USA > Rhode Island > Early Rhode Island; a social history of the people > Part 2
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Wherever we turn in the record of the past, signs of representative government appear, as a great controlling principle seeking expression as history opens out. Japa- nese scholars claim that this is not confined to. Anglo- Saxon nor even to Aryan nations ; but prevails East and West. " I believe that the seed of representative govern-
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· ment is implanted in the very nature of human society and of the human mind." 24
So far as our own part of the large question is con- cerned, let us look into the course of affairs in Massachu- setts and Connecticut, to learn by contrast the true essence and the essential characteristics of our own insti- tutions here in Rhode Island.
The colony of Massachusetts existed for fifty-five years under a royal charter granted to the "Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in England." The charter empowered the freemen of the Company forever to elect from their own number, a Governor, Deputy- Governor, and eighteen Assistants, and to make laws " not repugnant to the laws of England." The executive, not including the assistants, was authorized, but not required, to administer to freemen the oaths of supremacy and allegiance.
Winthrop, the Governor, with Deputy-Governor and As- sistants, had been chosen in England. There were some pre- liminary meetings at Salem, but the first American Court of Assistants was convened at Boston, August 23, 1630. Some one hundred and eighteen persons gave notice at this Court asking admission as freemen. There were eight plantations or towns that participated in this assembly. The Court voted that Assistants only should be chosen by the Company at large, and that the Assistants with the Governor and Deputy-Governor, elected from themselves, should have the power of "making laws and choosing offi- cers to execute the same." This movement, erratic in a dem- ocratic government, lasted only about two years. May 9, 1632, the freemen resumed the right of election, limiting the choice of Governor to one of the existing Assistants.
124 Iyenaga, "Constitutional Development of Japan," J. H. U., IX., 20.
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These issues are interesting as revealing the tides of pub- lic sentiment for more or less aristocratic restriction in the process of government.
In 1634 there were about three hundred and fifty free- men, more than two-thirds of whom, according to Pal- frey, had been admitted since the establishment of the religious test, some three years previous. It was " ordered and agreed that, for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same." 25 As Borgeaud 26 remarks, " by law the civic government was distinct from the ecclesiastical, but in fact was strictly subordinate. The pastors and elders spoke in the name of the Divine Will revealed in the Bible." Compare the opinion after more than three-score years' experience of a sufficiently orthodox interpreter, Cotton Mather,27 given below.
A curious side-light is thrown on the working of democ- racy in New England, by the aberrations of the freemen in creating and abolishing a " Standing Council for life." . It was a new order of magistrates not contemplated by the charter, constituted March 3, 1636. Winthrop, Dud- ley, and Endicott only were appointed under this author- ity " for term of their lives, as a standing council, not to be removed but upon due conviction of crime, insufficiency, or for some weighty cause, the Governor for the time being to be always President of this Council and to have such further power out of Court as the General Court
25 " Mass. Col. Rec.," I., 87.
26 " Democracy in Old and New England," p. 148.
27 " The civil magistrate should put forth his coercive power, as the matter shall require, in case a church become schismatical, or walke incorrigibly or obstinately in any corrupt way of their own, contrary to the rule of the Word."-" Magnalia," Book V., Part II.
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shall from time to time endue them withal." 28 It was claimed that this movement proceeded from Cotton, who derived his inspiration from Lord Sayand Sele.29 The act lasted only two years, and Mr. Savage 30 claimed that this institution was the only example of a political election for life in our country. It was a bone of contention until 1642. The extraordinary tenacity of this socio- political barnacle shows that Cotton, not to speak of Winthrop, did not easily give up the hope of bringing some of the ragged offshoots of feudalism across the Atlantic, to be planted in the soil of the new Puritanism. Winthrop treats the affair earnestly,though patiently. His caustic sagacity in construing popular characteristics speaks forth in the following general consideration. "And here may be observed how strictly the people would seem to stick to their patent, when they think it makes for their advantage, but are content to decline it where it will not warrant such liberties as they have taken up with- out warrant from thence, as appears in their strife for three deputies," etc.31
These are small matters, but they were beginnings of popular government and they indicate one set of condi- tions which hampered Roger Williams in any search after soul-liberty. Puritans like Winthrop and Dudley were not only church-bound, they were so wrapped in the panoply of a feudal aristocracy that they could not con-
28 " Mass Col. Rec.," I., pp. 167, 168, 178.
,29 " Palfrey," I., 442.
30 He was completely honest and judicious in interpreting history. Rufus Choate had humor and was examining Savage once, in some casual matter, wherein he treated the witness most courteously. Then in a stage whisper, delighting the hearers, he said, "Now I have him under oath, I would like to ask him why he hates Cotton Mather so thoroughly."
