USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > Thirteen historical discourses, on the completion of two hundred years : from the beginning of the First Church in New Haven, with an appendix > Part 9
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they felt that for them to wink at any offenses against it, was to usurp God's supremacy.
Something of the effect of this influence still lingers among us. No small part of our population consists of strangers, if not foreigners-men whose whole character has been formed elsewhere and under other agencies. Magistracy too has lost much of its sacredness, by being sometimes committed to unclean or incompetent hands, and by the abuse which party malignancy continually heaps upon the persons of magis- trates. Yet, after all, there is here a veneration for law, and a " deference to judicial decisions,"* which I have not seen surpassed in any similar community. Wo to those men who are laboring to counteract such a sentiment. If they do it in the sacred name of liberty, or in the more sacred name of philanthropy, theirs is the greater condemnation. Far dis- tant be the day when here the white wand of an unarmed constable shall lose its potency, or when that word, THE LAW, shall no longer be a word of power to still the tumult of the people.
* One day last spring, just before the delivery of this discourse, the author, being in Boston, entered the gallery of the Marlborough chapel, where a so- ciety, claiming a high place among tbe philanthropic institutions of the age, was holding its anniversary. One of the leading spirits and public agents of the society was holding forth his sentiments on that part of the Federal Con- stitution, which requires an apprentice or servant fleeing from one State into another, to be given up to those who, by the laws of the State from which he flees, are entitled to his services. He was expressing the hope that juries in New England, trying cases under this constitutional law, would so far perjure themselves as to bring in verdicts contrary to known law and fact ; and in so doing, he expressed great contempt for that " strange deference to judicial decisions," as he called it, which is so prevalent in the community,- as if he did not know that it is this very deference to law as expounded and applied by the judges of the land, that permits him to wear his head in safety.
An association, protesting against an existing law as unwise, or unjust, and using lawful means to change the law, is one thing. An association which undertakes to pronounce the law no law,-to denounce the sworn ministers of the law, to whom the constitution gives no discretionary power, as crimi- nals " against freedom, humanity and religion,"-to organize measures for resisting the law,-is another thing, and is likely to do more harm, by teach- ing people to despise all government and magistracy, than it can do good by any philanthropic endeavors.
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3. The colony of New Haven was distinguished among the colonies of the New England confederation, for scrupu- lous justice towards the Indians. Hubbard testifies respect- ing the fathers of New Haven,-" They have all along been mercifully preserved from any harm or violence from the In- dians, setting aside a particular assault or two, the means whereof hath been a due carefulness in doing justice to them upon all occasions against the English, yet far avoiding any thing like severity or flattery for base ends."* How often, and how justly, has Penn been lauded for the fact, that under his administration his colony had no collision with the Indians. And is not the same praise due to the civil and religious lead- ers of the New Haven colony for the parallel fact, that the relations between New Haven and the wild tribes around were always those of perfect amity? The Indians of this neighborhood, as all our records show, looked upon their English neighbors as their protectors. When one of them felt himself wronged by the white men, he came to the courts here with his complaint as freely as if he were a citizen. The testimony of an Indian was good against a white man. Again and again white men were found guilty and punished on no other testimony. The white man who wronged an Indian, was punished the more severely, as his conduct tended to prejudice the heathen against the gospel, and to cause the name of God to be blasphemed among the Gentiles. The Indian who was found guilty of an offense, was treated the more gently because of his ignorance, and being dismissed with such punishment as the rules of righteousness seemed to require in such a case, was told that had he been an Englishman he would not have come off so easily. All the maligners of the Puritans may be defied to show, that one. rood of ground, within this colony, was acquired otherwise than by a free, fair bargain, and equitable payment.+ In all this you see the character of those two men by whom the policy of this jurisdiction was chiefly influenced, just as
* Hubbard, 322.
t Some details on this subject will be found in the Appendix No. VIII.
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plainly as in some recent measures towards the Indians you see the character,-I will not say of those who are in author- ity,-but of those by whose influence in this matter, those in authority are governed, as the clouds are turned by the wind.
