POLITICAL PARTIES IN CONNECTICUT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
As well dam up the waters of the Nile with Bullrushes as to fetter
the steps of Freedom.--L. M. Child.
Leland's attack upon the constitution of Connecticut during the
excitement over the Western Land bills called for new tactics on the
part of the dissenters. Thus far, in all their antagonism to the union
of Church and State, there had been on their part practically no
attack upon the constitution itself. Yet even as early as 1786 the
Anti-Federalists had proclaimed that the state of Connecticut was
without a constitution; that the charter government fell with the
Declaration of Independence; and that its adoption by the legislature
as a state constitution was an unwarranted excess of authority. The
Anti-Federalists maintained also that many of the charter provisions
were either outgrown or unsuited to the needs of the state. But the
majority of the dissenters, like the Constitutional Reform party of
recent date, preferred redress for their grievances through
legislation rather than through the uprooting of an ancient and
cherished constitution. Accordingly, it was not until the elections of
1804-6 that this question of a new constitution could reasonably be
made a campaign issue. But from 1793 the dissenters began to lean
towards affiliation with the Democratic-Republican [a] party, the
successors to the Anti-Federal; yet it was not until toward the close
of the War of 1812 that the Republican party made large gains in
Connecticut and the dissenters began to feel sure that the dawn of
religious liberty was at hand. But before that time the Republicans
made three distinct though abortive attempts to secure the electoral
power.
The Anti-Federalists early began to probe for weak spots in the
constitutional government of Connecticut. The Fundamental Orders had
given four deputies to each of the three original towns, and had made
the number of deputies from each new town proportionate to its
population. The Charter had limited the deputies to two from each
town. The Fundamental Orders gave the General Court, composed of
Governor, Magistrates or Assistants, and Deputies, supreme governing
power, including, together with that of legislation, the granting of
levies, the admission of freemen, the disposal of public lands, and
the organization of courts. It had also a general supervision over
individuals, magistrates, and courts, with power to revise decisions
and to mete out punishments. The Charter of 1662 did not materially
alter the laws and customs of the government as previously established
under the Fundamental Orders, or the "first written constitution." The
Charter emphasized the executive, and began the segregation of the
Upper House or Council, since by it the "Particular Court" of the
founders became the Governor's Council, serving upon like occasions,
but requiring the presence of at least six magistrates for the
transaction of business. The Particular Court had consisted of the
Governor or Deputy-Governor, and three Assistants. In emergencies
occurring during adjournment of the General Court, the Particular
Court was to serve in place of the larger body. After 1647 this
special court could consist of two or three magistrates who, in the
absence of the Governor or Deputy-Governor, chose one of their number
to act as moderator. After 1662 the formula of the General Court "Be
it ordered, enacted and decreed" was changed to "Be it enacted by the
Governor and Council and House of Representatives in General Court
assembled." At the regular session of the General Court or General
Assembly, the Councilors first sat as a separate body in 1698. After
the Declaration of Independence this Upper House or Council became the
Senate, and for many years was referred to under any one of the three
names.
The power of the General Court--this jumble of legislative, executive,
and judicial--worked well so long as the community consisted of a few
hundred or a few thousand souls with little diversity of sentiment or
industrial interest. It was not until the last quarter of the
eighteenth century that the inefficiency of the "first written
constitution" began to be felt. Then there arose the need of a new
constitution to modify the body of laws and customs that had grown up;
to destroy much of the erroneous legislation that in effect perverted
or nullified their original intent; and to furnish a constitutional
basis for the government of a larger and less homogeneous people. Here
and there a few thoughtful men, irrespective of their church or party,
were beginning to apprehend the difficulty of piloting a democratic
state under the old royal charter. The more prominent among them
belonged to the Anti-Federal party, and naturally they sought to
expose the constitutional difficulties which they believed impeded
progress. [b]
One of the earliest party tilts grew out of the increase of new towns
and the unequal development of some of the older ones. Then as now,
though on a much smaller scale, the unit of town representation
threatened rotten boroughs and a fictitious representation of the will
of the majority as represented by the delegates to the Lower
House. The state in 1786 had not recovered from the exhaustion due to
the Revolutionary War, and the support of the many new deputies, due
to the increase of the towns, was a burden which the October
legislation of that year attempted to lighten. With the object of
cutting down state expenses a bill was introduced into the House to
refer to the freemen some proposition for reducing the number of their
delegates and for equalizing representation. Mr. James Davenport of
Stamford moved to substitute for the bill [c] another in which this
reduction should be made by the legislature without submitting the
proposed change to the freemen. This was objected to on the ground
that a reduction of delegates was a constitutional question, "the
Assembly having no right to alter the representation without authority
given by their constituents." The supporters of the bill contended
with Mr. Davenport that--
_we have no Constitution_ but the laws of the State. The
_Charter is not the Constitution_. By the Revolution
_that_ was abrogated. A law of the State gave a subsequent
sanction to that which was before of no force; if that law be
valid, any alteration made by a later act will also be valid; if
not, we have no Constitution, so defined, as to preclude the
Legislature from exercising _any_ power necessary for the
good of the people.
The bill was carried over to the May session of 1787, when it was
defeated by sixty-two yeas to seventy-five nays, the towns of
Hartford, East Hartford, Berlin, Stamford and Woodbury favoring it. A
confidential letter of February, 1787, from Dr. Gale, the probable
author of "Brief, decent but free Remarks or Observations on Several
Laws passed by the Honorable Legislature of the State of Connecticut
since the year 1775, by a Friend to his Country," suggested that in
addition to the reduction of representatives, laws should be passed
forbidding any citizen to hold, at the same time, more than one place
of public trust, either civil or military, and also requiring an
increase in the number of councilors, or senators, from the total of
twelve to three from each county. [d] Dr. Gale believed that if these
senators should be elected by each county, and not upon a general
ticket, the change would be beneficial. [195]
In regard to the senators, the Fundamental Orders prescribed that
nominations for the magistrates should be made by the towns through
their deputies to the fall session of the General Court, and that the
election should take place the following spring at the Court of
Elections. As the life of the colony expanded, modifications of this
rule were made; in time, vote by proxy took the place of the freeman's
presence at the Court of Election. After 1689, the Assistants to be
nominated, twenty in number, were balloted for in the fall town
meetings. The sealed lists were sent to the legislature, where they
were opened, and the ticket for the spring election was made out from
the twenty names receiving the largest vote. The Court could no longer
as in earlier times add any new names. Hence, the custom grew up of
listing nominations, not according to popularity, but first according
to seniority in office, and then according to the number of votes
received. These lists were published in the papers throughout the
state. The candidates for election were presented at the April town
meetings, where each name was read in order and voted upon. A much
later enactment provided twelve ballots, and forbade any one to cast
more than twelve, whether for or against a candidate or in blank. If a
man held any one of his slips in reserve for a more satisfactory
candidate, he had none for the teller, and thus the secrecy of the
ballot was almost destroyed. New candidates or those not up for
reelection, whose names appeared at the foot of the list, whatever the
number of votes received, were sometimes kept waiting years for an
election, until those above them had died in office or resigned. [e]
For instance, Jonathan Ingersoll received 4600 votes in nomination in
1792, while the senior councilor, William Williams, had only 2000; yet
Williams's name was preferred, and Ingersoll's had to wait over
another year, when he was again nominated and elected, and held his
seat from 1793 to 1798. An election was a wearisome affair, and many
men would not stay until the voting upon the list was finished,
preferring for various reasons to cast an early ballot. The natural
tendency was to support the experienced and known, even if
indifferently efficient councilor, rather than to vote for an untried
and unfamiliar man whose name would come up later, or even for popular
men who could not be proposed until far into the day. As a result the
party in power felt assured of their continuance in office. Moreover,
proxies for the election were returned in April, but the result was
not announced until the legislature met in May, nor was there any
supervision compelling an honest count. Thus it was easy to keep in
office Federal candidates, and thus the Senate, or Council, came to
reflect public opinion about twenty years behind the popular
sentiment. Furthermore, the clergy of the Establishment would get
together and talk matters over before the elections, and the parish
minister would endeavor to direct his people's vote according to his
opinion of what was best for the commonwealth. This ministerial
influence was not shaken until about 1817.
