USA > Connecticut > Tercentenary pamphlet series, v. 3 The Beginnings of Roman Catholicism in Connecticut > Part 45
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This is usually considered the first move toward reli- gious liberty in Connecticut. The concession was the first breach in the wall of Congregational uniformity. As such, it deserves emphasis. But it is to be observed that tolera- tion had been granted only to those orthodox and sound in the fundamentals of the Christian religion. Moreover, all citizens were still subject to ministerial taxes, and to fines for the neglect of the same or for failure to attend religious services.
The authorities certainly had no thought of tolerating dissenters who might weaken the established church, as their treatment of the Rogerenes a decade after the law of 1669 showed. Though few in number, these fanatics, whose ideas seem to have originated in Rhode Island, refused to take an oath, opposed taxes for the clergy, profaned the Sabbath, and vehemently delivered public insults to magistrate and clergyman alike. Imprison- ment and fines chilled their ardor, and it was not until forty years later that much attention was paid to them. Eventually, the authorities learned that to ignore them was as effective as any method to render them harmless.
II
Warfare and a growing indifference to religion marked the closing years of the seventeenth century and the opening years of the eighteenth. Strong, dominant, and protected by the state, Congregationalism became lax in matters of faith and morals. The general assembly ap- peared more concerned over the decay of religion than the ministers, and frequently tried to arrest the drift of the times. Especially noteworthy was the report on the state of religion, called for by the general assembly in 1714. The report listed as common evils the neglect of public worship and contempt of authority, both ecclesias- tical and civil. The assembly thereupon ordered the local magistrates to tighten the enforcement of the laws pertain- ing to religious observances.
The general assembly took two actions in 1708 which showed, on the one hand, how political adroitness often led to a widening of religious privilege, and, on the other, how ready the assembly stood to favor the established churches, even at the expense of liberty.
The first was the Toleration Act. Anglicans had been working to establish a church at Stratford. One of their clergymen had preached and baptized persons there and at Fairfield. Though no violent persecution had occurred, only protests, the situation was full of dynamite, for any outbreak of popular feelings against the Anglicans might bring down on Connecticut the full force of royal dis- pleasure-possibly the annulment of the charter. Complaints had already reached the home government of the coldness with which Anglicans had been received. With these factors in mind, and with the English Tolera- tion Act of 1689 before it as an example, the general assembly passed a measure "for the ease of such as soberly dissent from the way of worship and ministrie established by the antient laws of this government."
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Dissenters were given permission to form separate churches, provided that they entered their names in the county court of their residence. They were still bound, however, to pay the tax for the support of the estab- lished clergy. Thus, the government coupled a practical tolerance with a determination not to weaken or under- mine the established church.
The second event of 1708, the adoption of the Say- brook Platform, looked toward a strengthening of the ecclesiastical control of the churches. The platform and its adoption by the general assembly effected a reor- ganization on a presbyterial basis of such Congregational churches as assented. In place of the former independence and autonomy of each church, as provided for in the Cambridge Platform of 1648, control of polity was now handed over to associations and consociations. Since a large proportion of the churches entered into the scheme, the result was a surrender of the liberty heretofore en- joyed by individual churches. The platform fettered liberty within the establishment for nearly eighty years, especially after 1743, when the platform was made obligatory on all Congregational churches. Dissenting societies were not affected, as their right to organize according to the Toleration Act was reaffirmed in a proviso attached to the platform.
The increase of Anglicans in the years after 1708, the defection of Rector Cutler of Yale and four members of the New Haven association to the Anglican church in 1722, and the organization of an Anglican parish at Stratford in 1723, naturally displeased Congregational- ists in general and the authorities in particular.2 Never- theless, petitions against church taxes from Anglicans,
2 See O. S. Seymour, Beginnings of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut (no. XXX in this series).
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Baptists, and Quakers, and the fear that such complaints might reach the British authorities, led the general assembly to modify the established policy. A law of 1727 permitted an Anglican society within the bounds of a Congregational parish to receive the church taxes paid by its own communicants. If the taxes thus collected were not sufficient, the society was given power to levy and collect higher rates. Moreover, Anglicans who con- tributed the tax to the support of their own church were to be excused from taxes for the building of Congrega- tional churches. There was an element of the ironic in this law, for the government was thereby bound to enforce the collection of rates for the Anglican clergy.
