The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut by M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

M >> M. Louise Greene, Ph. D. >> The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

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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
reelection. 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.

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