USA > Connecticut > The history of Connecticut, from the first settlement of the colony to the adoption of the present constitution, vol. II > Part 44
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" As I suppose it not probable that you ever saw Judge Smith, as he ceased to
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GENERAL GOVERNMENT SUPPLICATED.
[1815.]
ington, under such instructions as the governor might think proper to give them; and earnestly supplicate the General Government that Connecticut might be empowered to pro- vide for the defense of her own territory, and that a reason-
attend courts in 1819, and died when you was very young, I will observe, what you have doubtless heard, that he was a large and fine appearing man, much of the same complexion of the Hon. Truman Smith, his nephew, with whom you are so well acquainted ; less tall than he, but of rather fuller habit. His face was not only the index of high capacity, and solid judgment, but uncommonly handsome ; his hair was dark and thin, though not to baldness, except on the fore part of his head, and was very slightly sprinkled with gray. His fine, dark eyes, were re- markably pleasing and gentle in ordinary intercourse, but very variable, always kindling when he began to speak in public, and, when highly excited in debate, they became almost oppressive. His voice was excellent, being both powerful and harmonious, and never broke under any exertion of its capacity. His manner was very ardent and the seeming dictate of a strong conviction of the justice of his cause ; and his gestures were the natural expression of such a con- viction. Mr. Smith's style was pure and genuine Saxon, with no attempt at classic ornament or allusion. His train of reasoning was lucid and direct, and evincive of the fact that the whole of it was like a map spread out in his mind's eye from the beginning. His ingenuity was always felt and dreaded by his opponent. He spoke with much fluency, but with no undue rapidity ; he never hesitated for or haggled at a word, nor did he ever tire his audience with undue prolixity, or omit to do full justice to his case for fear of tiring them ; and indeed there was little danger of it. Though certainly a very fine speaker, he never achieved or aspired to those strains of almost superhuman eloquence with which his old master Reeve, sometimes electrified and astonished his audience, and yet, in ordinary cases, he was the most correct speaker of the two-though Judge Reeve was, and he was not, a scholar. Mr. Smith, though quite unassuming, and often receding in com- mon intercourse and conversation, was, when heated in argument, it must be con- fessed, often overbearing to the adverse party, and, not only to them, but to their counsel. Upon all other occasions, he appeared to be, and I believe was, a very kind hearted, agreeable and pleasant man. To me, he always so appeared, and I have been much in his company.
" Mr. Smith came early into public life, and was frequently elected to the Gen- eral Assembly from Woodbury. In 1795, he was elected a member of the fourth Congress ; and in 1797, he was chosen to the fifth Congress ; but declined further election. In May, 1799, he was made an assistant, and was re-elected for the five following years, when he resigned his seat at that board in consequence of the passage of the act in 1803, prohibiting the members of the then supreme court of errors from practicing before that court. He remained in full practice at the bar until October, 1806, when he was elected a judge of the superior court, and con- tinued to fill that office until May, 1819, when the judiciary establishment of that year went into operation ; from which time he remained in private life until his death.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
able portion of the taxes might be appropriated for that pur- pose. Our senators and representatives in Congress, were requested to cooperate with the commissioners in effecting the object .*
In May, Nathaniel Terry, Seth P. Staples, and David Deming, Esquires, were appointed a committee to revise all the militia laws of the state.
From this time until the close of the war, few events of general interest transpired, in which Connecticut partici- pated. When the news of peace arrived in February, 1815, Admiral Hotham commanded the blockading squadron off New London. He immediately came on shore, and was received with great courtesy by the civil authority and citi- zens. On the 21st, the city was illuminated, and a festival was held to which all the British officers on the coast were invited. Those present, were Captains Aylmer, of the Pac- tolus, Garland of the Superb, Gordon of the Narcissus, Jayne, of the Arab, the commanders of the brigs Tenedos, and Despatch, and ten or twelve officers of inferior rank. Commodores Decatur and Shaw assisted in receiving the
" In every public station in which Mr. Smith was placed, he distinguished him- self. He did so in Congress, at a time when our representation was as able, per- haps, as it ever has been, and when the character of the house to which he belonged was far higher than it now is. In the superior court he was certainly very greatly respected and admired, as an able and perfectly upright judge.
