USA > Connecticut > The tercentenary of Connecticut, 1635-1935 : the Connecticut ode, the tercentenary in review, Connecticut celebrates, Connecticut and her founders, the evolution of the government of Connecticut > Part 3
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In religious affairs, Connecticut has always been highly conservative. She counts among her sons many of the greatest preachers and theologians that America has known and in Jonathan Edwards she produced a philosophical mind of the first order. Religious toleration, in the present day meaning of the term, simply did not exist in primitive New England outside of Rhode Island. The Connecticut folk had in large measure left England to be free of the persecutions of the Established Church and it was hardly to be expected that, when they had thus submitted themselves to exile, they should welcome with open arms the priests of that Church which had tormented them. The Puritans had indeed come to America that they might enjoy religious freedom, but it was a unilateral freedom, for, while it involved liberty to worship God as their consciences commanded, it did not provide for His worship in their colonies by persons who cherished different convictions and conformed to different ecclesiastical usages. Down to a late date, all persons were taxed to support the colonial church, whether they belonged to some other communion or not, to whose support they might also be contributing. This circum- stance of double taxation doubtless retarded materially the
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development in the northern colonies of the Church of Eng- land and its successor the Episcopal Church of America.
When the Methodists and the Baptists began to appear in appreciable numbers-to say nothing of the Quakers who were so numerous in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania-the Congregational authorities were at first cold and even hostile. But by the beginning of the nineteenth century, these animosi- ties had begun to fade and, when, with the arrival of the large number of Irish in the middle of the century, the Church of Rome began to gain in power, the attitude toward it of the Congregationalists was not materially different from that of the other Protestant communions.
Like Massachusetts, Connecticut was only less solicitous for the education of her children than for the safeguarding of religion and accordingly schools were early provided, at first common schools to teach reading, writing and the rudi- ments of arithmetic, a little later grammar schools capable of preparing young men for college. The legacy of Governor Hopkins in 1657 to Hartford and New Haven, in the pro- visions of which John Davenport is said to have been influen- tial, led to the establishment in the latter place in 1660 of the celebrated preparatory school which bears to this day the name of its founder. The school founded in Hartford was afterward merged with the public school system.
After prolonged effort, the Collegiate School of Connecti- cut was chartered in 1701 by the General Assembly, in re- sponse to a petition of a small group of clergymen who had met a little earlier in Branford and made a gift of books as a foundation. The School was opened at Saybrook and in 1716 removed to New Haven. In consequence of a generous gift from Elihu Yale, a retired East India merchant who had been born in Boston and was living in London, his name was in 1718 given to the institution which has since become one of the great seats of learning of the modern world. The estab- lishment of this institution was occasioned in part by the diffi-
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culty of sending boys to Cambridge, where Harvard College had been generously assisted through annual contributions from Connecticut, and in part because of an increasing distrust of the trend in theological doctrine which was manifest in Massachusetts. The general latitudinarianism in religious mat- ters which was appearing in the mother colony was anathema in Connecticut. John Davenport had in his original plan for the New Haven Colony specific provision for a college. It was therefore a happy circumstance that ultimately his dream should have come true, even though he was no longer living to enjoy it.
In 1823 the Episcopalians established Washington College at Hartford, which some years later was renamed Trinity. In 1831, the Methodists established Wesleyan University at Middletown. Both these institutions have in the last century made invaluable contributions to the educational life of the State and to the advancement of learning.
The State Normal Schools, the first of which was estab- lished at New Britain in 1850, under Henry Barnard, later the first United States Commissioner of Education, the State Col- lege at Storrs, the Connecticut College for Women at New London, and the several junior colleges in the State, to say nothing of the innumerable strong preparatory schools which have sprung up, are all striking outgrowths of the fundamental interest in education which has been so characteristic of the State.
In the Revolutionary War, as in the Civil War, Connecti- cut played a distinguished part, sending more than her fair share of troops into the line and supplying not a few of the most eminent officers. Israel Putnam will always remain one of the picturesque figures of the Revolution who early gained the confidence and respect of Washington. In the patriot Nathan Hale, Connecticut has the outstanding figure of de- voted youth, offering its fresh young life upon the altar of the country's need.
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Time does not permit that I dwell upon the notable literary history of Connecticut, important as it is. In every major form of the art of letters, the sons and daughters of the State have distinguished themselves, and in her adopted son, Samuel Clemens, Connecticut had the greatest humorist that America has produced. Nor can I give proper recognition to the emi- nent names in music and the fine arts. It must suffice to say that to all which is worthy in American culture Connecticut has contributed far more than her natural portion.