There was still another grievance against the Council besides that
just mentioned. It had come to be almost a Privy Council for advice
and consultation. Furthermore it was, until 1807, the Supreme Court of
the state to which lay appeals in all cases, civil or criminal, where
errors of law had been committed in the trial courts. Its twelve
members were mostly, if not all, lawyers, holding a tremendous power
of patronage over the members of the Lower House, many of whom were
also lawyers, eager for preferment; over the courts throughout the
state, from which, since 1792, the old non-professional judges had
been debarred, and also over the militia, whose officers, from the
earliest times, had been appointed by the General Court. Further, the
united action of the two houses was necessary to pass or to repeal a
law, and thus much important legislation centred upon a majority of
seven in the Council.
Furthermore, at the opening of the nineteenth century, the courts of
law also were thought to need reorganizing. The judges were declared
partisan, as they naturally would be under the conditions of their
appointment. The Republicans could not meet the Federals upon an equal
footing in the state tribunals. They were disparaged in their business
relations, "were treated as a degraded party, and this treatment was
extended to all the individuals of the party however worthy or
respectable; in fact as the Saxons were treated by the Normans and the
Irish by the English government." [196]
Because of these political conditions, early in statehood, there were
three schools of politicians; namely, those who approved a
constitutional convention, expressly called to frame a new
constitution; those who wished such a convention merely to amend the
existing charter-constitution; and those, until 1800, predominately in
the majority, who were convinced that whether the state had a
constitution or not was a most frivolous and baneful question, mooted
only by "visionary theorists," or by those who were desirous of a
change, no matter how disastrous it might be to good government. The
conservative party held that, since the charter had been drawn
according to the tenor of a draft submitted by Winthrop and outlining
the government according to the Fundamental Orders, framed in 1639 by
the "inhabitants and residents of Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield,"
the charter was not a grant of privileges but an approval asked and
obtained for a government already existing. Consequently, such
government as had been exercised before and was continued under the
charter was essentially a creation of the people. It therefore needed
only the declarative act of the legislature to annul those clauses of
the charter that bound the colony to the crown and to continue over
into statehood the government of the colonial period. Further,
granting that the separation from Great Britain annulled the
constitution, the subsequent conduct of the people in assenting to,
approving of, and acquiescing in such acts of the legislature, had
established and rendered those acts valid and binding, and had given
them all the force and authority of an express contract. [197] Such
discussion of constitutional questions, confined at first to the few,
spread among the many after Leland's attack upon the charter, and were
debated with great earnestness. Leland's attack gained him, at the
time, comparatively few adherents, but it brought the question of
disestablishment fairly before the people, demonstrating to the
discontented that there was very little hope for larger liberty, for
greater justice, until the power of legislation, granted by the old
charter, should be curtailed, and the bond between Church and State
severed.
The growth in Connecticut of the Democratic-Republican party, outside
its following among Methodists, Baptists and a few radical thinkers,
was very slow. The Episcopalians were held in much higher esteem by
the Federal members of the Establishment, or "Standing Order," as they
were called, than were the other dissenters. Yet notwithstanding the
wealth and conservatism of the sect, they were looked at askance when
it came to giving them political office, for the old dislike to a
Churchman still lingered in New England. Accordingly, they were
somewhat dissatisfied at the treatment they received as political
allies of the Standing Order, and, in order to quiet their incipient
discontent, the government thought best to occasionally extend some
small favor to them. So in 1799, the legislature granted them a
charter for a fund for their bishop which they were trying to
raise. About the same time, Yale first conferred upon an Episcopal
clergyman the title of doctor of divinity. The transfer of the annual
fast day to coincide with Good Friday was appreciated by the
Churchmen. The change was first made in 1795, and came about through
Governor Huntington's friendship for Bishop Seabury, and because of a
desire to remove from the public mind a misapprehension, arising from
the refusal of the Episcopal church in New London to comply with
President Washington's proclamation for a national Thanksgiving. [f]
From 1797 this change of fast-day became customary. It removed the
long-standing complaint that Presbyterian days of fasting or rejoicing
frequently occurred during Episcopal feasts or fasts. At an earlier
period, the ignoring of such public proclamations was sometimes made
the occasion for imposing fines for the benefit of the Establishment.
As has been said, the Republican gains were greater among the
Methodists and Baptists. This was partly because not a few among
these dissenters associated Jefferson's party with his efforts towards
disestablishment in Virginia in 1785. Out of Connecticut's population
of two hundred and fifty thousand, the Republicans counted upon
recruits from the Methodist body, numbering, in 1802, one thousand six
hundred and fifty-eight, and from the Baptists, approximating four
thousand six hundred and sixty members. In 1798-1800 the division of
the Federalists over national issues strengthened the Republicans in
Connecticut, as they were the successors to the Anti-Federalists,
those "visionary theorists" of 1786. The new Democratic-Republican
party received further additions to their ranks through the opposition
in Connecticut to the Federal and obnoxious "Stand-up Law" of
1801. This law, which required a man to stand when voting for the
nomination of senators, "was made to catch the secret vote of the
Republicans," [198] and revealed at once the opposition of every
dissenter, debtor, employee, or of any one who had cause to fear
injury to himself if he gave an honest vote. It was passed by a
compact and reunited body of Federalists whose boast was that no
division upon national questions could affect their unity and strength
in the Land of Steady Habits.
The Republican-Democratic party in the state would have gained
recruits more rapidly had it not been for its attitude as a national
party toward France. To appreciate the situation in Connecticut, one
must consider, first of all, the influence of the French
Revolution. One must realize the intense interest, the mingled
exultation and terror with which conservatives who, though they might
differ in their religious preferences, were yet the rank and file of
the state, watched its varying aspects from its outbreak in 1789 on
through the years of its earliest experiments in statecraft, of its
exaggerated exploitation of "liberty, equality, and fraternity," and
of its casting off of all religious bonds and trammels. As the Federal
party lost its sympathy with the French cause the attitude of the
nation changed. The consolidated factions of the Anti-Federalists,
however, increased their ardor for the French republic, and took from
1792 the name Democratic-Republican. They carried their keen sympathy
even to expressing their French sentiments by their dress and
manners. The change in the national attitude was reflected in
Connecticut by the whole-hearted antipathy of large numbers of her
people to what they considered "radicalism of the most destructive
character." English Arianism and Arminianism, with which the
Edwardeans had waged war, were nothing compared to the influx of
French infidelity and atheism which appeared to be sweeping over the
land. Books formerly guarded by the clergy were on sale
everywhere. They found among the masses many like Aaron Burr, who,
during his period of study with Dr. Bellamy, had preferred the logic
of the printed books upon the shelves to that of the master who placed
them there. Dr. Bellamy proposed to confute the pernicious arguments
of these books, bringing them one by one before his select body of
students, so that they should be able to guide their future
parishioners when the insidious poison of these dangerous authors,
these "followers of Satan," should force its way among them.