4. The little theocracy in which Eaton and Davenport were the Moses and Aaron, was distinguished from the other New England colonies by the absence of frivolous or extrav- agant legislation. Great ridicule has been thrown upon the Puritans for their sumptuary laws, their regulations respect- ing dress, manners, and expenditure, their authoritative in- terference with the varying fashions of the day. And to a great extent it has been taken for granted, upon unfounded report, that the old New Haven colony was the scene of whatever was most absurd, or most ludicrous in that sort of legislation. Liars of all degrees, as if to take their revenge on Governor Eaton for his law against lying, have exercised their talent in defaming his memory, by defaming the colony for which he lived.
Now as for sumptuary laws,-laws regulating expenditure and restraining extravagance and folly,-I have no disposition to vindicate them on the score of policy. But that they are intrinsically and essentially ridiculous, I cannot admit. I have never ascertained from history that such laws, enacted by Lycurgus or Numa Pompilius, brought boundless con- tempt upon their authors. And how such laws must needs be more absurd or ludicrous in Massachusetts, than they were in Sparta or in Rome, I am at a loss to understand. And still more mysterious is it, how the New Haven colony, in which no such laws ever existed, should be made a scape- goat, to bear away into the wilderness the sins in this particu- lar of her more eastern confederates.
Laws were made in some of the colonies, prohibiting the use of tobacco, which was considered as a sort of intoxication. To the lovers of tobacco, this doubtless seems arbitrary and absurd. But such as are unable to enter into their peculiar feelings, having never acquired a relish for this filthiest and most noisome of narcotic poisons, may be excused from join-
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ing on this account in the condemnation of Puritan tyranny, and may perhaps be allowed to entertain some doubt whether such a law, especially in a new colony, might not be reason- ably vindicated. But however that question may be decided, the matter of fact is, that the use of tobacco, in a proper place, was not unlawful in the New Haven jurisdiction. The only law here on this subject, was a law to guard against acci- dents by fire ; and it prohibited the taking of tobacco "in the streets," or "about the houses," or " in any place where it can do mischief." Similar laws now exist in the cities of Massa- chusetts, and ought to exist in every city that pretends to be well regulated.
Laws were made in some of the colonies against men's wearing long hair ; laws which, to those who have observed how some of the foplings of this day are beginning to cari- cature humanity, and to make themselves more hideous than owls, will seem to be very excusable; but no such laws ex- isted in New Haven.
Laws were made elsewhere to restrain the vagaries and follies of fashion in regard to female attire. But I can find no evidence that any thing of the kind was here attempted. Here the ladies were permitted, as now, to put on whatever decorations seemed good in their own eyes, and in the eyes of their husbands and fathers, subject to no other checks than those imposed by the good sense of a sober-minded and in- telligent community.
The reason of all this must be found in the fact that the settlers of New Haven, and especially those two by whose influence every thing of this kind appears to have been chiefly directed, were men who saw, or at least felt, the impolicy of legislative interference in such matters. The other colonies were settled by emigrants from various provincial towns and agricultural districts ; and in the eyes of such people, how- ever intelligent and sensible in other respects, novelties and extravagances of apparel are apt to seem particularly heinous. New Haven was settled chiefly by a migration from the city of London ; the principal adventurers were merchants ; and
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the two leaders were men who had seen the various modes and fashions of various countries, and whose position in their own country had enabled them to see so much of " Vanity Fair," that they were not easily alarmed by the few rags of it which might follow them into the wilderness. If the weight- ier matters of education, religious order and instruction, sound morals, and the thorough execution of justice, could be secur- ed, they were willing that others should care for the " mint, anise, and cummin" of apparel and furniture.
I shall be considered by some as giving a partial, if not a partisan view, if I fail to notice two other topics, which, however, can be noticed here only very briefly.
Did these men believe in witchcraft? Certainly they did. Mr. Davenport, as well as Mr. Hooke, introduced the sub- ject sometimes into his preaching, just as Sir William Black- stone, at a much later period, introduced it into his commen- taries on the laws of England. Mr. Davenport probably never called in question for a moment, the then universal opinion of the reality of commerce between human beings and the invisible powers of darkness. And shall he be set down as a weak and credulous man because he did not throw off all the errors of the age ? Shall the age in which he lived be deemed an age of extraordinary credulity, because it did not rid itself of prejudices and terrors which had been grow- ing in the world ever since the flood ? Shall the age of an- imal magnetism take credit to itself because it does not be- lieve in witchcraft ?