Two years later, the same privileges were extended to Baptists and Quakers. Neither group numbered more than a handful-after twenty-five years of activity the Baptists had formed only two churches, while the Quakers were without an organized society-and the authorities wisely calculated that the extension of the privilege could do no harm and might possibly avoid complaints in the future. By the laws of 1727 and 1729, Connecticut took long strides toward the still distant goal of full religious freedom.
IV
THE customary calm demeanor of the magistrates suf- fered a rude shock from the Great Awakening,3 the series of religious revivals that reached their height from 1740 to 1742. The preachers of the Awakening, led by Jona- than Edwards, scandalized the supporters of the stately and formal religion of the day. They embarrassed the
3 See M. H. Mitchell, The Great Awakening and other revivals in the reli- gious life of Connecticut (no. XXVI in this series).
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regular clergy by their unorthodox and violent appeals to emotion. They frequently intruded into a parish without permission, and took matters out of the hands of the established clergyman. Soon the colony was divided into warring factions, Old Lights and New Lights, as the enemies and friends of the movement were called. Each party indignantly vilified the other. To the New Lights, their opponents were upholders of a cold, lifeless religion; to the defenders of the old order, the preachers of the Awakening were unreasoning fanatics, a menace to the social and moral order.
As might be expected, the general assembly did not sit idly by. In 1742, "an Act for regulating Abuses" was passed to suppress the mounting disorders. No support was to be given a minister who intruded into the parish of another. If an unordained person preached in the parish of a settled clergyman, he was to be fined one hundred pounds. Any outsider guilty of offense was to be expelled from the colony.
The next year the court tried to suppress the New Lights by a law which not only intensified the spirit of revolt among them, but also roused the ire of the churches outside the establishment. The Toleration Act of 1708 was repealed and the organization of dissenting churches was allowed only by permission of the general assembly. Only non-Congregational societies were eligible for such organization. The law thus made the Saybrook Platform mandatory upon all Congregational churches, and dashed the hopes of New Lights who contemplated organization on the principle of the Cambridge Platform. Dissenters were irritated because, instead of being al- lowed to secure permission to organize from their county court, they now had to appear before the general as- sembly to qualify and secure permission. Furthermore,
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whereas the law of 1708 had made organization a right, it was now to be a favor granted or withheld, according to the assembly's discretion. The law was harsher in sound than in its effect upon the dissenters. The forma- tion of Anglican and Baptist churches continued, and it is to be remembered that Congregational churches also had to comply with these measures. Incidentally, this law contained the first legislative discrimination between Roman Catholic and Protestant in the clause permitting only Protestant dissenters to organize.
The ruffled conduct of the authorities was but one indication that the Great Awakening had stirred the religious life of the colony to the depths. Forces of great moment had been set in motion. The unity of Congrega- tionalism was broken. The schism between Old Lights and New Lights started a strong movement within the established church for release from the limitations and obligations imposed by the Saybrook Platform. The Separates or Separatists, as those seeking release were called, organized churches in defiance of the law. Despite persecution and almost crushing tax burdens, about thirty Separate churches sprang into existence, chiefly in New London and Windham counties, during the ten or fifteen years following the Awakening. For about thirty years, they remained a source of annoying opposition to the establishment. Many of these societies and many in- dividual Separatists later went over to the Baptist ranks, while others were reconciled to the established church.
