes and repair fences, and there could be no dowry for the daughters. A still further result would be, that the younger sons would be driven into manufacturing or forced to emigrate. In each case the Crown would suffer, either by the loss of a colonial market for its manufactured products, or by an impoverished colony, incapable of making satisfactory returns to the royal treasury. [91] Moreover, in the case of emigration, when Connecticut, lacking men to plow her fields, could no longer produce the foodstuffs the surplus of which she sold to the "trading parts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island" to supply the fisheries, the Crown would feel still another baneful effect from its attempt to enforce the English law of entail. Again, there was another aspect from which to view the annulment of the Connecticut Intestate Law. Its annulment would render worthless many past and present land-titles. Creditors who had accepted land for debt would suffer. Titles to lands, held by towns, as well as individuals, would become subject to litigation; the whole colony would be plunged into lawsuits, and its economic framework would be rent in pieces. The Intestate Law was in accordance with custom throughout New England. When in 1737 a similar statute in Massachusetts was sustained by the King in Council in the appeal of Phillipsvs.Savage, Connecticut, notwithstanding the renewed and repeated suggestions to give up her charter, took courage to continue the contest.
During these years the question of the constitutional relation of colony and Crown was frequently raised, and Connecticut was called upon to show that her laws were not contrary to the laws of England. She had to prove that they were not contrary to the common law of England; nor to the statute law, existing at the founding of the colony; nor to those acts of Parliament that had been expressly extended to the colony. This was the most commonly held of the three interpretations of "not contrary to the laws of England." The most restricted interpretation was that all colonial laws higher than by-laws, and "which even within that term touched upon matters already provided for by English common or statute law, were illegal" or "contrary." Under this interpretation, "the colonies were as towns upon the royal demesne." Connecticut herself held to a third construction, maintaining that, as her own charter nowhere stipulated that her administration should accord with the civil, common, or statute law of England, she, at least, among the colonies was free to frame her own laws according to her own needs and desires. Holding to this opinion, which had never been corrected by the Crown, Connecticut maintained that "contrary to the laws of England" was limited in its intent to contrary to those laws expressly designed by Parliament to extend to the plantations. Moreover, Connecticut insisted that the colonies were not to be compared to English towns, because, unlike the towns, they had no representation in Parliament. The Connecticut Intestate Act was opposed to the English law according to the first two interpretations, but not according to the third. Further, the Connecticut authorities felt that if the conditions which had given rise to the law were fully realized in England, the apparent insubordination of the colony would disappear in the light of the real equity of the colonial statute. In Governor Talcott's letter, dated November 3, 1729, under "The Case of Connecticut Stated," there is a summary of the reasons why the colony hesitated to appeal directly to Parliament for a confirmation of the Intestate Act. She was afraid of exciting still greater disfavor by seeming to ask privileges in addition to those already conferred upon her in her very liberal charter. She was afraid of courting inquiry in regard to her ecclesiastical laws, her laws relating to the collegiate school, and also sundry civil laws. The colony feared that the result of such an investigation would be that she would thereafter be rated, not as a government or province, but as a corporation with a charter permitting only the enactment of by-laws. Moreover, she dreaded to be ranked with "rebellious Massachusetts," and thus further expose herself to a probable loss of her charter.
After contesting the decision against her for many years, at last in 1746 she virtually won her case through a decision given in England in the suit of Clarkevs.Tousey,[92]—a suit which had been appealed from the colony, and which presented much the same claim as Winthrop's. The decision in favor of Clarke was equivalent to a recognition of Connecticut's Intestacy Law. It has been pointed out that, important as the Winthrop controversy was from the economic standpoint, it was equally important as fore-shadowing the legislation of the English government some thirty years later, and as defining the relation of colony and Crown. Moreover, in 1765, as in 1730, "economic causes and conditions," writes Professor Andrews in his discussion of the Connecticut Intestacy Law, "drove the colonists into opposition to England quite as much as did theories of political independence, or of so-called self-evident rights of man."