" In private life his name was free from all reproach. A strictly honest and pure life, free from any of those little blemishes which often mar the fame of dis- tinguished men, may, I think, be fairly claimed by his biographer to be his due. As a husband, a parent, a friend, a neighbor, a moralist, and a christian, I believe few have left a more faultless name.
" If, sir, the foregoing facts and suggestions will be of any use to you, I shall feel gratified in having furnished them. In the success of the undertaking in which you are engaged, I feel an interest. It is one which has been quite too long neglected.
" I am sir, very respectfully yours,
" D. S. BOARDMAN." G. H. HOLLISTER, Esq.
* State Records, MS. Probably the tidings of peace, which reached this country soon after, rendered it unnecessary for the commissioners to act under this appointment.
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EXCHANGE OF SALUTES.
guests. On the 11th of March, the British ships left the Sound, exchanging salutes with Fort Trumbull, and put out to sea .*
The war having ended, the jarring interests of the State and General Government were harmonized, and the bitter partizan feelings which it engendered gradually gave place to those of a more charitable and pacific nature.
* Caulkins' Hist. New London, pp. 636, 637.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE PRESENT CONSTITUTION OF CONNECTICUT.
THE narrative of this work, already extended beyond the limits first assigned to it, is now drawing to a close. An account of the constitution of 1639, the first written constitu- tion of the world, has been given in a former chapter. The varied fortunes of the republic under the charter of 1662, have also been critically detailed. Upon the declaration of independence, all the old political charters were severed from the crown, the original fountain-head of executive power, and lost at once their administrative force, except so far as the people should suffer them to remain, and either for- mally or tacitly adopt them as their own. Hence it was, that with two exceptions, all the colonies which had been concerned in that protracted but ultimately successful strug- gle for liberty, cast off their charters, and falling back upon the democratic basis elaborated by Roger Ludlow and adopted by Connecticut in 1639, constructed for themselves, with various modifications, paper constitutions, originating with the people and recognizing their sovereignty. Connec- ticut was one of those exceptions. It may at first seem strange to the reader that she, who, in the infancy of her ex- istence, had tasted the sweets of liberty, should allow others to profit by her original example, while she clung to the forms of the charter that had been granted by one king, with as much tenacity as she had cut herself adrift from the domination of another. She adopted the charter, too, by a mere legislative vote, without even resorting to the authority of the people in a primary assembly.
In order to understand why Connecticut did not follow the course pursued by other states, we must examine the struc- ture of her society, which differed so materially from that of
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NEW POLITICAL ELEMENTS.
her confederate sisters. In the first place, her charter was better than theirs. Hers had a vitality in it that had kept the popular mind in a continual glow ; theirs were cold and dead. Hers had proved a shield, extending the circumfer- ence of its orb, to save the lines and defend the enlarging borders of three generations of men; theirs had proved totally inadequate to the growing wants of their respective communities. Connecticut had an additional motive to love her charter. While one after another, those of the neigh- boring colonies were dropping like ripe fruit into the hands of provisional governors, and other rapacious functiona- ries of the crown, she had hidden hers in an oak, and the recollection of peril from which her idol had escaped, caused her to love it the more. Still another motive, stronger perhaps than all these, induced her to cling to it. A major- ity of the inhabitants were still puritans, and under this charter, fortified by statutes having close affinities with it, had grown up an established religion, which they regarded as of the highest importance to their well being in this world and the next.