Connecticut's history is in no sense sensational and its importance lies far more in the men it produced and the ideas, habits and institutions which it fostered than in any dramatic events to which it was party. A small, inconspicuous agricul- tural community, admirably devised to perpetuate the habits of her founders, largely free of the commercial and political contacts which brought in wealth and disturbing outside ideas, she has been truthfully called the most conventionally Puritan of all the colonies, and, until the beginning of the nineteenth century, was controlled to an extraordinary degree by uniform religious ideals and purposes. Socially a homogeneous group of English stock, there were within it no great extremes of poverty and wealth. Social classes were clearly distinguished, but there seems to have been no class feeling. It is a shock to many to discover that slavery was countenanced until well into the nineteenth century, but such is the fact. Conservatism and caution, frugality and industry were universal. The idea that if the control of government were placed in the people, there would in time emerge a commonwealth built upon justice was common to Thomas Hooker and to Roger Williams and stood in sharp contrast to the more autocratic and oligarchical ideals of Massachusetts, to say nothing of the more artistocratic colo- nies to the south.
Connecticut was also peculiar in exercising powers of self- government which were almost completely independent of the royal prerogative. It was in fact, though not in British theory,
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an essentially autonomous state, choosing its own governor and making its own laws. It raised its own revenues, no part of which, except the dues for customs, ever found their way into the coffers of the crown. It acknowledged allegiance to the King and obeyed royal commands, so long as they did no obvious harm to the Colony. But it was concerned to obey God rather than the King. The obstinate resistance which Con- necticut offered to every effort to undermine her independence is thus easily intelligible. What was true of the Colony as a whole was equally true of the several communities, each of which, under its minister and the civil magistrates, conducted its own affairs.
Such an arrangement made for the development of self- respect, confidence and character, but it also made it extremely difficult to carry out any program for general betterment and it certainly resulted in highly ineffective treatment of many issues of basic importance to the Colony. The limitations of a regime based on such foundations become conspicuous only when the larger interests of mankind and the broader obliga- tions of any social order are forced into the foreground. Ulti- mately this had to occur, for Connecticut could not in perpetu- ity remain an isolated community. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries radical change has inevitably come over the face of the State. There have been very large invasions of foreign stock, to whom the traditional ideals of the Puritan are wholly alien, although almost without exception these folk have become good and loyal citizens, furnishing an important part of the labor required by Connecticut industry, bringing back into productive fertility large areas of the unused agricultural land, and in other ways playing an important part in the life of the community. For better or for worse the entire trend of national life has been away from much which the Connecticut Puritan regarded as most sacred. Despite the necessity of yielding here and there to the impact of this great sweep of modern thought and practice. Connecti-
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cut still retains in an astonishing degree the conservatism and caution which characterized her earliest history.
In these troubled times, when both at home and abroad the air is full of the clamor of shrill voices urging one radical departure after another, from the beaten path which our fathers' feet have followed, propounding in the name of popu- lar government weird doctrines in which thrift is contemned, or forgotten, in which religion is often ridiculed and held up to scorn, in which essentially dictatorial powers of government are called upon to achieve what sturdy self-reliance and indus- try have hitherto accomplished, when reasonable individual liberty is gravely and repeatedly invaded, when oppressive tax- ation is invoked to finance grandiose programs of social reform-in such a time it may well be wise to turn again the pages of our history and scan therein the lessons taught by three hundred years of quiet and sober living. The issues at stake far transcend any momentary political creeds, or any purely partisan policies, and my remarks are not directed to such. I am concerned with vastly more far-reaching matters which touch the whole philosophy of government and the rela- tion of the individual citizen to the social order, his rights, his duties and his liberties.
No thoughtful and honest man can fail to recognize that the world in which we live is in many respects widely different from that which has gone before. Science and its handmaid technology alone, to mention no other agencies, have radically altered our world in many of its essential features. Yet this fact does but emphasize the more the need of avoiding hysteria and panic, and not less the obligation to hold fast to those priceless New England virtues of patience, courage, wisdom and caution, forged as they were on the anvil of necessity and tempered in the fires of repeated national crises. Such wisdom, courage, patience and caution were peculiarly characteristic of the fathers of Connecticut, who cherished a deep and abid- ing sense of the ultimate spiritual values which alone give life
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dignity and enduring worth, maintaining a calm and unshatter- able faith that truth and justice will ultimately prevail. For- tunate shall we be, if we can prove ourselves children worthy of so proud a heritage, passing on to the generations which follow us the incomparable blessings which we ourselves have received. To no lesser cause dare we plight our fealty, and to this great end we dedicate ourselves anew.
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The Evolution of the Government of Connecticut
WILLIAM M. MALTBIE
T.