It was during the continuance of this troublesome Winthrop suit, while boundary lines were still unsettled, while as yet the Mohegan titles remained in dispute, while the most grievous charge of encouraging home manufactures, and many other complaints were brought against Connecticut,—it was in the midst of her perplexities and conflicting interests that the dissenters within her borders sought greater religious liberty. They sought it, not only through their own local efforts, but through the strength of their friends in England, who brought all their influence to bear upon the home government. With such help Episcopalians had won exemption in 1727, and within two years Quakers and Baptists were accorded similar freedom.
Connecticut Quakers, though few in numbers, were very determined to have their rights. From 1706, the Newport Yearly Meeting had encouraged the collecting and recording of all cases of "sufferance." In 1714, at the close of Queen Anne's War (1702-13), the Newport Yearly Meeting reported to that of London that "there is much suffering on account of the Indians at the Eastward, yet not one (of ours) had fallen during the last year, Travelling preachers having frequently visited those parts without the least harm…. Friends in several places have suffered deeply on account of not paying presbyterian priests, and for the Refusing to bear Armes, an Account of which we Doe herewith Send." In 1715, the English law had granted them the perpetual privilege of substituting affirmation for oath. The Quakers were determined to have the same freedom in the colonies as in England. Accordingly, they watched with interest the test case between the Quaker constables of Duxbury and Tiverton,—both, then, under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts,—and the authorities of that colony. Fines and persecutions were so much alike in Connecticut and Massachusetts that a dissenter's victory in one colony would go far towards obtaining exemption in the other. The Quaker constables had refused to collect the church rate, and for this refusal were thrown into prison. Thereupon a petition, with many citations from the colony law books, was sent to England, begging that the prisoners be released and excused from their fines, and that such unjust laws be annulled. The Privy Council ordered the prisoners released and their fine remitted. This decision was rendered in 1724, and, with the success of the Episcopalians three years later, still further encouraged both Quakers and Baptists to seek relief from ecclesiastical taxes and fines. Two years later, in May, 1729, the Quakers appealed to the Connecticut Court for such exemption, and were released from contributing to the support of the established ministry and from paying any tax levied for building its meeting-houses, provided they could show a certificate from some society of their own (either within the colony or without it, if so near its borders that they could regularly attend its services) vouching for their support of its worship and their presence at its regular meetings. [93]
Turning to the Baptists, the oppressive measures employed to make them violate their conscience ceased on the inauguration of Governor Talcott in 1724. Thereafter, those among them who conformed to the requirements of the Toleration Act received some measure of freedom. To the neighborly interest of the Association of Baptist Churches of North Kingston, Rhode Island, and to the influence of leading Baptists in that colony, including among them its governor (who subjoined a personal note to the Association's appeal to the Connecticut General Court), was due the favor of the Court extended in October, 1729, [94] to the Baptists, whereby they were granted exemption upon the same terms as those offered the Quakers.
Thus in barely twenty years from the passage of the Toleration Act, Episcopalian, Quaker, and Baptist had driven the thin edge of a destroying wedge into the foundations of the Connecticut Establishment. Each dissenting body was pitifully small in absolute strength, and they had no inclination toward united action. Quakers and Baptists were required to show certificates, a requirement soon to be considered in itself humiliating. The new laws were negative, in that they empowered the assessor toomitto tax those entitled to exemption, but they provided no penalty to be enforced against assessors who failed to make such omission. Indeed, in individual cases, the laws might seem to be scarcely more than an admission of the right to exemption. However, it was an admission that a century's progress had brought the knowledge that brethren of different religious opinions could dwell together in peace. It was an exemption by which the government admitted, as well as claimed, the right of choice in religious worship. It was a far cry to the acknowledgment that a man was free to think his own thoughts and follow his own convictions, provided they did not interfere with the rights of other men. The new laws were a concession by a strongly intrenched church to the natural rights of weaker ones, whose title to permanency it greatly doubted. They were a concession by a government whose best members felt it to be the State's moral and religious obligation to support one form of religion and to protect it at the cost, if necessary, of all other forms,—a concession, by such a government, to a very small minority of its subjects, holding the same appreciation of their religious duty as that which had nerved the founders of the colony. It was a concession by the community to a very few among their number, who were divergent in church polity and practice, but who were united in a Protestant creed and in the conviction, held then by every respectable citizen, that every man should be made to attend and support some accepted and organized form of Christian worship.