Yet it may be stated, as one of the points of difference be- tween this and the sister colonies, that there was never any execution or condemnation for witchcraft within the bounds of the New Haven jurisdiction. One execution took place at Hartford in 1647, and, within a few years afterwards, an- other at Stratford, and a third at Fairfield. In 1648, the first execution for this crime took place in Massachusetts. But here, in 1653, a woman finding herself talked of as sus- pected, sued all her neighbors, including several of the first people in New Haven, for defamation ; and the result was,
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that while she was herself constrained to acknowledge that some things in her conduct were sufficient to justify suspi- cion-among which causes of suspicion, was that discontented and froward temper which Mr. Davenport in his preaching had described as preparing a person to be wrought upon by the devil in this way ;- and though she was seriously warn- ed by the court not to go about with railing speeches, but to meddle with her own business ; the crime of witchcraft could not be made out against her. Twice afterwards the same person was called in question for this crime, but in each case, though the evidence was sufficient, according to the notions then current, to justify suspicion, she escaped condemnation. Under almost any other jurisdiction of that age, this woman, instead of dying as she did in her bed, would have died upon the gallows, or have been burned alive. The reason of her escaping here must be found, I apprehend, in the fact that here, according to their interpretation of the " judicial laws of God," nothing was considered as proved but by the testi- mony of two or more witnesses to the same particular ; and in the fact that there was no jury here, to determine the question of guilt or innocence, according to their impressions received from the testimony as a whole. The trial by jury is invaluable as a security for liberty against a strong govern- ment, but it is not the surest way of excluding popular pre- judices and passions from the administration of justice .*
But I am asked again, Did not these good fathers of ours inflict punishment on the Quakers? I answer, They did, not indeed by hanging, but by branding, whipping, and fining ; and I doubt not that if these penalties had not kept their coast clear from such invaders, they would have pro- ceeded to hanging. They did not understand aright the great principles of universal religious freedom. They came here for their own freedom and peace ; and that freedom and peace they thought themselves authorized and bound to de- fend against all invaders. The Quakers, however, whom
* Kingsley, 53 and 100,
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they punished, were not a sect rising up on the soil of New England, and claiming simply the right of separate worship and of free discussion. They were invaders who came from Old England to New, for the sole and declared purpose of disturbance and revolution. They came propagating prin- ciples which were understood to strike at the foundation not only of the particular religious and civil polity here establish- ed, but of all order and of society itself. In their manner of proceeding they outraged peace and order, openly cursing and reviling the faith and worship which the New England- ers had come to the world's end to enjoy in quietness, the ma- gistrates venerable for wisdom and public spirit, and the min- isters whose gifts and faithfulness were esteemed the bright- est glory of the land. They outraged the religious rights and freedom of those whom they came to enlighten, thrusting themselves into worshiping assemblies on the Lord's day and on other occasions, and interrupting the worship or the ser- mon with their outcries of contradiction and cursing. They outraged natural decency itself; one of their women-preach- ers, Deborah Wilson by name, "went through the streets of Salem naked as she came into the world ;"* and in other in- stances, they came in the same plight into the public religious assemblies ;+ and all to show by that sign the nakedness of other people's sins. I cannot doubt that such people-if in- deed they were not too insane to be accountable for any thing-deserved to be punished, not for their opinions, but for their actions ; not for their exercising their own rights, but for their invading the rights of others ; not for their pub- lication of offensive and even disorganizing doctrines, but for their outrages on decorum, and their disturbances of the pub- lic peace. If we condemn our fathers in this matter, it should not be because they punished such offenders, but because they punished them for heresy.
But let us compare the conduct of our ancestors in this very matter, with the conduct of some in our more enlight-
" Hutchinson, I, 204.
+ Mather, Magn., VII, 100.