While orthodox Congregationalism was thus being weakened and the Baptists were receiving new recruits, the Anglican churches made capital of the prevailing confusion, and by their composure and stately cere- monies gained many converts among those repelled by the emotional excesses of the revival. No fewer than five
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new Baptist and eight new Anglican societies were or- ganized in the decade following the Awakening. The augury for the future of the establishment was ominous, for every gain made by the churches outside the fold brought nearer the dawn of religious liberty and the severance of the ties that bound church and state to- gether.
For the moment the Separates bore the brunt of magisterial wrath. The authorities might permit Angli- cans or Baptists or Quakers to organize churches, but they beheld with dread the extension of the same privi- lege to Congregationalists who wished to withdraw from the establishment. The Old Lights resolved to use their authority to enforce such penalties as the statutes im- posed. Separatist families frequently had their estates levied upon because of their refusal to pay taxes for the established church. The sons of a Separate minister were expelled from Yale. Petitions to the court for relief from the deprivation of liberty "tolerated by the King"-one in 1753 bore the signatures of twenty Separatist churches and over one thousand persons-were coolly ignored.
The period of repression was comparatively brief, for the growth of a sentiment unfavorable to harsh measures toward dissenters led to the omission of the persecuting acts of 1742 and 1743 from the revision of the laws in 1750. The revision also reinstated the law of 1708 govern- ing the organization of dissenters. Furthermore, the aware- ness of the general assembly that the colony would suffer politically if the British authorities became dis- pleased was a significant reason for moderation. When the Baptists and Separatists turned in 1756 to England with a long tale of persecution, the danger of annulment of the charter again loomed. Rather than risk that, the deputation to England did not press their grievances
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further than to obtain a censure of the colonial assembly by a parliamentary committee. The Connecticut magis- trates, however, had learned a lesson. Thereafter they shrewdly toned down their methods, and in the years following even Separates found it not impossible to se- cure special exemptions from church rates. Nevertheless, the antagonism rankling in the breasts of the Old Light faction was apparent. That Separates and dissenters had before them a prolonged struggle to abrogate the Say- brook Platform and to secure equality and freedom was even clearer.
V
THE second half of the eighteenth century saw the weakening of conservative Congregationalism and the steady increase in strength of a sentiment favoring leniency toward dissenters. The spirit of the times favored the Separates and dissenters and in the years just pre- ceding, during, and after the Revolution, they were able to make notable advances toward their great objective- full religious liberty. The Puritan spirit was on the decline, the spirit of secularism was in the ascendant. In such an era the champions of liberty found their enemies weaker and their own strength greater.
The decline of the Puritan spirit and of its persecuting tendency was none the less real though gradual. The French wars, culminating in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), brought laxity in religious interest and lowered standards of morality. Many a Connecticut lad returned from the wars to find himself strangely indif- ferent to spiritual matters, and with an outlook distinctly altered by his contacts with freethinkers among the British and French soldiers. Military and political ques- tions became the staple of conversation and even the
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pulpit reflected the secular spirit in the new emphasis placed upon the topics of the day. The appearance of newspapers during the war helped to shift interest to nontheological affairs.
Political liberalism contributed its share to the new secularism and, indirectly, to the movement for religious liberty. The natural rights theory of John Locke had already permeated American society, and intellectuals were beginning to come under the influence of the French philosophers with their theories of the equality of man and of the folly of persecution for religious belief. The Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War were presently to lend strength to the proposition that all men are entitled to equal rights. Naturally, the enemies of the church-state system, not only in Con- necticut but throughout the colonies where such a system prevailed, were quick to point out that the new idealism applied in the religious realm as well as in the political.
Furthermore, the political controversy of the decades prior to and during the Revolution aggravated the fear of strong government and supported the idea that that government is best which governs least. That the increase of these sentiments weakened popular faith in the wisdom of a state church can hardly be gainsaid. The champions of liberty were not slow to demonstrate that such a church had all too often been an instrument of tyranny.