But gradually there grew up new elements that threatened, if left to themselves, to overthrow the supremacy of the old order of things. Statutes were passed to check the advanc- ing tide of what was believed by the majority, to be radical- ism of the most destructive character. Some of these acts were regarded by the minority as arbitrary and oppressive. Those bearing upon the elective franchise were looked upon as especially tyrannical. The " stand-up law," as it was de- nominated, which required the voters to stand up at elections and expose themselves and their political sentiments to the scrutiny of the public, was complained of as subjecting the voter to the cruel ordeal of being gazed at by his creditors. It was said further, that all offices of emolument, honor, and trust, were withheld from the minority.
The courts of law, too, were made the subject of severe animadversion. It was said that the judges were partizans in their legal opinions, and that the republicans, as they were
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called, could not meet the federals in the tribunals of the state upon an equal footing. The minority also alleged that they were disparaged in all their business relations ; that they " were treated as a degraded party, and that this treatment was extended to all the individuals of the party, however worthy and respectable in fact ; as the Saxons were treated by the Normans, and as the Irish were treated by the Eng- lish government."*
Such were the sentiments of the respective parties. As early as the year 1800, petitions began to be circulated through the state, asking for the choice of members of the council and representatives to Congress by districts. It was now more boldly than ever asserted that the charter, excellent as it had been in its day, was behind the spirit of the age, and though a very good instrument for the majority, was not adequate to protect the minority from oppression. Still, no decisive steps were taken to bring about the adoption of a new constitution, until the 29th of August, 1804, when a convention, numbering among its members many of the most respectable of the minority leaders, and understood to repre- sent the sentiments of the republican party of the state, convened at New Haven, and passed a series of resolutions in favor of the change which they had so much at heart. It is sufficiently evincive of the fever-heat of the political pulse of that day, that every justice of the peace belonging to the minority, who had attended the convention, was tried and impeachedt before the next General Assembly. This attempt to stifle the expression of the public sentiment, only gave the minority the sympathy of many of their fellow citi- zens, who were now ready to assent to the claim that the republicans were persecuted.
In August, 1806, a second convention or meeting of re- monstrance, was held by the same party at Litchfield, which was even more bold and decided in its tone than the one at New Haven had been.
To recite the details of the party strifes of that day, would
* See Judge Church's MS. + Idem.
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RELIGIOUS SECTS.
be to dig up from the graves that ought forever to hide them, some of the most bitter and malignant pamphlets and news- paper articles that ever disgraced the politics of the northern states. The whole ground seemed to be covered with pamphleteers, libellers, scurrilous poets, and all the other driftwood that the swollen currents of popular prejudice and bad passions can dislodge from the ooze, where they lie half hidden or remote from view, in quiet times. The malaria con- sequent upon this flood was confined to neither party, and was so contaminating that it seems to poison the lungs even now, as it rises in vapor and is inhaled by the reader who adven- turously seeks to investigate the history of those times.
The war of 1812, and the Hartford Convention, did not of course tend to allay the excitement.
The war closed with a much better reputation than the federalists had anticipated. In many parts of the country it was very popular, and in Connecticut it had obviously gained friends as it advanced, and many of them of a high order of respectability and talents.
As in the Revolution, so in the war of 1812, and in the po- litical disputes that preceded and followed it, the old congre- gational clergy constituted the nucleus of the dominant party. This influence, as was claimed by the minority, more than any other single element, controlled the elections, and their annual meetings at Hartford were declared to be not altogether of a spiritual tone. It was also affirmed that nomi- nations for office were often made through the procurement of some influential clergyman, and some of the republican ora- tors and writers went so far as to say that the whole ticket of state officers was often the result of a conference between the leaders of a dominant party and this oldest and most un- mixed of all the conservative classes of the state. As has been stated in a former chapter of this work, religious sects had been from a very early day tolerated in Connecticut to a degree unknown in Massachusetts, and many other colonies. But although they were allowed the undisturbed enjoyment of their peculiar tenets, yet, as it was then, and still is in
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
England, the establishment was considered as entitled to the patronage of the government. All other denominations were treated as subordinates, and were understood, from the very theory and spirit of the government, to hold their posi- tion by sufferance rather than of right. But it was now argued with great earnestness, that the sects as familiarly called " dissenters" as the puritans had been in England, were now several of them large, and had already acquired a respectable footing in the state; that they were generally sprung from the blood of the old emigrants, had been born upon the soil, and had as good a right to be consulted in the deliberations of the government as the congregationalists. They said that they were willing to admit that the old order of things was well fitted to the condition of the people a cen- tury and a half before, but they denied that any such distinctions ought longer to exist. , Appeals were made to the people on both sides, displaying great ability and learning.