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ened and free thinking age. The real successors of the Quakers of that day-the men who come nearest to those enthusiasts in their actual relations to the public-are not to be found in those orderly and thrifty citizens of Philadelphia who are distinguished from their fellow citizens in Chestnut street, by a little more circumference of the hat, and a little peculiarity of grammar, and perhaps a little more quietness and staidness of manner. What we call Quakers in this generation, are no more like George Fox in his suit of leather, than the pomp and riches of an English Archbishop are like the poverty of an Apostle. Do you find these men going about like mad men, reviling magistrates, and all in authority, cursing ministers, and publishing doctrines that strike at the existence of all government ? No, if you would find the true successors of the Quakers of 1650, you must look elsewhere. The anti-slavery agitators of our day, are extensively re- garded very much as the Quakers were regarded by our an- cestors. Some of them execrate our constitution and our laws, and revile our magistrates, and utter all manner of re- proach against our ministers and our churches. Some of them go about preaching doctrines which tend not only to the extinction of the " peculiar institutions" of one part of our country, and the subversion of our " glorious union," but to absolute and universal anarchy. We cannot indeed charge upon them every thing that was charged upon the ancient Quakers : Mr. Garrison himself has not yet put on the leather jerkin of George Fox ; nor have we heard of his attempting, like Humphrey Norton, to break in with his ravings upon the solemn worship of a religious assembly on the Sabbath ; nor has Miss Grimké, or Miss Abby Kelly, set herself to testify against the sins of the people in just the same style with Deborah Wilson. But they have published doctrines highly offensive to public opinion, and as is commonly believed highly dangerous to society ; they have invaded Congress with their petitions ; nay, it is even reported that they have been seen in public places, walking arm in arm with persons of African descent and complexion. And how are these men
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treated, in our age of toleration and free inquiry ? How are they treated by those who are most fiercely liberal, in the condemnation of our ancestors for persecuting the Quakers ? The answer is found in the roar of mobs and the smoke of smouldering ruins-in presses violently suppressed-in the murder of editors, and the acquittal of the murderers by per- jured jurymen. How are they treated in those enlightened regions of the Union, where Puritanism, Blue laws, and New England intolerance, are renounced most fervently and de- voutly ? Let one of these " pestilent fanatics" adventure on a mission in Mississippi or Virginia, and how much better does he fare than Humphrey Norton fared in Plymouth and New Haven ?* The " little finger" of a Lynch Committee, is " thicker than the loins" of a Puritan magistracy, against the fanatics that make war upon established opinions and cherished institutions.
What then is the chief difference between that age and the present, in respect to tolerance, in an extreme case like that of the Quakers? The difference is just this. Our ancestors made laws against the fanatics with whom they had to do, and boldly and manfully maintained those laws. The Qua- ker who suffered in New England, suffered the penalty of a known law, after a judicial conviction. In our day, on the other hand, laws to limit freedom of opinion and of discus- sion, are inconsistent with the enlightened and liberal max- ims of government, that now so happily prevail ; and there- fore what the law cannot do, in that it is weak, must be done by the mob, without law and against law, in that high court of equity where rage, more fanatical than any other fanati- cism, is at once accuser, witness, judge, and executioner.
But we return to our narrative of the life of Davenport. Some things which might properly be included in such a nar- rative, have already been noticed, in the account which has been given of the organization of the Church, the election and ordination of officers, the erection of the house of wor- ship, and the forms of worship and of discipline.
* Kingsley, 99.
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At first, as we have already observed, the two chief foun- ders of our community saw their enterprise succeeding in some measure according to their hopes. Immediately a town, with " fair and stately houses," began to rise around them. The foundations of the Church and of the civil State were laid according to their apprehensions of the word of God. The house of worship was reared, and filled with devout and consenting worshipers. Confederate neighbor towns were built on the right and on the left, and planta- tions of great promise were made on the island. And while in their native country all things were tending to confusion, and men's hearts were failing them for fear of what might come upon the land in the progress of God's judgments, here seemed to be realized more and more the vision of the new heavens and the new earthi wherein dwelleth righteousness ; and already men were beginning to look to this new world for lights and models by which to reform the institutions of the old.