All sects attempted to oppose such an influx of irreligion. All but
the Episcopalians fell back upon revivals as their chief means. In
these revivals the Methodists and Congregationalists were perhaps the
most successful in securing converts. The policy of the Episcopal
church did not favor this phase of religious life. It felt that its
whole attitude was a protest against exaggerated liberty, or license,
and against all atheistical ideas. During the revivals the Baptists,
also, added largely to their numbers. The Methodists, however, brought
to their revival meetings the peculiar strength of fervent proselytes
to a new faith; of one rapidly becoming popular, appealing strongly to
the emotions, and having a touch of martyrdom still clinging to its
profession. Among those Federalists who were also Congregationalists,
the French Revolution was believed to be the "result of a combination
long since formed in Europe by infidels and atheists to root out and
effectually destroy religion and civil government." Holding this
opinion; seeing the Baptists and Methodists increasing in importance,
both in the nation and in the state; watching the continual increase
of the unorthodox and of the freethinker, and perceiving the growing
loss of confidence in the Federal party both in the nation and the
state, the Standing Order felt itself face to face with imminent
peril. It scented danger to itself and to the existence of the
commonwealth. But it sadly lacked a great leader, until the year 1795,
when it found one in the recently elected president of Yale, the
Rev. Timothy Dwight. He was a grandson of Jonathan Edwards, and was a
man of amazing energy, of varied training, and of great personal
charm.
In his experience Dr. Dwight counted a college education, a
theological training under Jonathan Edwards, Jr., a tutorship at Yale,
a chaplaincy among the rough soldiers of the war of the Revolution,
home-life on his father's farm at Northampton, where the men in the
field vied with each other "to rake or hoe beside Timothy" in order to
hear him talk. In political life Dr. Dwight had served an
apprenticeship in the General Court of Massachusetts, where he sat as
deputy from Northampton. He had had experience as a preacher in
several small towns, and as pastor at Greenfield Hill, a part of
Fairfield. There he had added to his income by establishing the
Greenfield Academy for both sexes. Upon accepting the presidency of
Yale he became also professor of theology, and in addition he took
under his special care the courses in rhetoric and oratory. These last
two, together with literature, had, he thought, been entirely too much
neglected. [g] His coming was a forecast of the man of the nineteenth
century.[199] Dr. Stiles had been a fine type of the
eighteenth. Dr. Dwight was a man of less acquirements in languages,
but he was a more accurate scholar, of broader intelligence, and with
a mind well stocked and ready. He had a pleasing power of expression,
was tactful, and could readily adapt himself to men and
circumstances. It was he who was to give Yale its initial movement
from college to university. He himself was to become a celebrated
teacher and theologian. He was to be one of the founders of the New
England school, whose principles Dr. Taylor, in 1827, was to make
known under the name of the New Haven Theology. [h] In his own day
Dr. Dwight was equally celebrated as a power both in religion and
politics. "Pope Dwight" his enemies termed him, and they nicknamed
his ministerial following his "bishops," while they dubbed the Council
or Senators "his Twelve Cardinals."
Outside his college duties, and as a part of his care for its
spiritual welfare, President Dwight's immediate purpose was to combine
all forces that could be used to stem the dangerous currents rushing
against the bulwarks of Church and State. He had early favored the
drawing together of Congregational and Presbyterian bodies. He had
discerned, as early as 1792, a stirring of new life in the religious
world, the breaking down of the apathy of half a century that had been
indicated by revivals in places far scattered, not only throughout New
England but in other states. Towns in Massachusetts, with East Haddam
and Lyme in Connecticut, had been roused as early as the year
named. That element of personal experience which had been so marked a
feature of the Great Awakening reappeared, but without that excessive
emotionalism [i] which characterized the earlier revival. Nor was
there any such pronounced leadership as then. There was the same
conviction of sinfulness, the peace after its acknowledgment, and the
joyous satisfaction in the determination to lead an upright life,
seeking God's grace and will. Recognition of this spiritual awakening
had in some measure entered into the proposed disposal of the money
from the Western Lands, as it had also in the discussion of the joint
missionary work of 1791-1794, and again in 1797-98, [200] when the
General Association of Connecticut was incorporated as the Connecticut
Missionary Society, [j] In all of these movements President Dwight had
taken an active part. Upon entering the presidency of Yale he at once
began a series of sermons, which he delivered Sunday mornings, and
which were so arranged that in each four years the course was
complete. These lectures were his "Theology Explained and Defended,"
first published in 1818. President Dwight, with the leading
Presbyterian or Congregational ministers, together with the Methodist
and Baptist clergy, continued to favor the revival movement. This
reached its height in 1807. From beginning to end it lasted nearly a
quarter of a century, and was punctuated by the revival years of 1798,
1800, and 1802, that were especially fruitful of conversions in
Connecticut. That of 1802 attracted large numbers of the college
students. The success of the revivals was marked by increasing
austerities, such as the denunciation of amusements, both public and
private, and the revival of dead-letter laws for the more strict
observance of Sunday. Traveling or driving was prohibited without a
pass signed by a justice of the peace. Travelers were held up over
"holy time." Attempts were made to prevent the young people from
gathering in companies on Sunday evenings after the Sabbath was
legally over. Too much hilarity, though innocent, was condemned. Such
restrictions were extremely distasteful to a large minority in the
state, and seemed to many citizens only repeated proofs of how closely
the government and the Presbyterian-Congregational church were banded
together. Accordingly the Republicans began to think it was time to
test the strength of such a platform as they could put forth while
making a bid for the whole dissenting vote.
The election of Adams and Jefferson [k] in 1797 was a spur to both
parties, lending hope to the scattered Republicans, and prodding the
recently over-confident Federalists. In March, 1798, the whole nation
was roused almost to forgetfulness of party lines by the anger created
by the publication of the "X Y Z Papers." A few months later the
Federal party, through its Alien and Sedition laws, had lost its
renewed hold upon the nation. Connecticut denounced the Virginia and
Kentucky resolutions of 1798-99, and was to all appearances stanchly
Federal. But her leaders were looking for another presidential
candidate than Adams, while the Republicans, elate with the
anticipated national victory in 1800, were making preparations to
catch any and every dissatisfied voter in the state. The scattered
Republican clubs and committees awoke to new activity. As Jefferson
kept his party well in hand, and let the national dissatisfaction
increase that he might rush to victory at the presidential election of
1800, so the Connecticut Republicans matured their plans. They did not
formally organize their party till 1800, first making sure of their
great leader as the nation's executive, and almost of his
reëlection. Then they began to urge the acceptance of their platform
upon the oppressed Connecticut dissenters, and to taunt the Federal
Episcopalians with an allegiance that as late as 1802 had not been
thought of sufficient worth to warrant the small favor of a college
charter for their academy at Cheshire. The Federalists attempted to
disarm the Episcopal dissatisfaction over the refusal by granting them
a license for a lottery to raise $15,000 for the bishop's fund.
