Where Conscience Was Free--Roger Williams and His Providence Colony--
Driven by Persecution from Massachusetts--Savages Receive Him Kindly
--Coddington's Settlement in Rhode Island--Oliver Cromwell and Charles
II. Grant Charters--Peculiar Referendum in Early Rhode Island.
"Take heart with us, O man of old,
Soul-freedom's brave confessor,
So love of God and man wax strong,
Let sect and creed be lesser.
"The jarring discords of thy day
In ours one hymn are swelling;
The wandering feet, the severed paths
All seek our Father's dwelling.
"And slowly learns the world the truth
That makes us all thy debtor.--
That holy life is more than rite,
And spirit more than letter.
"That they who differ pole-wide serve
Perchance one common Master,
And other sheep he hath than they
That graze one common pasture."
WHITTIER.
One New England community stood apart from all the rest. Roger Williams,
a learned and able minister, supposed to have been born in Wales, came to
Boston in 1630, accompanied by his wife, Mary, an Englishwoman. Williams
denied the right of the magistrates to interfere with the consciences of
men, and also held that the Indians should not be deprived of their lands
without fair and equitable purchase. His stand in favor of soul-liberty
was a novelty in that age when State and Church were regarded as
inseparable, the only difference on this question between Massachusetts
and England being as to the character of the public worship which the
State should enforce upon consciences willing and unwilling. The doctrine
of Roger Williams, therefore, seemed to the Boston authorities to strike
at the very foundation of all government, and in particular of their
government. In the autumn of 1635, when Roger Williams was pastor of the
church at Salem, the General Court of Massachusetts ordered him to quit
the colony within six months. Afterward suspecting that Williams was
preparing to found a new colony, the Boston magistrates resolved to
deport him to England, and a vessel was sent to Salem to take him away.
Williams received timely warning, and fled from his home in mid-winter,
and made his way through the wilderness to the shores of Narragansett
Bay. He was joined by five companions, and at a fine spring near the head
of Narragansett Bay they planted a colony, and Williams called the place
"Providence," in grateful acknowledgment of God's providence to him in
his distress. Williams and his companions founded a pure democracy, with
no interference with the rights of conscience. Indeed, they carried this
principle to an extreme at which even in these days most people would
hesitate, for one member of the colony was disciplined because he
objected to his wife's frequent attendance on the preaching of Mr.
Williams to the neglect of her household duties. Rhode Island became a
refuge for the victims of Puritan intolerance, without regard to their
belief or unbelief, and was therefore held in hatred and contempt by the
Boston people. This very hatred was the salvation of Rhode Island, the
government of England being favorably inclined to the colony on account
of the stubborn and independent attitude of Massachusetts toward the home
authorities.
The name "Rhode Island" requires mention here of the fact that Rhode
Island and Providence Plantations were originally separate settlements.
In 1638 William Coddington, a native of Lincolnshire, England, and for
some time a magistrate of Boston, was driven from Massachusetts along
with others who had taken a prominent part on the side of Anne
Hutchinson, in the controversy between that brilliant woman and the
dominant element of the church. Coddington and his eighteen companions
bought from the Indians the island of Aquitneck, or Rhode Island, and
made settlements on the sites of Newport and Portsmouth. A third
settlement was founded at Warwick, on the mainland, in 1643, by a party
of whom John Greene and Samuel Gorton were leaders. Roger Williams went
to England in the same year, and in 1644 he brought back a charter which
united the settlements at Providence and on Rhode Island in one colony,
called the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The charter was
confirmed by Oliver Cromwell in 1655, and a new charter was granted by
Charles II. in 1663. Under the Parliament charter of 1664 Providence, in
1647, sent a "committee" to Portsmouth to join with committees from other
towns in order to form a government. The fifth "act and order"
established by this convention provided that each town should send a
committee to every general court, and these, like the deputies in
Massachusetts and Plymouth, could exercise the powers of the freemen in
all matters excepting the election of officers. The committee from each
town was to consist of six members.
A peculiar feature of early Rhode Island government was the jealousy with
which the people retained in their own control the law-making power.
Matters of general concern were proposed in some town meeting, and notice
of the proposition had to be given to other towns. Towns which approved
of the proposition were ordered to declare their opinion at the next
general court through their committees. If the court decided in favor of
the proposition a law was passed which had authority only until ratified
by the next general assembly of all the people. The general court was
also allowed to debate matters on its own motion, but its decisions must
be reported to each town by the committee representing that town. A
meeting of the town was held to debate on the questions so reported and
then the votes of the inhabitants were collected by the town clerk and
forwarded with all speed to the recorder of the colony. The latter was to
open, in the presence of the governor, all votes so received, and if a
majority voted affirmatively the resolution of the court was to stand as
law until the next general assembly. This complex method was repealed in
1650, and instead, it was ordered that all laws enacted by the assembly
should be communicated to the towns within six days after adjournment.
Within three days after the laws were received the chief officer of each
town was to call a meeting and read them to the freemen. If any freeman
disliked a particular law he could, within ten days, send his vote in
writing, with his name affixed, to the general recorder. If within ten
days the recorder received a majority of votes against any law, he was to
notify the president of that fact and the latter in turn was to give
notice to each town that such law was null and void. Silence as to the
remaining enactments was assumed to mean assent.
After 1658, the recorder was allowed ten days instead of six, as the
period within which the laws must be sent to the towns. The towns had
another ten days for consideration, and then if the majority of the free
inhabitants of any one of them in a lawful assembly voted against a given
enactment, they could send their votes sealed up in a package to the
recorder. If a majority from every town voted against the law it was
thereby nullified; but unless this was done within twenty days after the
adjournment of the court the law would continue binding. In 1660, three
months were allowed for the return of votes to the recorder. Instead of a
majority of each town, a majority of all the free inhabitants of the
colony was sufficient to nullify a law. The charter of King Charles II.
restricted the privilege of voting to freeholders and the eldest sons of
freeholders.