Several other circumstances placed Baptists and Sepa- rates in a position of distinct advantage in arguing their cause. The unsettled times, the rise of a rational and scientific spirit, the progress of Arian and Arminian views, and the consequent weakening of dogmatic Calvinism, all helped to diffuse tolerance of varying viewpoints and to create an atmosphere in which criti-
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cism of the church-state system would find a more re- ceptive audience.4
Baptists and Separatists, moreover, were able to win a. large measure of public respect by making common cause with the established church against the project of an American episcopate, and against British encroach- ments both before and during the Revolution. The long- mooted project of an American episcopate came nearer to realization in the decade of the 'sixties than ever before, and was viewed by the Puritan colonies as a menace to their religion as well as a part of a larger design to reduce the colonies to British control. At the same time, the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and other measures caused Puritan New England to bristle with opposition. Here again, as during the war which followed, Baptist and Separate principles supported Congregational resist- ance, for all three groups associated the Christian re- ligion with ideals of political liberty. No Congregational legislature could fail to recognize the worth of Baptist and Separate churches at such a time, when the pulpit was the chief means for molding public opinion.
Accordingly, it is not surprising that a law of 1770 should have excused conscientious dissenters from attending worship in an established church, provided
4Franklin and Jefferson illustrated the rise of the scientific and rational spirit. Among the leaders of the period from 1750 to 1800 who strongly in- fluenced the religious thought of Connecticut were Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), Joseph Bellamy (1719-1790), Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), Ezra Stiles (1727-1795), Nathaniel Emmons (1745-1840), and Timothy Dwight (1752-1817). The vigor of the defense of Calvinism by Edwards and Bellamy indicated their fear of Arminianism and Arianism. Emmons at- tacked the presbyterial scheme of the Saybrook Platform. President Dwight of Yale vigorously opposed the separation of church and state. William E. Channing later declared that Stiles and Hopkins had great influence upon him as a youth in making the ideals of tolerance and rational inquiry after truth attractive.
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they attended worship by themselves. Another measure of the same year exempted the estates of all ministers of the gospel from taxation. In 1777, Separates were ex- empted from taxes for the support of the established church if they could furnish proof of support of their own churches.
These concessions failed to satisfy dissenters, for they wanted not toleration but full religious liberty-that is, the abolition of the Saybrook Platform, the dissolution of the union of church and state, and the repeal of all laws in restraint of freedom of conscience and of worship. For over twenty years they had been petitioning the as- sembly and conducting an aggressive pamphlet warfare against the church-state system. They had pointed out the fallibility of a religion that demanded state support and employed persecuting methods. They had poured caustic invective on ministerial taxes and the fines and imprisonment meted out to dissenters, and had con- stantly invoked the principle, long since enunciated by Oliver Cromwell, that the state should take no notice of a man's opinions, provided he serves it faithfully. Were they now merely to receive concessions from a govern- ment which claimed the right to rescind them, when justice, as they viewed it, demanded liberty as a right?
The drive for separation of church and state went un- relentingly on, with the immediate object of the Separate attack the Saybrook Platform. Sentiment rose against the law of 1743 making that platform the only legal basis for Congregational organization; numerous individuals and churches within the establishment favored a return to the Cambridge Platform principle of the local inde- pendence of each church. In 1784, the legislature bowed before the pressure. The revision of the laws made in that year omitted mention of the Saybrook Platform from the
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statute to secure the rights of conscience to Christians, and thus tacitly abrogated the platform. The Separates had won a signal victory, for their chief stumbling block was now removed, and they were free to organize under the same conditions as other Congregational churches.
At the same time, dissenters received new privileges. All dissenting churches were allowed to manage their own financial affairs with no greater amount of govern- mental control than that imposed on the established churches, and a wider latitude was granted newcomers to the state in the choice of church affiliation. The laws of 1784, however, still regulated the religious life of the state with great thoroughness, for the union of church and state was retained, taxes as heretofore were to be levied for the support of the clergy, and fines for the neglect of religious observances might still be imposed. More than thirty years were yet to pass before complete separation of church and state was to be achieved.