It finally began to be whispered that some one of the de- nominations called dissenters must be conciliated, or the federal party would be overborne at last by the concerted action of those who were opposed to the congregational form of religion. When the charter of the Phoenix Bank was asked for, it was therefore suggested that the $50,000 bonus which was to be sequestered from its large capital, for public uses, should be divided between Yale College and the Bishop's Fund, and petitions were circulated to that effect among the people .* Some of the federalists thought it desirable to con- ciliate the episcopalians, who now numbered some of the first men in the state.t
The bank was chartered, and $20,000 of the bonus was bestowed upon Yale College, but from some cause the Bishop's Fund did not get the portion anticipated by its friends. This was a severe disappointment to the denomination in- terested in that fund. The episcopalians now arrayed them-
* Vide Columbian Register, June 17, 1820.
t Among them were the Ingersolls, Nathan Smith, Johnson, Chapman, Peters, Morgan.
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THE TOLERATIONISTS.
selves against the party in power, with all the appliances that they could bring to bear upon an opponent .*
In 1816, the party in power passed an act to appropriate the monies received from the treasury of the United States, for disbursements made during the war, to religious uses, and divide them among the several denominations of the state. This measure was complained of, and proved to be very un- popular. The methodists and baptists indignantly refused to receive the share allotted to them in the division, and now more than ever before, took part with the minority and advo- cated with the episcopalians the cause of the new constitu- tion. Nor were the difficulties that beset the federalists merely external. They had become divided in their coun- sels. Some of them supported Treadwell as their candidate for the office of governor, and another, and, as they termed themselves, a more liberal portion of the same party, as ear- nestly advocated the claims of Roger Griswold for the same place. This attempt to elect Griswold proved on the first trial to be a failure. The next year, however, by a union of the democrats with the federalists who had voted for him, he was elected governor.
A new party now arose under the name of " toleration- ists," which came into power in 1817, and took as speedy measures as possible to bring about the change that had so long been desired by the various elements that composed it.
At the May session of the General Assembly, 1818, it was " Resolved, that it be and is hereby recommended to the people of this state, who are qualified to vote in town or freeman's meetings, to assemble in their respective towns on the 4th day of July next, at nine o'clock in the morning, at the usual place of holding town or freeman's meetings, and after having chosen their presiding officer, there and then to elect by ballot as many delegates as said towns now choose repre- sentatives to the General Assembly, who shall meet in con- vention at the state house in Hartford, on the fourth Wednes- day of August next ; and when so convened, shall, if it be
* Church's, MS.
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT.
by them deemed expedient, proceed to the formation of a constitution of civil government for the people of this state."
It was further provided, that a copy of the constitution, when so formed, should be transmitted to each town clerk in the state, who was directed to lay it before the people of the town to which he belonged in legal town meeting, for their approbation and ratification. The constitution, when thus ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the state, it was ordered, should " be and remain the supreme law of this state."