The leader of the Republicans in Connecticut was Pierpont Edwards, a
recently appointed United States district judge. He was brother of
Jonathan Edwards, Jr., for years the pastor of the North Church at New
Haven, and in 1800 president of Union College. This Republican leader
was the maternal uncle of his opponent in Federal state politics,
President Dwight, and also of the Republican Vice-President, Aaron
Burr. Another nephew of his was Theodore Dwight, the brother of
Yale's president, who led the Federal civilians, and who was editor of
the "Hartford Courant," the organ of the Connecticut Federalists. The
Hartford "American Mercury" voiced the sentiments of the
Republicans. The latter party throughout the state was formally
organized in 1800 at a meeting in New Haven, the home of Mr. Edwards
and of his henchman, Abraham Bishop, son of that city's mayor.
The close personal relationship of the leaders, [l] the scorn of the
radicals, the abhorrence of the conservatives for the principles,
opinions, and even, in some cases, habits of life of their opponents,
entered into the strife and vituperation of the political campaigns
from 1800 to 1806. Personalities were unsparing, passion rose high,
and speeches were bitter. This was particularly the case in New Haven,
where Abraham Bishop's impudent boldness of attack and denunciation
was exaggerated by his father's position. Samuel Bishop, the father,
was a man of seventy-seven, and old in the service of both Church and
State. He was senior deacon in the North Church, or what was at that
time known as the Church of the United White Haven and Fair Haven
Societies. He was also a justice of the peace, town clerk, and mayor
of the city. The last office was held, according to the charter,
during the pleasure of the legislature. Samuel Bishop was also chief
judge of the court of common pleas for New Haven County, and sole
judge of probate, annual offices which the General Assembly had
re-conferred upon him in 1800 and in 1801. His son was a graduate of
Yale (1778). He was a lawyer of somewhat indifferent practice, and
from 1791 to 1798 clerk of the county court under his father, while
from 1798 he had been clerk of the superior court. Before settling
down to practice at the bar he had lived abroad, and had been caught
in the whirl of French thought and democratic ideas. He had returned
home bearing words of recommendation to Washington's secretary of
state from Jefferson's European friends. A personal meeting with that
party leader had added to Bishop's enthusiasm. For some years he had
lived in Boston, and tried his hand at literature. He had returned to
New Haven in 1791, and had thrown himself into politics. He purposely
exaggerated his opinions. He was careless of his unorthodox
expressions even to the verge of blasphemy. Though himself a believer
in God, he was perhaps what one would probably have termed a little
later a Unitarian. His enemies exaggerated his exaggerations,--and
Unitarianism was a crime according to the Connecticut statutes. [m]
In his speeches and essays Abraham Bishop struck out boldly, with
earnestness, logic, shrewd wit, and irony, and, as has been said, at
times with dangerous irreverence,--often with down-right impudence
when that would serve his purpose. An illustration of his extreme use
of it was in 1800, about the time of the organization of the
Republican party throughout the state.
He had been honored with the Phi Beta Kappa oration, annually
delivered on the eve of the Yale Commencement, then in September. A
polished literary effort was expected. He broke tradition, courtesy,
and every implied obligation in the choice of his subject. In August
he sent to the committee his paper for their acceptance or refusal. It
was entitled "The Extent and Power of Political Delusions," and was an
out and out campaign document. The presidential election was due in
November! Further, Bishop made political capital of the anticipated
refusal of his paper, which was not sent him until the eleventh
hour. The readers of the morning paper, wherein the committee offered
an apology for the change of speakers at the Society's meeting to be
held that night, were confronted by the announcement that the refused
address would be given to all who cared to listen to it in the parlors
of the White Haven church that same evening, and by the still further
notice that copies of it were fresh from the printer's hands and were
ready to be distributed to the remotest parts of the state. Needless
to state, the Phi Beta Kappa audience dwindled away to swell the crowd
of fifteen hundred, wherein Bishop gleefully counted "eight clergymen
and many ladies." The address met with great favor, and the
Wallingford Republicans at their celebration of March 11, 1801, in
honor of the election of Jefferson and Burr, asked Mr. Bishop to be
their orator. [n]
To top Bishop's insult,--as it was regarded by every friend of the
Standing Order,--came in the following spring Jefferson's displacement
of Elizur Goodrich, President Adams's appointee as collector of the
port of New Haven, and the substitution of Samuel Bishop. President
Jefferson considered himself at liberty to make this change; and all
the more so because President Adams had made the appointment as one of
his last official acts, when he must have known it would have been
unacceptable to the incoming Republican administration. The merchants
of New Haven immediately united in a petition to President Jefferson,
in which they declared that Samuel Bishop was too old to perform the
duties of the office, and, moreover, not acquainted with
accounts. Assuming that his son Abraham would assist him, they
denounced the latter as "entirely destitute of public confidence, so
conspicuous for his enmity to commerce and opposition to order, so
odious to his fellow citizens, that we presume his warmest partizans
would not have hazarded a recommendation of him." Notwithstanding
this protest the appointment was continued, the President pointing out
the honors bestowed upon the father and the care with which he,
Jefferson, had investigated the case before acting upon it. Reproving
the authorities for so long excluding the Republicans entirely from
office, Jefferson expressed his regret at finding upon his accession
to the presidency not even a "moderate participation in office in the
hands of the majority." He further stated that when such a situation
was in some measure relieved he would be only too glad to make the
question "Is he capable? Is he honest? Is he faithful to the
Constitution?" the only tests for obtaining and holding office. Samuel
Bishop died in 1803, and the collector ship was then bestowed upon his
son, who held it until his death in 1829.
In Connecticut the two political parties prepared for conflict. The
Republicans desired a new constitution and disestablishment. The old
constitutional and religious debates were opened and fiercely fought
out in pamphlet, press, sermon, and political oration. Noah Webster
replied to the "Extent and Power of Political Delusion" by "A Rod for
the Fool's Back." John Leland published his famous Hartford speech as
"A Blow at the Root, a fashionable Fast-Day Sermon," and his "High
Flying Churchman," as contributions in behalf of civil and religious
liberty. Abraham Bishop took up the latter topic in his "Wallingford
Address, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against Christianity and the
Government of the United States," published in 1802, as well as in his
"Extent and Power of Political Delusion" of 1800. A fair type of
Mr. Bishop's style and treatment is shown in his "Connecticut
Republicanism," a campaign document, wherein he sets forth his opinion
of the union of Church and State. [o]
In his campaign document under the title "Connecticut Republicanism"
Bishop declared:
Christianity has suffered more by the attempts to unite church and
state than by all the deistical writings, yet the men who denounce
them are pronounced atheists and no proof of their atheism is
required but their opposition to Federal measures.... Church and
state cannot be better served than by keeping them distinct and by
placing them where they ought to be, above, instead of beneath the
control of men who care no more for either of them than they can
turn to their personal benefit. The self-styled friends of order
have in all nations been the cause of all the convulsions and
distresses which have agitated the world.... The clergyman
preaches politics, the civilian prates of orthodoxy, and if any
man refuse to join their coalition they endeavor to hunt him down
to the tune "The Church is in danger."... In 1787 this visible
intolerance had abated in New England; there was no written law in
force that none but church-members should be free burgesses: yet
the avowed charge of Christ's church was in our law-books, some
nice points of theology were settled in our statutes and the
common law of church and state was in full force.... The
Trinitarian doctrine is established by laws, and the denial of it
is placed in the rank of felony. Though we have ceased to
transplant from town to town Quakers, New Lights, and Baptists;
yet the dissenters from our prevailing denominations are even at
this moment praying for a repeal of those laws which abridge the
rights of conscience.
