USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 > Part 11
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The usurpation of Napoleon made but little change in the rela- tions of these parties to each other. Military despotism was not more pleasing to the conservatives than democratie license; and with the republicans the emperor's victories over the objects of their hatred more than atoned for his treachery to the republic of their hopes.
There was, to be sure, a third party, or rather a third class of minds, which included some of the greatest leaders of the early federalists, and whose wiser statesmanship foresaw, what actually happened, that when the European conflict should end, victor and vanquished would have so exhausted each other that they would be compelled to leave the rest of the world at peace to pursue its own way to its own better future. Their policy was, under the protection of a strict neutrality, to augment the wealth and harmonize the government of the country, to organize a suf- ficient naval and military force to protect the coast against sudden and desultory inroads of either belligerent, and patiently wait the event. Happily for the country this policy ruled in the administration of Washington, and measurably in that of John Adams. The insolence of French ambassadors and emissaries was rebuked, and the piracies of the French fleets resisted, with dignity and effect, while entangling alliance with England was avoided. Commerce flourished, manufactures in-
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creased, and agriculture found a lucrative market in the ports of both belligerents.
There were few politicians of name, so hardy as to advocate direct interference in the European quarrel at the expense of war. Still the deep sympathy of the federal party with England could not be mistaken. It was constantly manifested in the comments of its journals on foreign affairs, and in the remarkably hearty support which its members gave to the enforcement of the neu- trality laws, as against France. And even less could the partiality of the republicans for the French cause be concealed, while they did their best to make those laws a nullity in its behalf, and while their journals constantly denounced Washington and Adams as tyrants and despots, for the most necessary measures in support of the dignity and independence of the government. These journals, by-the-bye, were often edited by foreigners, banished from their own country for the extreme radicalism of their teachings, who infused into their columns the vindietive- ness of exile in addition to the bitterness of party spirit. The hatred of Great Britain cherished by the most unrelenting rev- olutionary whig was tame compared with the rage of the radical just driven from his home for a too ardent expression of his opinions.
But it would lead us too far from our purpose to enumerate all the elements which went to envenom the seething caldron of political hatred between the outbreak of the French revolution and the close of the war of 1812. What concerns us here are the causes which gave to the political contests of Pittsfield and Berk- shire county an acrimony, exceptional, at least at the North, even in that era.
Of these the smoldering feuds, which had come down from the days of committee-rule, have already been mentioned. Even before the close of the war, it will be remembered, the conserva- tive whigs and the tories had fraternized in behalf of what they considered law and order. The same community of sentiment afterwards combined the same elements still more intimately in the federal party, and elevated to office some who had been most obnoxious during the war. An instance which excited the warmest indignation of the republicans was the appointment by President Adams of John Stoddard, a son of the tory Israel Stod- dard, postmaster of Pittsfield, in place of Col. Joshua Danforth,
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a gallant officer of the revolution, who had been appointed by Washington when the office was established in 1794.
The treatment of the old soldiers was indeed in the minds of the masses a source of grievous complaint against the federalists, who numbered among their ranks few who had seen active serv- ice, except when the militia were called out on some sudden emergency. The discharged soldier, returned from camp with the vices contracted in long service far more conspicuous than the virtues for whose display no opportunity now offered, appeared much less a hero than he did when the terror-stricken community begged his services. The man who had passed the best years of his life in the service of a bankrupt country was a far less respectable person than he who had seized the opportu- nities of the war to enrich himself. And the federal party cared for none but respectable persons.
The affectation of a social superiority and contempt for the masses on the part of some of the federal leaders in Berkshire, furnished a source of constant irritation, and the democratic writers retaliated by enlarging upon the vulgarity and coarseness of active members of that party, upon the meanness of their parentage, and the sources from which they derived their birth. " A beggar's brat" was the pleasant epithet applied to a man of wealth and culture; and another was delicately characterized as " a coarse, vulgar and illiterate fellow who sought position by clinging to the coat-tails of men who made use of and despised him." When there was a spice of truth in these assaults they were not soon forgotten or easily forgiven.