O those not familiar with the history of Connecticut it may seem strange that on this anniversary of the first meeting of the General Court, there should be gathered here the representatives of the three great departments of our govern- ment, the Leglislative, the Executive and the Judicial. Yet each here has its place, for in the General Court as it met two hundred and ninety-nine years ago today resided all these functions of government. At the first settlement of the Colony a provisional government was set up under a commission from the General Court of Massachusetts, issued to eight of the persons who "had resolved to transport themselves and their estates unto the River Connecticut", "that commission taking rise from the desire of the people that removed, who judged it inconvenient to go away without any frame of government". In this commission were named two men from each of the Plantations afterward known as Windsor, Hartford, Wethers- field and Springfield, the latter then one of the River Planta- tions; and to them was given the judicial authority "to hear and determine in a judicial way all those differences which may arise between party and party", as well as to inflict punishment for misdemeanors, and legislative authority, "to make and decree such orders for the present as may be for the peaceable and quiet ordering of the affairs of the said Planta- tion"; and because no provision was made for other officers in the settlements, to the commissioners must have belonged
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pending before it increased it began to devise methods of re- ducing the burden, limiting the nature of judicial actions it would entertain and surrendering more and more of jurisdic- tion in such matters to the courts which it established. In 1784 the functions of a Supreme Court were vested in the Lieutenant Governor and the Council and in 1806 those functions were transferred to the judges of the Superior Court as a body, five to be a quorum, who were to constitute a Supreme Court of Errors. Then followed the Constitution of 1818, with its division of the government into three distinct departments, the Legislative, Executive and Judicial. The article of that instrument establishing our courts adopted the provisions of the statute of 1806 establishing a Supreme Court and a Su- perior Court, and gave to the Legislature the power to estab- lish such inferior courts as it should from time to time ordain. The annotators of the General Statutes of 1821 stated in a foot-note that after the adoption of the Constitution "of course the Legislature cannot interpose in matters of a private nature between parties without infringing that instrument". Yet the General Assembly did continue at times to exercise judicial functions, and it was not until 1870 that it was finally authori- tatively declared that the General Assembly had no judicial power, but that all such power was vested in the judicial department.
The Executive, Legislative and Judicial departments, then, as we know them are all direct descendants from that General Court whose first assembly we hold in remembrance today. The separation of the judicial functions from the legislative was, until the adoption of the Constitution of 1818, brought about by voluntary surrender of power by the Legislature to the Courts and that document merely preserved the structure of the Courts as the General Assembly had already constituted it. The division of the functions of government into separate and independent departments, the Executive, Legislative and Judicial, following the analogy of the Federal Constitution,
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produced no observable change in the operation of our govern- ment, and Legislature and Courts continued on their accus- tomed way, exercising the same powers as before, the fact of the division never seeming even to have caused controversy. Indeed, the declaration of the principle of division made by the Court in 1870 was in a purely incidental way. With this ancient relationship between them and this long course of development, it is not strange that the history of that relation- ship has been so free of strife or bitterness. The Courts have unhesitatingly maintained their power to declare acts of the Legislature unconstitutional if in their judgment they clearly violated the principles of the State or National Constitutions ; but they have been extremely careful to take such action only when the unconstitutionality was clear and they have made every presumption and intendment in favor of the validity of the law. The Courts have striven to follow all legislative mandates within the power of the General Assembly to make. If at times the Legislature has passed acts changing the results which would follow from some decision, the Courts have cheer- fully bowed to its wisdom. On the other hand, in few if any States has the Legislature so manifested its confidence in the Courts as has the General Assembly of Connecticut, particu- larly in its surrender to them of the power to regulate matters of procedure by rule. This recognition by both of these two great branches of government that each is working within its proper field for the best interests of the State, the mutual re- gard and consideration that has existed and does exist between them, has measurably served to further the peaceful and orderly development which so characterizes the history of this Commonwealth. If this gathering serves no other purpose than to afford an outward manifestation of the relationship between the Legislative and the Judicial branches of government, which has existed in the past and should continue in the future, it will have been worth while.
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I have already referred to the commission from Massa- chusetts, which was the first governing instrument for the River Settlements, and to the Fundamental Orders. Let me now return to the latter, for they are the proudest glory of the Colony of Connecticut. I do not propose to enter here into a discussion of the moot question of the authorship of that document. To those of you experienced in the way in which such measures are formulated it must be most natural to believe that such an instrument did not spring full fledged from a single brain but that it came out of the counseling together by the leaders in the Settlement, counselings to which Thomas Hooker of Hartford, Roger Ludlow of Windsor, and others in the Settlements made their contribution; and in lack of other evidence the presumption that this was so seems the most workable hypothesis. Nor shall I discuss the question whether that instrument was adopted by the General Court or by an assembly of freemen in the Settlement; that fact we never can know with final certainty, for such evidence as exists is but circumstantial in its nature. Nor need we be concerned deeply to trace to their ultimate source the principles of gov- ernment contained in the Fundamental Orders, for no matter whence they came, in this document were they first summed up and given effect as an instrument of government. Whatever we may think upon this question, there those Orders stand upon the records of the General Court with this entry, "14th January, 1638, the II Orders abouesaid are voted". The fact that they were adopted, that under them the government of the Commonwealth was conducted until the grant of the Royal Charter of 1662, and that they did establish a Common- wealth here upon the banks of Connecticut, is after all the great outstanding fact.