* * * * *
Break the league of church and state which first subjugates your
consciences, then treating your understanding like galley slaves,
robs you of religion and civil freedom.... Thirty thousand freemen
are against the union of church and state. Thirty thousand more
men, deprived of voting because they are not rich or learned
enough, are ready to join them. [201]
In his "Wallingford Address," Bishop exclaims "The clerical
_politician_ is a useless preacher; the _political_
Christian is a dangerous statesman." On the title page of this address
appeared the epigram, "Our statesmen to the Constitution; our Clergy
to the Bible." The unfortunately irreverent parallel which Bishop drew
between the Saviour of the world and the leader of the national
Republican party, or of the democracy or common people, gave to the
epigram an evil significance not intended, and to its author a
reputation not wholly deserved.
David Daggett, a prominent New Haven Federalist and lawyer, [p] tried
in "Facts are Stubborn Things" to refute the charge that the people
were priest-ridden, the legislature arbitrary and tyrannical, the
clergy bigots. In the course of his argument he gives an account of
the reception of a Baptist petition which, voicing the smouldering
discontent that was kept burning by the certificate law, had been
presented to the legislature. Daggett charged the Republicans with
instituting the custom of holding their party meetings in Hartford and
New Haven at the time of the meeting of the Assembly in those cities,
and of making the political gathering a means of directing what topics
should be brought up for discussion in the House of Representatives,
and what discussed in their party organ the "American Mercury."
Daggett accused the Republicans of purposely choosing subjects of
discussion of an inflammable character, and declared that it was in
Babcock's paper (so called from its editor) that the Baptist petition
originated, which, circulated through the state, received some three
thousand signatures, "many of whom doubtless sought the public good."
[202] The petition was presented for trial in 1802 and a day set for
its hearing, upon which Mr. Pierpont Edwards and Mr. Gideon Granger
were to advocate it. The gentlemen, according to Mr. Daggett's
account, did not appear, and of course no trial was held. Instead, the
Assembly referred it to a committee of eighteen from the two
houses. Mr. Daggett insisted that "it was thoroughly canvassed, and
every gentleman professed himself entirely satisfied that there was no
ground of complaint which the Legislature could remove, except John
T. Peters, Esq., who declared that nothing short of an entire repeal
of the law for the support of religion would accord with his idea."
The truth of the matter was that the committee were chiefly
Federalists. Mr. Peters was a Republican. In their answer to the
petition, the committee assumed that it "was an equitable principle,
that every member of the society should, in some way, contribute to
the support of religious institutions and so the complaint of those
who declined to support any such institution was invalid." If there
was ground for complaint because of sequestration of property for the
benefit of Presbyterians only, the committee failed to find any such
cause, and if such existed, the proper channel of appeal was through
the courts. All other complaints in the petition were considered to
be answered by the assumption that the legislature had the right, on
the ground of utility, to compel contributions for the support of
religion, schools, and courts, whether or not every individual
taxpayer had need of them. The next year, 1803, the petition gained a
hearing, but that was all. It continued to be presented at every
session of the Assembly, and was first heard by both houses in
1815. It was finally withdrawn at the session that passed the bill for
the new constitution of 1818.
As one of the preliminary steps in the education of the people in
Republican principles and aims, John Strong of Norwich in 1804 founded
the "True Republican," thus giving a second paper for the
dissemination of Republican opinions. From 1792 the "Phenix or Windham
Herald" had been dealing telling blows at the Establishment and at the
courts of law through a discussion in its columns carried on by Judge
Swift, the inveterate foe of the union of Church and State, and a
lawyer, frank to avow that partiality existed in the administration of
justice. Though both the paper and the judge were strongly Federal in
their politics, they were both materially helping the Republican
advocates of reform. From the Windham press came, also, a
republication of "A Review of the Ecclesiastical Establishments of
Europe," edited by R. Huntington, with special reference to the
bearing of its arguments upon the conditions existing in Connecticut,
where illustration could be found of the absurdities and dangers that
the book had been originally written to expose. In 1803 John Leland,
representing forty-two Baptist clergymen, twenty licensed exhorters,
four thousand communicants, and twenty thousand attendants, sent out
another plea for disestablishment in his "Van Tromp lowering his Peak
with a Broadside, containing a Plea for the Baptists of Connecticut."
In it he urges that thirteen states have already granted religious
liberty, and that many of them have formed newer constitutions since
the Revolution. Such should also be the case in Connecticut. Moreover,
it could readily be accomplished at the small cost of five cents per
man. Such a small sum would pay the expenses of a convention to
formulate a constitution and another to ratify it, while five cents
more per person would furnish every citizen with a copy of the
proposed document, so that each could decide for himself upon the
constitutionality of any measure proposed, and would no longer be
obliged to read pamphlet after pamphlet or column after column in the
newspaper to determine its validity. [203]
All this was preparatory; and the first purely political note of
warning and call to battle for a new constitution was sounded by
Abraham Bishop at Hartford, May 11, 1804, in his "Oration in Honor of
the Election of President Jefferson and the peaceful acquisition of
Louisiana." He sums up the situation thus:--
Connecticut has no Constitution. On the day independence was
declared, the old charter of Charles II became null and void. It
was derived from royal authority, and went down with royal
authority. Then, the people ought to have met in convention and
framed a Constitution. But the General Assembly interposed,
usurped the rights of the people, and enacted that the government
provided for in the charter should he the civil constitution of
the State. Thus all the abuses inflicted on us when subjects of a
crown, were fastened on us anew when we became citizens of a free
republic. We still live under the old jumble of legislative,
executive and judicial powers, called a Charter. We still suffer
from the old restrictions on the right to vote; we are still ruled
by the whims of seven men. Twelve make the council. Seven form a
majority, and in the hands of these seven are all powers,
legislative, executive and judicial. Without their leave no law
can pass; no law can be repealed. On them more than half of the
House of the Assembly is dependent for re-appointments as
justices, judges, or for promotion in the militia. By their breath
are, each year, brought into official life six judges of the
Superior Court, twenty-eight of the probate, forty of county
courts, and five hundred and ten justices of the peace, and, as
often as they please, all the sheriffs. Not only do they make
laws, but they plead before justices of their own appointment, and
as a Court of Errors interpret the laws of their own making. Is
this a Constitution? Is this an instrument of government for
freemen? And who may be freemen? No one who does not have a
freehold estate worth seven dollars a year, or a personal estate
on the tax list of one hundred and thirty-four dollars.... For
these evils there is but one remedy, and this remedy we demand
shall be applied. _We demand a constitution that shall separate
the legislative, executive and judicial power, extend the
freeman's oath to men who labor on highways, who serve in the
militia, who pay small taxes, but possess no estates._ [204]
Abraham Bishop threw down the gauntlet, and in the following July his
party issued a circular letter. It emanated from the Republican
General Committee, of which Pierpont Edwards was chairman. It stated
"that many very respectable Republicans are of the opinion that it is
high time to speak to the citizens of Connecticut plainly and
explicitly on the subject of forming a constitution; but this ought
not to be done without the approbation of the party." A general
meeting was proposed to be held in New Haven on August 29, 1804. In
response, ninety-seven towns sent Republican delegates to assemble at
the state house in New Haven on that date. Major William Judd of
Farmington was chosen chairman. The meeting was held with closed
doors, and a series of resolutions was passed in favor of adopting a
new constitution. It was declared "the unanimous opinion of this
meeting that the people of this state are at present without a
constitution of civil government," and "that it is expedient to take
measures preparatory to the formation of the Constitution and that a
committee be appointed to draft an Address to the People of this State
on that subject." The address reported by this committee was printed
in New Haven on a small half-sheet with double columns, and ten
thousand copies were ordered distributed through the state.