In the year 1642, letters were sent from several members of both houses of parliament, and from some ministers in England, earnestly inviting Mr. Davenport, with Mr. Hooker of Hartford and Mr. Cotton of Boston, to return to their na- tive country for a season, in order to assist in conducting to a happy issue the great revolution then in progress there. Those who made the request are said to have been desirous, of securing the independence of the Churches, and were probably solicitous to obtain in England at that time the as- sistance of men so distinguished by their abilities and expe- rience, who would take strong ground not only against the then established system, but also against that " classic hier- archy," as Milton called it, which the Scotch were then endeavoring to force upon the English Churches. " The condition," said they, " wherein the state of things in this kingdom doth now stand, we suppose you have from the re- lations of others; whereby you cannot but understand how great need there is of the help of prayer, and improvement of all good means, from all parts, for the settling and com-
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posing the affairs of the Church. We therefore present to you our earnest desires of you all. To show wherein, or how many ways, you may be useful, would easily be done by us, and found by you, were you present with us. In all likelihood you will find opportunity enough to draw forth all that helpfulness which God shall afford by you. And we doubt not these advantages will be such, as will fully answer all inconveniences yourselves, Churches or plantations, may sustain in this your short voyage and absence from them. Only the sooner you come, the better."
When this invitation was received at Boston, such of the magistrates and ministers of that colony as could be conveni- ently assembled, met for consultation. Most of them thought that it was to be regarded as "a call of God ;" yet they chose not to give any definite advice till they should hear from Connecticut and New Haven. Upon the return of the mes- senger that was sent to these parts, it appeared that Mr. Hooker was averse to the proposal, " nor thought it any suf- ficient call for them to go a thousand leagues to confer with a few persons that differed from the rest in matter of church government." Mr. Davenport was himself of a different mind ; but the brethren of his Church, having set time apart to understand the mind of God in the case, came to the con- clusion, " that in regard they had but one officer, they could not see their way clear to spare him for so long a time as such a journey required." Mr. Cotton was strongly inclined to comply with the invitation, and would have gone, if the others had not declined going. Had any of them gone, it is probable they would have been drawn, like Hugh Peters, into the vortices of that vast commotion, and would never have returned to their Churches in New England .*
* Winthrop, II, 76. Hubbard, 409. Hutchinson, I, 115. It is somewhat remarkable that these letters are said to have contained an invitation to seats in the famous Westminster Assembly. The fact is, that the parliamentary ordinance calling that Assembly bears date June 12, 1643; and yet these let- ters were received in Boston in September, 1642. The invitation, signed by members of both houses of Parliament, and by some ministers, (which Hutch- inson gives at full length,) makes no mention of any expected Synod or As-
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For a while, the colonists here adhered steadfastly to their original plan, of supporting themselves in their exile, and building up their town, by commerce. They built some shipping. They purchased lands on the Delaware, and at some other places, and erected trading-houses to buy beaver of the natives. They sent their cargoes into foreign parts, and expected to make such gains as would support and extend their town, so beautifully planned. But soon it began to ap- pear that their commercial enterprises, undertaken perhaps on too large a scale at first, and with too little knowledge of the particular nature of the business, were likely to be involved in disaster. Some of their number seem to have returned to England ; while not a few, who had been expected to bring large accessions of wealth and strength, never came. Those that remained found their cstates sinking so fast, that some- thing must be done to retrieve their fortunes, or all their hopes would fail. Accordingly, about eight years after their arrival here, "they did, as it were, gather all their re- maining strength to the building and loading out one ship for England, to try if any better success might befal them." The ship, whose name no record and no tradition has re- tained, seems to have been the property of an association. The " company of merchants in New Haven," consisting of Mr. Eaton, Mr. Gregson, Mr. Malbon, and Mr. Goodyear, ap- pear to have united their resources in building, equipping and loading the vessel .* "Into this ship," says an ancient histo- rian, " they put in a manner all their tradeable estates, much corn, and large quantities of plate ;" and among the seventy that embark for the voyage, are several " of very precious ac- count" in the colony. In the month of January, 1646, the harbor being frozen over, a passage is cut through the ice,
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