All of you, I assume, are somewhat familiar with the terms of that document. It begins with a somewhat lengthy and sonorous preamble in keeping with the religious tone of the
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times, reciting that: "We the Inhabitants and Residents of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield *
* doe therefore associate and conioyne our selves to be as one Public State or Commonwealth ; and doe for our selves and our Successors and such as shall be adioyned to us at any time hereafter, enter into Combination and Confederation together, to maintain and preserve the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also the discipline of the Churches, which according to the truth of the said gospel is now prac- tised amongst us; As also in our civil affairs to be guided and governed according to such laws, Rules, Orders and decrees as shall be made, ordered and decreed, as followeth". Then follow eleven paragraphs providing for the choice of Gov- ernor and other officers and Magistrates to be elected by "all that are admitted freemen and have taken the oath of fidelity and do cohabite within this jurisdiction"; and the Constitution, sessions and calling together of the General Courts, "in which said General Courts shall consist the supreme power of the commonwealth, and they shall have power to make laws or repeal them, to grant levies, to admit of Freemen, dispose of lands undisposed of, to seuerall Townes or persons, and also shall have power to call either Courts or Magistrates or any other person whatsoever into question for any misdemeanour, and may for just causes displace or deal otherwise according to the nature of the offence; and also may deal in any other matter that concerns the good of this commonwealth, except election of Magistrates, which shall be done by the whole body of Freemen."
This document lacks some of the incidents of a constitution as we understand such an instrument today. It is doubtful whether it was adopted by vote of the Freemen as a whole and can therefore be regarded as an instrument in which the peo- ple, in whom the ultimate sovereignty resides, not only estab- lished the agencies of government but set the bounds and limi- tations to the powers which those agencies could exercise,
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beyond their power to alter ; nor did it provide that alterations in it could be made only through some process in which, under restraints designed to promote careful consideration, the ulti- mate sovereign might again give effect to its will. Indeed, in at least two instances the General Court assumed the right itself to change certain incidental provisions of the Funda- mental Orders. But as indicating that it regarded that instru- ment as representing something very different from the ordi- nary orders passed by it is the fact that twice, instead of adopting additional provisions, it interpreted those of the instrument as it stood; and when the more vital question as to the removal of the limitation that no person be chosen Governor above once in two years arose, they submitted that question to the Freemen, and when the latter voted to make the change, further action by the General Court was deemed unnecessary. But though the Fundamental Orders may lack some of the elements which characterize a modern constitu- tion, it was in essence and intention a constitution, that is, a framework of government defining and limiting the powers of the agencies established, designed to be more enduring than the ordinary laws passed by the General Court. So of it John Fiske could say that it "was the first written constitu- tion known to history that created a government and it marked the beginning of American Democracy". And so has it been hailed, not by men of Connecticut alone, however trustworthy be the witness of such scholars as Bushnell, Bacon and Baldwin, Trumbull and Johnston, but also by such his- torians as Bancroft and the Englishmen Bryce and Green.
. The underlying spirit of the Fundamental Orders found expression in a sermon preached by Thomas Hooker a short time before they were adopted, to the Representatives assem- bled for the General Court, with others of the people. There have come down to us but brief notes of that sermon, kept by one who heard it; yet, as strangely as the disconnected fragments of the Scriptures have enshrined for all time the
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teachings and picture of Jesus of Nazareth, so those notes bring to us the spirit of them who adopted the Fundamental Orders. Two of the heads of his discourse were: "That the Choice of Public Magistrates belongs to the People by God's own Allowance"; "That they who have the Power to Appoint Officers and Magistrates, it is in Their Power also to set the Bounds and Limitations of the Power and Place into which they call them". In the course of the sermon Hooker said : "The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people", and finally he closed with this ringing challenge: "As God has given us liberty let us take it". The Funda- mental Orders were the concrete expression of the spirit voiced by Hooker. That spirit had in it the essence of democ- .. racy. The foundation of the authority of government is the free consent of the people to be governed; it is for them to appoint the agencies which shall administer that government and for them to set the bounds and limitations upon the power of those agencies. That is the heart and soul of constitutional democracy.
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