The issue was fairly before the people. From the Federal side, just
before the September elections, came David Daggett's "Count the Cost,"
in which he ably reviewed the Republican manifesto, impugning the
motives of the leaders of the Republican party, and eloquently urging
every friend of the Standing Order and every freeman to "count the
cost" before voting with the Republicans for the proposed reform.
The fall election of 1804 was lost to the Republicans, for while they
made many gains here and there throughout the state, [q] the immediate
slight access to the Federal ranks showed that the people generally
were not yet ready for a constitutional change.
As one result of the defeat at the polls, there arose a wider sympathy
for the defeated party. When the legislature met in October, the
Federal leaders resolved to administer punishment to the defeated
Republicans. So strong was the popular feeling, and so determined the
attitude of the legislature, that it summoned before it all five of
the justices of the peace [r] who had attended the New Haven
convention of August 29, to show why they did not deserve to be
deprived of their commissions. Their oath of office ran "to be true
and faithful to the Governor and Company of this state, and the
Constitution and government thereof." What right, the Federals asked,
had they to attack a constitution they had sworn to uphold? At the
same time, several of the militia, known to be of Republican
sympathies, were also deposed or superseded. Mr. Pierpont Edwards was
allowed to make the defense for the justices. Mr. Daggett appeared for
the state. Reviewing the proceedings of the Republican meeting,
Mr. Daggett traced the history of the government of the colony and
state in order to demonstrate that the charter was peculiarly a
constitution of the people, "_made by the people_ and in a sense
not applicable to any other people." He declared the New Haven
"address" an outrage upon decency, and it to be the duty of the
Assembly to withdraw their commissions from men who questioned the
existence of the constitution under which they held them. The day
after the hearing, a bill to revoke the commissions was passed
unanimously by the governor and council, and by a majority of eleven
in the Lower House, the vote standing 67 yeas to 56 nays. This attempt
to stifle public opinion won a general acknowledgment that the
minority were oppressed. The feeling of sympathy thus roused was
increased by the death of Major Judd, who had been taken ill after his
arrival in New Haven. His partisans asserted that his death was
caused by his efforts to save himself and friends, and his consequent
obligation to appear at the trial when really too ill to be about. The
day after his death, the Republicans published and distributed
broadcast his "Address to the people of the State of Connecticut on
the subject of the removal of himself and four other justices from
office."
From this time forward the minority thoroughly realized that it was
"not a matter of talking down but of voting down their opponents."
Their leaders also understood it. Bishop entered the lists, not only
against his political antagonist David Daggett, but against such men
as Professor Silliman, Simeon Baldwin, Noah Webster, Theodore Dwight,
and against the clergy, led by President Dwight, Simon Backus, Isaac
Lewis, John Evans, and a host of secondary men who turned their
pulpits into lecture desks and the public fasts and feasts into
electioneering occasions. Their general plea was that religion
preserved the morals of the people, and consequently their civil
prosperity, and hence the need for state support. Occasionally one
would insist that it was a matter of conscience with the Presbyterians
which made them enforce ecclesiastical taxes and fines, and that all
had been given the dissenters that could be; that the Presbyterians
had "yielded every privilege they themselves enjoyed and subjected
them (the dissenters) to no inconvenience, not absolutely
indispensable to the countenance of the practice" (of dissent). David
Daggett maintained that there was a just and wide-spread alarm lest
the Republicans should undermine all religion, and therefore it
behooved all the friends of stable government to support the Standing
Order.
The Republicans vigorously contested the elections of 1804,1805, and
1806. Their second general convention, that of August, 1806, at
Litchfield, was more outspoken in its criticism, and so much bolder in
its demands that many conservative people hesitated to follow its
programme. The Republican gains were so small that after 1806 there
was a lull in the agitation for constitutional reform for some
years. It was well understood that the religious establishment was the
greatest clog upon the government. It was also thoroughly understood
by many that its destruction meant the destruction of the Federal
party in Connecticut. Consequently the Federal patronage distributed
the several thousand offices within the gift of Church and State with
a "liberality equalled only by the fidelity with which they were paid
for." So firm was the Federal control over the state that even in 1804
they risked antagonizing the Episcopalians by again refusing to
charter the Cheshire Academy as a college with authority to confer
degrees in art, divinity, and law. In the face of a strong protest, it
was refused again in 1810. The House approved this last petition, but
the Council rejected it. Naturally, the Episcopalians felt still more
aggrieved when in 1812 the charter was once more refused; but still
they did not desert the Federal party. The latter clung to the spoils
of office for their partisans, to the old restrictive franchise, and
to the obnoxious Stand-up Law, nor were they less disdainful of the
dissenters and of the Republican minority.
Yet many of their best men had come to feel that there was wrong and
injustice done the minority; that there should be a stop put to the
open ignoring of Democratic lawyers, numbering in their ranks many men
of wide learning and of great practical ability; that the spectacle of
a Federal state-attorney prosecuting Republican editors was not
edifying, and that the imprisonment of such offenders and their trial
before a hostile judiciary opened that branch of the state government
to damaging and dangerous suspicion. [205]
In July, 1812, a meeting was called in Judge Baldwin's office in New
Haven, with President Dwight in the chair, to organize a Society for
the Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Good Morals. At this
meeting the political situation was thoroughly discussed, and measures
were taken to cope with it.
I am persuaded [wrote the Rev. Lyman Beecher to Rev. Asahel Hooker in
the following November] that the time has come when it becomes every
friend of the State to wake up and exert his whole influence to save
it from innovation.... That the effort to supplant Governor Smith [s]
will be made is certain unless at an early stage the noise of rising
opposition will be so great as to deter them; and if it is made, a
separation is made in the Federal party and a coalition with
Democracy, which will in my opinion be permanent, unless the overthrow
by the election should throw them into despair or inspire repentance.