All these causes so briefly enumerated, were instrumental in bringing about the adoption of the constitution. It has been my object in this chapter, to avoid expressing any party predilections. The participators in that severe contest are many of them still living, and vividly remember and keenly feel the part that they played in it. Those who are dead have transmitted their sentiments to their children. As a matter of course, therefore, this is a delicate and difficult part of our history to treat upon, and one that calls for the indulgence of every candid reader. The bitter strifes, the abusive pamphlets, the scornful speeches, the appeals from the pulpits of all denominations, the prosecutions for libel, the in- terruption of social intercourse in families and neighborhoods, no longer disturb the peace or darken the moral atmosphere of our state. Indeed, it now seems to be the better opinion, that there was much to praise and much to blame in the or- ganization of all parties, and that all were ashamed, after the heat of the battle was over, for many things that they had allowed themselves to say, to write, and to do, and were glad to shake hands and pass mutual acts of oblivion, which should cover their own conduct as well as that of their opponents. Gradually, too, most of them learned to reverence the old charter for the good it had done during a hundred and fifty years of hard and honest service, while at the same time they spoke, some loudly, and others in a more subdued tone, in praise of the constitution which gave equal rights, ecclesias- tical as well as civil, to all the inhabitants of the state.
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HON. JOHN COTTON SMITH.
[1787.]
It seems proper to add to this chapter a brief delineation of the character of His Excellency John Cotton Smith, the last of that class of our governors who were actuated by the principles, and who exhibited in their manners more stri- kingly than their successors have done, the traits designated by the now indefinite term "gentlemen of the old school." He was the last of our governors under the charter who loved it and would have been ready to die for it. In order that we may understand why this was so, and see at a nearer view the delicate yet firm fibres of his character, it will be necessary to give a brief outline of his life. It has been pre- viously stated that the clergymen of Connecticut, under the old regime, constituted the most select and thorough-bred class of our colonial aristocracy. Now when it is recollected that the subject of this sketch was a descendant of the Rev. Henry Smith, of Wethersfield, who, as he tells us in his will, had " well proved the terrors of this wilderness ;" that he also inherited the blood of John Cotton, Richard Mather, and Cotton Mather ; that the beautiful daughter of the Rev. Wil- liam Worthington, of Saybrook, was his mother, and that his father was also a clergyman of uncommon powers of mind, great force of character and scholarly attainments of a high order-we are ready to expect from him an exhibition of some of their strongest points of character and especially a firm attachment to the colonial party. When we are told that to all these hereditaments, he added rare gifts bestowed by a discriminating Providence only upon a favored few; a handsome person, features classically beautiful, a natural gracefulness, a ready wit, and culture, laborious enough to shape all these materials and give them due development and proportion ; we are prepared to see in this only son, so care- fully brought up in the way that his fathers had walked, and so critically educated, an exhibition not only of the strong characteristics of the historical men from whom he was de- scended, but a model of the Christian gentlemen worthy to form the study of millions now growing up in our country, who appear to worship no God so much as that golden one
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which is molded by their own hands ; who regard principles as the artist does the colors that he spreads upon the can- vas-valuable only to form a surface; and who look upon the social and domestic relations, as so many wares and com- modities that have their price in the great world's fair of business.
As a statesmen, Governor Smith was also of the old school. He was in favor of the established order of things under which the state to which he belonged, and whose institutions his ancestors had adorned, had grown up and had been able to resist so successfully the misrule of British par- liaments and the measures of ministerial oppression. He was of course, by nature and education, as much opposed as Burke was, to the recklessness that led to the bloody scenes of the French revolution, and was distrustful, as many good men then were, of the advancing waves of popular power that were fast fretting away the long-settled foundations, which then supported the fabric of European and American society. In the struggle that followed that event, he sym- pathized with England for the same reason. Though not blind to her faults and spurning her tyranny, he loved her sobriety of character, her good sense, her warm adherence to the Christian faith, while he shrank from the blood-stained maxims and hollow pretensions of French philosophers and propagandists, with loathing and horror.
In 1800, he was elected a member of Congress. He had not anticipated the possibility of such an event, and was only persuaded to accept the place by the solicitations of Gover- nor Trumbull and his other friends. When he took his seat in Congress, the federal party still held the ascendency, but its sun was destined soon to set never to rise again. He re- mained a member of the House of Representatives for a period of six years, and during that time, with the exception of a single session, was in the minority. It may be safely affirmed that no gentleman of that body was more widely known, or more highly respected by both parties. Most of this time he was chairman of the committee on claims, and
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