Hon. Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge was the great leader and representative man of the Berkshire federalists, and we pre- sent a portrait of him, drawn by the hand of his daughter, the distinguished author, as giving a vivid idea of the politics and political sentiment of his day.
I was a child at the period of the great ferment occasioned by the decline of the federal party and the growth of the democratic party. My father had the habit of having his children always about him, and we had so strong a sympathy with him that there was no part of his life which we did not partake. I remember well looking upon a demo- crat as an enemy to his country, and the party as sure, if it prevailed, to work its destruction. I heard my father's conversation with his political friends, and in the spontaneous expressions of domestic
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privacy, and I received the impression then (and looking back I feel assured of its correctness) that the federal party loved their country, and were devoted to it as virtuous parents are to their children. It was to my father what selfish men's private affairs are to them, of deep and ever-present interest. It was not the success of men, or the acqui- sition of office, but the maintenance of principles on which, as it appeared to them, the sound "health and true life of their country depended. They dreaded French influence-they believed Jefferson to be false, the type of evil-they were a good deal influenced by old pres- tiges-they retained their predilections for Great Britain. They hoped a republic might exist and prosper, and be the happiest government in the world, but not without a strong aristocratic element; and that the con- stitutional government of Britain was the safest and happiest govern- ment on earth, I am sure they believed."
" But firm to the experiment of the republic, they had no treason- able thought of introducing a monarchy here. Their misfortune, and perhaps the inevitable consequence of having been educated loyal sub- jects of a monarchical government, was a thorough distrust of 'the people.' I remember my father, one of the kindest-hearted of men, and most observant of the rights of all beneath him, habitually spoke of the people as 'Jacobins,' ' sans-culottes,' and ' miscreants.' He-and in this I speak of him as the type of the federal party-dreaded every upward step they made, regarding their elevation as a depression, in proportion to their ascension, of the intelligence and virtue of the country. The upward tendencies from education, and improvements in the arts of life were unknown to them. They judged of the people, as they had been, as were the greasy unwashed multitude of Rome and of Shakspeare's time-as they are now for the most part in Europe- utterly inexperienced in government, incapable of attaining to its abstractions, or feeling its moralities."1
This portraiture of the political character and sentiments of Judge Sedgwick, drawn by the loving hand of a daughter, well qualified to comprehend and describe them, are precisely such as were attributed to him and his associates by the Pittsfield repub- licans of 1800; and it is not strange that they believed that men with such views would seize the first opportunity, or make one, to establish here the form of government which they deemed the " happiest and safest on earth." It is barely possible that some chivalrous sense of honor might have held a man like Judge Sedgwick "firm to the experiment of a republic;" but it is clear that he would have been a most unsafe person to decide when
1 Life and letters of Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.
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that experiment had failed. Probably no party ever numbered among its leaders a larger proportion of men distinguished for honor and integrity than the federal ; but they were politicians for all that ; and it would have been strange indeed if, finding themselves strongly entrenched in power, they had not availed themselves of it, to substitute their ideal of a perfect constitution for the democratic institutions which they held to be so fearfully dangerous to all that was good in government, society and religion. The most impartial judgment must concede that the Pittsfield republicans had good reason to consider their oppo- nents as the enemies at heart of free institutions.
· Nor couldl the masses of the people be expected to cherish the most amicable feeling towards gentlemen who held them in such estimation as Judge Sedgwick did. It doubtless seemed to Berkshire men an unjust thing to be characterized by those who had lived among them all their days, not by their own lives and actions, but by an ideal picture of the people of other times and countries-and exaggerated even as to them-which Shakspeare had placed in the mouths of some of the least admirable of his public characters. Possibly had the federal leaders studied their neighbors a little more candidly, they might have understood them better, interpreted Shakspeare more correctly, and led their party to a less ignominious fate.