If we stand idle we lose our habits and institutions piecemeal, as
fast as innovations and ambitions shall dare to urge on the work.
My request is that you will see Mr. Theodore Dwight, expressing to him
your views on the subject, ... and that you will in your region touch
every spring, _lay_ or clerical, which you can touch prudently,
that these men do not steal a march upon us, and that the rising
opposition may meet them early, before they have gathered
strength. Every blow struck now will have double the effect it will
after the parties are formed and the lines drawn. I hope we shall not
act independently, but I hope we shall all act, who fear God or regard
men. [206]
Writing of the meeting to organize the Society for the Suppression of
Vice and the Formation of Good Morals, Dr. Beecher in his
"Autobiography" gives a sketch of the politics of the time that had
led up to the occasion. One of the prominent actors of the time, he
tells us that this meeting, composed of prominent Federalists of all
classes, was unusual, for--
it was a new thing in that day for the clergy and laymen to meet
on the same level and co-operate. It was the first time there had
ever been such a consultation in our day. The ministers had always
managed things themselves, for in those days the ministers were
all politicians. They had always been used to it from the
beginning.... On election day they had a festival, and, fact is,
when they got together they would talk over who should be
Governor, and who Lieutenant-Governor, and who in the Upper House,
and their councils would prevail. Now it was a part of the old
steady habits of the state ... that the Lieutenant-Governor should
succeed to the governorship. And it was the breaking up of this
custom by the civilians, against the influence of the clergy, that
first shook the stability of the Standing Order and the Federal
party in the state. Lieutenant Governor Treadwell (1810) was a
stiff man, and the time had come when many nlen did not like that
sort of thing. He had been active in the enforcement of the
Sabbath laws, and had brought on himself the odium of the opposing
party. Hence of the civilians of our party, David Daggett and
other wire-pullers, worked to have him superseded, and Roger
Griswold, the ablest man in Congress, put in his stead. That was
rank rebellion against the ministerial candidate. But Daggett
controlled the whole of Fairfleld County bar, and Griswold was a
favorite with the lawyers, and the Democrats helped them because
they saw how it would work; so there was no election by the
people, and Treadwell was acting Governor till 1811, when Griswold
was chosen. The lawyers, in talking about it, said: "We have
served the clergy long enough; we must take another man, and they
must look out for themselves." Throwing Treadwell over in 1811
broke the charm and divided the party; persons of third-rate
ability on our side who wanted to be somebody deserted; all the
infidels in the state had long been leading on that side ... minor
sects had swollen and complained of certificates. Our efforts to
reform morals by law were unpopular. [t]
Finally the Episcopalians went over to the Democrats. The Episcopal
split was due to a foolish and arbitrary proceeding on the part of the
Federals. In the spring of 1814, a petition was presented to the
General Assembly for the incorporation of the Phoanix Bank of
Hartford, offering "in conformity to the precedents in other states,
to pay for the privilege of the incorporation herein prayed for, the
sum of sixty thousand dollars to be collected (being a Premium to be
advanced by the stockholders) as fast as the successive instalments of
the capital stock shall be paid in; and to be appropriated, if in the
opinion of your Honors it shall be deemed expedient, in such
proportion as shall by your Honors be thought proper, to the use of
the Corporation of Yale College, of the Medical Institution,
established in the city of New Haven, and to the corporation of the
Trustees of the Fund of the Bishop of the Episcopal church in this
state, or for any purpose whatever, which to your Honors may seem
best." The capital asked for was $1,500,000. "The purpose of this
offer [u] a was a double one,--creating an interest in favor of the
Bank Charter among Episcopalians and retaining their influence on the
side of the Charter Government, as there was no inconsiderable amount
of talent among them." The Bishop's Fund, slowly gathering since 1799,
amounted to barely $6000. This bonus would give it a good start, and
conciliate the Episcopalians, still indignant at the refusal of the
Assembly to incorporate their college. When presented to the Assembly,
the Lower House favored the bank charter; the Council, rejecting it,
appointed a committee to consider its request. They soon originated an
act of incorporation, granting a capital of $1,000,000, and ordered
the bonus to be paid into the treasury. An act of incorporation,
rather than a petition, was, they claimed, the way established by
custom of granting bank charters. The same session of the legislature
originated bills giving $20,000 to the Medical Institution of Yale
College, and one of the same amount to the Bishop's Fund, "in
conformity to the offer of the petitioners for the Phnix Bank, and
out of the first moneys received from it as a bonus." The bill for
the medical school was passed unanimously by the House; that for the
Bishop's Fund uniformly voted down. [v] The Episcopalians, to whom the
Republicans were quick to offer their sympathy, asserted that by the
"grant to Yale the legislature had _committed themselves in good
faith_ to make the grant to the two other corporations connected
with it in the same petition." [w] Stripped of formal and courteous
wording, the petition, both in letter and in spirit, had offered its
conditions to all, if accepted by one; or, if refused at all, the
opportunity to divert the money from all three recipients to some
other and quite different use which should be approved by the
legislature.
The further bad faith of both branches of the Assembly increased the
enmity of the Episcopalians. In the spring of 1815, they petitioned
for their first installment of $10,000. They were told that the
treasury was empty, and that war time was no time to attend to such
matters. In the fall, in answer to their second petition, they found
the Lower House still hostile; the majority of the Council, including
the governor, in their favor, until the discussion came up, when the
Council, with one exception, sided with the House. The explanation of
the change appeared to the Episcopalians to be due to the fact that
during the session the Medical School had petitioned for the balance
of the $30,000, and seemed likely to receive it at the spring
meeting. This was too much for the Episcopalians, and thereafter the
Democrats claimed nine tenths of their vote. The sect was estimated in
1816 to contain from one eleventh to one thirteenth of the
population. The Democratic-Republicans had won over discontented
radicals, a majority of the dissatisfied dissenters, a few
conservatives, and now the indignant Episcopalians. Their political
hopes rose higher, but the War of 1812-1814 interfered, substituting
national interests for local ones, yet all the while adding recruits
to the Republican ranks, so that at its close there was a strong
party. There was also a Federal faction in process of
disintegration. The result was that when the constitutional reform
movement again became the issue of the day, though supported by the
Republicans, the question at issue soon drew to itself a new political
combine which under various forms kept the name of the Toleration
Party, and which eventually won the victory for religious freedom and
disestablishment.
FOOTNOTES:
[a] This party, called for short "Republican," stood for the
principles known as "democratic,"--the appellation of the party itself
since 1828. This was the school of Jefferson.
[b] There were men of mark among the Anti-Federalist leaders, such as
William Williams of Lebanon, a signer of the Declaration, Gen. James
Wadsworth of Durham, and Gen. Erastus Wolcott of East Windsor,--these
three were members of the Council; Dr. Benjamin Gale of Killingworth,
Joseph Hopkins, Esq., of Waterbury, Col. Peter Bulkley of Colchester,
Col. William Worthington of Saybrook, and Capt. Abraham Granger of
Suffield. At the ratification of the Constitntution the Tote stood 128
to 40. Afterwards for about ten years, in the conduct of state
politics, there was little friction, for in local matters the
Anti-Federalists were generally conservatives."