Meantime, the period immediately following the Revo- lution witnessed the Americanization and nationaliza- tion of two churches which were to throw their strength on the side of the Separates and dissenters in securing liberty. Both the Anglican churches and the Methodist societies organized as American institutions in 1784-a step made necessary, as independence had severed the ties binding them to the mother country. Thenceforth the Protestant Episcopal Church-a mere shadow of its prewar strength-strove to live down its Tory reputation and vigorously supported the movement to separate church and state in Connecticut. Although Francis Asbury and his co-workers had been laboring in the country with marked success for two decades, the Methodists did not appear in Connecticut until 1789. From that date onward their zeal and rapidly increasing
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numerical strength were to be vital factors in the struggle for religious liberty.
The years of the French Revolution saw a reaction to conservatism in Connecticut-a mood engendered by the dying down of the wartime fervor for liberty, by the ex- cesses of the antireligious activities of the French revolu- tionists, and by a series of revivals in religion that swept over the state during the closing years of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the nineteenth.5 Many, like President Dwight of Yale, were convinced that a state church was still needed for both religious and social reasons, and that the steady habits of the fathers were still appropriate.
This reaction first expressed itself in the Certificate Act of 1791 which required that dissenters' certificates for exemption from the support of the established church be henceforth signed by civil officials. Since the latter were in most cases members of established churches, and since they had the right to sign or not, according to their personal judgment as to the justification of the applica- tion, the law threatened to work hardship on many dis- senters. A further attempt to discriminate in favor of the establishment was the law of 1793 to appropriate interest on money received from the sale of Connecticut's Western lands to the various denominations in such manner as the assembly might decide. Naturally, dis- senters feared that the method of apportioning the funds would put them at a relative disadvantage, since most legislators were partial to the established church.
Instant opposition arose from all dissenting groups to both the Certificate Act and the law of 1793. Only six months after the passage of the former measure, it was
5 See M. H. Mitchell, The Great Awakening and other revivals in the reli- gious life of Connecticut (no. XXVI in this series), pp. 23 ff.
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repealed, and another law passed to permit dissenters to write their own certificates without signature by civil officials. In 1795, the Western lands act was changed to provide that interest on receipts from the sale of Western lands should be apportioned among the school societies, . thus establishing the state's permanent School Fund. Retractions like these demonstrated the persistent strength of the movement for liberty.
VI
AT the dawn of the nineteenth century, Connecticut was one of the few states that had not followed the example of the national constitution in banning religious tests for qualification to office, and in forbidding church establish- ments as well as in securing complete freedom of worship. Before two decades had passed, the Land of Steady Habits was to enter a new constitutional era in which church and state would be separated and complete free- dom of conscience and worship guaranteed. The forces which brought this to pass were numerous and inter- locked. Among them, the following deserve emphasis: the blunders of the Federalists who were the defenders of the Standing Order, the rise of democratic sentiment, the pressure of changed economic conditions, the movement to secure a new constitution, and the energetic policies and activities of the enemies of the church establishment. The achievement of religious liberty came, therefore, as one result of a general movement to secure changes of far- reaching political, constitutional, and social significance.6
It is conceivable that the defenders of the establish- ment might have staved off defeat many years longer
6For an extended account of the struggle for a new constitution, the reader should consult Richard J. Purcell, Connecticut in transition, 1775- 1818 (Washington, 1918).
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than they did, if their political leaders had possessed greater foresight and understanding of the temper of the times. To resist change when change is the cry of the day, or to alienate supporters, hardly betokens political acumen. The Federalists opposed the extension of de- mocracy at a time when the sentiment was spreading wide and fast that to place the vote in the hands of the common man would solve the world's ills. They insisted upon the need of a church-state system at a time when the experiments in Virginia and elsewhere were con- vincing an increasing number that no violent dissolution of society would follow the separation of church and state. Probably most fatal of all, they championed an unpatriotic sectionalism in a period that saw the rise of strong nationalistic feeling.
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