To the flax of such a party as this, the Pittsfield democracy was the natural fire. Those who have followed us in our account of Rev. Thomas Allen, and his associates, from the opening of the revolution, will readily conceive that they had little toleration to bestow upon opponents like these. Hating the name of king with a fiercer hatred than Brutus ever did, they believed, and had good reason to believe, as Miss Sedgwick's testimony shows, that the federalists desired to ereet a monarchy in America, and it would have been too much to expect them to trust to the personal honor of the leaders, that they would not seek to gratify that desire. Nourishing even morbid memories of the wrongs done their country by Great Britain, they found their adversaries cherish- ing an almost fanatical affection for her. Looking forward with the hope of an even more liberal constitution, they found them- selves confronted by efforts to establish a still " stronger" govern- ment.
Indoctrinated early by the grand republican writers of the
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English commonwealth ; in later years stimulated in their love of a liberal government by the pamphleteers, the orators and the events of the revolution ; in age their blood was fired by the flaming columns of the Jeffersonian newspapers, and by sympa- thy with the great conflict between legitimate and revolutionary rule in Europe. Veterans of a third of a century, the older lead- ers were as ardent, as inflexible and as unforgiving as they had been in youth, firmly believing that they upheld the same good old cause against its old enemies.
In 1791 the democracy of Berkshire received new inspiration and vigor by the return from Virginia, where he had resided for several years, of Elder John Leland, of Cheshire, a Baptist clergy- man of unusual powers and of vehement feeling. Mr. Leland was in many respects a remarkable man. Of bold, clear and original thought, he reasoned unflinchingly upon all subjects, religious and secular, from the evidence in his possession, to logi- cal conclusions, whatever they might be. And whatever he fully believed, he proclaimed with a rugged and sometimes quaint eloquence, which was exceedingly convincing to such andiences as he addressed. In Virginia he had become the intimate friend. of Jefferson and other great leaders of the national democracy, by whom he was highly esteemed; and on his return to Berkshire he formed a link of more immediate connection between lis confreres in that county and the central councils of the party. And this communication was maintained by his frequent friendly and professional visits to the Old Dominion. The injustice done to the Baptists and other dissenting Christians by the laws of Massachusetts, to which the great body of the democrats were opposed, still further embittered him against the federalists who-with a few exceptions, principally Episcopalians-strongly supported them. This grievance was a frequent theme of his discourses.
Mr. Leland spoke often in Pittsfield both upon religious and political subjects, and, his liberalism, in regard to both church and state government being abont as extreme as it well could be, the effect of his teaching in this form, as well as in his constant correspondence with the Sun, may well be imagined. One result to which they largely contributed was perfect harmony in the Baptist and Methodist churches, which was secured by making their members nearly or quite unanimous on the democratic side.
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In the Congregational, or town, parish, unhappily, no such har- mony was attainable. A majority of the church, and a very large proportion of the wealthier members of the parish, were federalists, and had long sat uneasily under their pastor's intro- duction of political subjects into his "pulpit discourses." In common with other clergymen of the revolutionary era, and as effectively as any, he had preached the gospel of liberty. From the pulpit he had also denounced the non-constitutional govern- ment of Massachusetts previous to 1781, and afterwards the Shays rebellion. He had also, in the same manner, doubtless opposed the adoption of the federal constitution ; for in 1788, we find his "interesting himself in his official capacity in political affairs," alleged as one of the causes of the dissensions in the town and parish."1
A reconciliation by formal vote of the town, and a covenant of peace for the future, averted at that time the threatened disrup- tion of the church and parish, and Pittsfield partook of that rest from federal and anti-federal passions, noted by Theodore Sedg- wick as existing in 1792. These halcyon days continued- .although they began to be much disturbed during the presiden- tial candidacy, and first years of the administration of John Adams-until the smoldering passions were roused in more than their original fury by the famous "resolutions of '98," passed by the legislature of Kentucky, and, in a still more start- ling form, by that of Virginia.