[c] Two deputies were allowed every town rated at $60,000. In 1785
Oliver Ellsworth had prepared a bill limiting towns of £20,000 or
under to one deputy. It passed the Senate, but was defeated in the
House.--_The Constitution of Connecticut_, 1901, State Series,
p. 105.
[d] In his pamphlet Dr. Gale advises that each town nominate one man,
and from the nominations in each county, the General Assembly elect
two, four or six delegates from each county to meet and frame a new
constitution, since "any legislature is too numerous a body, and too
unskilled in the science of government to properly perform such a
task" (p. 29).--J. Hammond Trumbull, _Hist. Notes on the
Constitution of Conn._, p. 17, and Wolcott's Manuscript in
_Mass. Hist. Soc. Col._ vol. iv.
[e] A similar method of election applied to the representatives in
Congress. Eighteen names were voted on in May for nomination, of which
the seven highest were listed for election in September.
[f] Bishop Seabury's church, St. James of New London, had neglected to
ohserve President Washington's proclamation of a national thanksgiving
on February 19, 1795, which fell in Lent. This roused some antagonism,
and was made the subject of a sharp and rather censorious newspaper
attack upon the Episcopalians. At the same time a few Federal
Congregationalists were further stirred by Bishop Seabury's signature,
viz. "Samuel, Bishop of Connecticut and Rhode Island," to a
proclamation that the prelate had issued, urging a contribution in
behalf of the Algerine captives. This signature was regarded as a
"pompous expression of priestly pride." Governor Huntington was a
personal friend of Bishop Seabury. Moreover, at this particular time,
the congregation to which the Governor belonged in Norwich was
worshiping in the Episcopal church during the rebuilding of their own
meeting-house, which had been destroyed by fire. The Governor had
previously been approached with a suggestion that the fasts and feasts
of the Congregationalists and Episcopalians should be made to
coincide, or at least that the annual fast day should not be appointed
for any time between Easter Week and Trinity Sunday, and that the
public thanksgivings, when occasion required them, should, if
possible, not be appointed during Lent. In 1795, the annual fast day
would have fallen upon the Thursday in Holy Week. In order to avoid
laying any stress upon the sanctity of certain days of the week, and
because Governor Huntington wished to turn the public mind away from
the petty controversy, he appointed the fast day on Good Friday. In
1796, the annual fast fell in the Lenten season. In 1797, in order to
avoid having the fast interfere with the regular sessions of the
County Courts, and at the same time to avoid its falling in Easter
week, Governor Trumbull appointed it again on Good Friday. The
arrangement was accepted with satisfaction by the Episcopalians and
with no objections from the Congregationalists, and thereafter it
became the custom. (Bishop Seabury had been elected to the bishopric
of Rhode Island in 1790.)--William DeLoss Love, Jr., _Fasts and
Thanksgivings of New England_, pp. 346-361.
[g] Early in his career he had written a versification of the Psalms,
in 1788 his _Conquest of Canaan_, and later _Triumph of
Infidelity_. President Dwight taught the seniors rhetoric, logic,
ethics, and metaphysics, and the graduate students in theology. In
1805 he was appointed to the professorship of the latter study.
[h] Dr. Dwight's _Theology Explained_ was not published until
1818, after his death, and his _Travels_ not until 1821-22.
[i] Except among the backwoodsmen of Kentucky in 1799-1803.
[j] The Society was granted a charter in 1802. In 1797 interest in the
missions was intensified by the free distribution of seventeen hundred
copies of the report of missionary work in England and America.
[k] The Rev. Jedidiah Champion of Lifcchfield, an ardent Federalist,
on the Sunday following the news of the election of Adams and
Jefferson, prayed fervently for the president-elect, closing with the
words, "0 Lord! wilt Thou bestow upon the Vice-President a double
portion of Thy grace, _for Thou knowest he needs it._" This was
mild, for Jefferson was considered by the New England clergy to be
almost the equal of Napoleon, whom one of them named the "Scourge of
God."
[l] Pierpont Edwards, b. April 8, 1750, graduated at Princeton, 1768,
died April 5, 1826.
Timothy Dwight, b. May 14, 1752, died January 11, 1817.
Aaron Burr, b. February 6, 1756, Vice-President 1801-05, died
September 14, 1836.
Theodore Dwight, b. December 15, 1754, educated for the law under
Pierpont Edwards, and practiced it for a time in New York city with
his cousin, Aaron Burr. He broke the partnership because of difference
in politics, and went to Hartford. He became a member of the
governor's council, 1809-1815; secretary of the Hartford Convention,
1814. He established the _Connecticut Mirror_ in 1809; founded
and conducted the _Albany Daily Advertiser_, 1815-16, and the
_Daily Advocate_, New York, 1816-36. He died June 12, 1846.
[m] The crimes against religion punishable by law were Blasphemy (by
whipping, fine, or imprisonment); Atheism, Polytheism, Unitarianism,
Apostaey (by loss of employment, whether ecclesiastical, civil, or
military, for the first offense).--_Swift's System of Law_, ii,
320, 321.
[n] _Oration delivered in Wallingford on the eleventh of March 1801,
before the Republicans of the State of Connecticut at the General
Thanksgiving for the election of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency,
and of Aaron Burr to the Vice-Presidency, of the United States of
America 1801._
See the appendix to the Oration for an account of the New Haven
episode.
[o] "Connecticutensis," or David Daggett, also replied in _Three
Letters to Abraham Bishop._ Theodore Dwight's _Oration at New
Haven before the Society of the Cincinnati, July 7, 1801,_ took up
the constitutionality of the charter government.
[p] Later chief justice.
[q] Windham County was steadily Republican after this election.
[r] Major William Judd of Farmington, Jabez H. Tomlinson of Stratford,
Augur Judson of Huntington, Hezekiah Goodrich of Chatham, and
Nathaniel Manning of Windham.
[s] Federalist.
[t] To preserve our institutions and reform public morals, to bring
back the keeping of the Sabbath was our aim ... We tried to do it by
resuscitating and enforcing the law (That was our mistake, but we did
not know it then.) and wherever I went I pushed that thing; Bear up
the laws--execute the laws.... We took hold of it in the Association
at Fairfield, June, 1814, ... recommending among other things a
petition to Congress." (_Autobiography_, i, 268.) At this meeting
originated the famous petition against Sunday mail.
Dr. Beeeher urged a domestic missionary society to build up waste
places in Connecticut. His sermon "Reformation of Morals practicable
and desirable" warned against "profane and profligate men of corrupt
minds and to every good work reprobate."
[u] Judge Church.
[v] The final speech in favor of the bill was made by Nathan Smith, a
lawyer of New Haven. When he had finished his eloquent setting forth
of the benefits and dangers attendant upon passing the bill, there was
an unusual and solemn silence. Dr. Gillett says if the bill had been
promptly put to vote it would probably have been passed, but the
churchlike silence was broken by a shrill voice piping forth,
"Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, what shall we sing?" The laughter which
followed broke the orator's charm and sealed the fate of the bill.
[w] See _Columbian Register_ of June 17, 1820, for a full
account of the Bishop's Fund and the final award of the bonus.