These resolutions, which had been drafted by Thomas Jefferson, immediately became the corner-stone of the democratic party, while they excited the utmost abhorrence of the federalists. Mr. Allen received them as the old war-horse hears the sound of a trumpet. From the date of the declaration of independence, he had been among the most devoted of Mr. Jefferson's admirers and adherents. He regarded him as the champion of civil liberty, whose cause, in 1798 as in 1776, he considered identical with that of religious freedom and protestant Christianity. Federalism, aiming at monarchy, he held to be the arch-enemy of the one, and consequently of the other of these chief objects of his . devotion ; and to do battle valiantly against this foe of human rights, he thought the first of duties towards both God and man.
1See vol. I., page 418.
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Bold attacks upon this political monster with him covered a mul- titude of sins, leading him to condone the avowed deism of Thomas Paine, and indignantly deny the infidelity which was one of the favorite charges of the federal press against Mr. Jefferson.
Holding these views, Mr. Allen was unwilling to relinquish the right to discuss, or at least to express his opinion upon, public affairs, in the pulpit. This was a privilege which had always been conceded to, and held dear by, the New England clergy, from the days of the Pilgrims down; and it was in Mr. Allen's time freely exercised by most of his clerical brethren, federal as well as democratic ; and in regard to many subjects- such as slavery and temperance, is constantly used by the clergy to this day.
And, if it was, and is, justifiable and praiseworthy for the pul- pit to advocate what the preacher deems right, and to denounce what he believes wrong, in matters such as these; then it was certainly at least excusable in Mr. Allen that he, "in his official capacity," took ground against a party which considered the eleva- tion of the people as a misfortune greatly to be deprecated, and which might be reasonably expected to defeat it so far as it had the power. In the light of the present day, we suspect that there are many who would agree with him in counting such an organization, as to that particular, " oppugnant to the gospel of Jesus Christ," however eminent its members might be for piety. And there are few who, if they could find a political administra- tion, the corner-stone of whose policy was the elevation of all men, would think it blasphemy to style it a Christocracy, as Mr. Allen is said to have characterized the government of Mr. Jeffer- son.
We do not, of course, here pretend to decide whether Mr. Allen's estimate of the rival parties of his day was correct or otherwise, but merely to show that he endeavored zealously to perform his duty, as a citizen and a Christian minister, as from his stand-point it appeared clear to him; and that his opinions · were not the result of prejudice, or of old feuds, but were reason- ably warranted by the character and utterances of the leading men of the antagonistic party, at least in his immediate vicinity. Nor do we undertake to judge of the abstract propriety of intro- ducing political matter into the pulpit; but simply to remind
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the reader that such has been almost the uniform practice of all religious denominations in New England, with the exception of the Episcopalians. There was nothing therefore out of the usual course, in the merely preaching of politics by the Pittsfield pas- tor. The ferment which arose from it, seems to have been occa- sioned by the fact that the doctrines which he preached were not those of the wealthier portion of his people, or of the great majority of the churches. of New England, who looked upon Mr. Jefferson as the foe of religion as well as of sound government.
Another source of dissatisfaction with Mr. Allen on the part of the federalists was his intimate relations with the Pittsfield Sun, which were described in a previous chapter. His printed articles were more pronounced in their partisan character than his sermons, and his federal parishioners, not unnaturally, when the phraseology was similar, interpreted many paragraphs in the Sunday's discourse, which would otherwise have had only a gen- eral application, by the light thrown upon them from the columns of the Sun. Unfortunately, also, as his articles usually appeared editorially or over a nom de plume, some, whose authorship he afterwards disclaimed, were ascribed to him.
In this feverish state, affairs stood with the parish of Pittsfield and its pastor, on Thanksgiving day, 1802, when the first of four sermons of which special and formal complaint was afterwards made, was preached. In this production, the administration of Mr. Adams was most unfavorably contrasted with that of Mr. Jefferson. The federalists also charged it upon the preacher as a sort of blasphemy, that he had "likened the latter to the Savior of the world, in that, 'being reviled, he reviled not again ;'" although it would be difficult, since all men are required to form themselves upon the likeness of the Redeemer, to detect the sin in believing and declaring that one man, even though the head of a party, had in a single particular, in some degree, modeled himself in that likeness. That Mr. Jefferson had reached this state of Christian and non-resistant meekness is more to be doubted.
The second of the specially-arraigned sermons was preached in . April, 1803, upon the fortieth anniversary of Mr. Allen's settle- ment in Pittsfield. This discourse, like the first, contrasted the administrations of Adams and Jefferson, representing, as the friends of Mr. Adams alleged, that the former "was opposed to
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the gospel and to the happiness of the people ; and thanking God that the preacher had lived through it to the present glorious period " of democratic triumph and rule. " He declared," said the federal pamphleteer, " that our government was a Christocracy, and that oppugnation to it was oppugnation to the gospel of Christ; adding : 'We are not party-men but opposed to aristo- cratic domination.'"
Rev. William Allen, in his pamphlet defense of his father printed in 1809, claimed that the expressions quoted had refer- ence to republican institutions generally, as established by the American constitution, and that the application of them to par- ticular parties or politicians was an unwarrantable assumption of jealous minds. The federalists sustained their interpretation by citing the context, and the author's opinions "as openly and plainly expressed in conversation, and in the columns of the Sun."
Mr. Allen's sermons were written in short-hand, and not always fully even in that. Often in the heat of delivery, he intro- duced glowing extemporaneous passages, and it · is probable that in the sermons of which complaint was made he may thus have used language which he avoided in the calmness of his study. But we have noted his habit of identifying political with relig- ious heresy, and the tenacity with which he clung to the old priv- ilege of the Congregational clergy, of rebuking one as well as the other in the pulpit. This is the simple key to his whole course in this controversy ; and, however carefully his words may have been chosen, there can be little doubt that his hearers made the proper application of them. If He erred in any of his dealings with his parishioners, his true and sufficient apology must be songht in the intense ardor and earnestness of his devotion to free institutions and whatever tended to the elevation of his fellow- men.
The third sermon of the offensive series was preached by Mr. Allen upon the death of his son, Thomas, whose life is sketched in the preceding chapter. It was printed, and does not seem to bear out the character ascribed to it by the federalists ; but, on the contrary, to have been a most solemn and touching funeral discourse, such as might have been expected from a father mourn- ing his first-born and well-beloved son.
In March, 1807, the dissatisfied members of the parish and church appointed a committee consisting of Woodbridge Little,
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Joseph Fairfield, AAshbel Strong and Eli Maynard, who addressed to their pastor a "letter of remonstrance," setting forth their grievances arising from these sermons. It was written by Mr. Little, and shows that his pen had lost none of its sharpness since he employed it in behalf of his brother-loyalists in the early days of the revolution. 1
The following extract contains the gist of all the complaints against Mr. Allen :
" In the sermon delivered soon after the death of your son, as it was preached, you appeared more disposed to deliver a political harangne, calculated to affect the approaching election, than to afford consolation to his afflicted relatives and mourning friends, or instructions from such an instance of mortality, to the congregation at large. Your sermon next preceding the April election in 1806-the text of which was, " And no man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come,"-was plainly an offensive political and electioneering discourse, in the improvement of which you alluded to the idea that our wicked rulers were permitted, in this state, to be continued over us because at the previous election their hour for dismission had not yet come; yet you urged to persever- ance to the end, and foretold that the coming election would effect the looked-for change. Though in this discourse your language was not explicit, yet it was clearly understood by the audience.
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