31 " Winthrop, N. E.," I., 303.
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ceive of freedom-whether ecclesiastical or political-in any modern sense.
In 1643 the Magistrates and Deputies established bicameral legislation, the great modern improvement adopted by all the colonies and by the Union of the States. As Winthrop states, "there fell out a great business upon a very small occasion." Mrs. Sherman's sow, or her claim for one, became the occasion of a suit against Captain Keayne. The suit went through the inferior courts, and coming into the General Court set Magistrates and Deputies at variance, and in a most unseemly way. Sympathy for the poor woman against a rich man affected the more popular representatives-the deputies-and jeal- ousy between the two classes of legislators or judges con- fused the whole matter. The judicious saw that oppor- tunity for such disputes must be stopped, and henceforth the two houses held their sessions "apart by themselves." Moreover, according to the Governor, " this order deter- mined the great contention about the negative voice."
Without doubt the simple trading corporation, while making plantations, put forth more essential powers than was ever intended in England; whether in controlling the souls of men, or in extending the ground-work of a state. But such was inevitable. A corporation puts forth suckers of sovereignty, and these branch out into more and more power, as contingent life forces the issues.
Mr. Charles Francis Adams sums up his conclusions, " the organization of the Massachusetts colony was dis- tinctly and indisputably legal, commercial and corporate ; and not religious, ecclesiastical or feudal." 32 In this he is supported by Professor Parker and Judge Chamberlain and by Doyle in his Puritan Colonies. Others have viewed the matter differently, and much learning has been devoted 82 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., VII., pp. 196, 205.
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to this historic question. We may be content with the poetic rendering and rare insight of James Russell Lowell, : as he interprets the founding of Massachusetts Bay through " the divine principle of Authority based on the common interest and common consent."
A definition of an ordinary charter prevailing in the seventeenth century runs thus: The owner does what he will with his cattle " only by virtue of a grant and charter from both his and their maker." A royal charter, based on land and the feudal tendencies then inhering in land, conveys legal and commercial privileges ; but in the hands of an active, intelligent body of freemen, it conveys much more. The Frenchman De Castine says "a charter can- not create liberty ; it verifies it." No words could more clearly explain the legitimate course of the chartered col- onies of New England.
It has been customary to treat Massachusetts Bay as the headquarters and general source of Puritanism in New England. But Connecticut was a better example in ap- plying the principles of the Puritans to every-day living ; it was more advanced, and, so to speak, more civilized in the application. This was not by chance, but by natural political evolution. The Connecticut men fully believed in theocracy ; in a state governed by the immediate direc- tion of God; yet this principle was to be in some degree regulated by the action of the people, and not absolutely controlled by the "inspiration " of certain pastors and elders of the church rendering the will of God.
Let us examine the beginnings of government in this colony. Hooker's migration from the Bay had occurred in 1636. A commission issued from the General Court of Massachusetts, March 3, 1636, to eight of the persons who " had resolved to transplant themselves and their estates unto the River of Connecticut." This commission
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Connecticut Best Puritan Example
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was plainly limited, in that it took " rise from the desier of the people whoe removed, whoe judged it in Convenience to goe away without any frame of Government, not from any clame of the Massachusetts Jurisdiction ower them by virtew of Patent." 33
This was manifestly a semi-political and not a corporate and commercial evolution of power. The forthcoming Yankees were careful to take to themselves only one side of the obligation ; to profit by receiving the attributes of power, without rendering any allegiance in return. But they took a political prerogative, not a commercial privi- lege ; a function of government and not a function of trade. Just as the colony of Massachusetts, based on territorial grants with trading privileges from the British Crown, made war and peace or coined money if necessary, so it put out a sucker of practical sovereignty which rooted in the Connecticut valley.
The planters met January 14, 1638-9, and adopted the " eleven fundamental orders," 34 by which the colony was substantially governed until the year 1818, though it obtained legitimate authority by charter from the British Crown, as we shall see later on. This is an early record of a " frame of government." The men of Connecticut claim it to be the first written constitution in history.
The germ of constitutional government in Connecticut, whether it was by a formal constitution or otherwise, is justly considered by investigators to have been in a sermon of Thomas Hooker preached before the General Court in May, 1638, viz., " The foundation of authority is laid, firstly, in the free consent of the people,-The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance,-They who have power to appoint officers and
33 Cited Trumbull, "Constitutions of Connecticut," p. I.
84 Baldwin, "Constitutions," p. 180.
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magistrates, it is in their power also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place into which they call them." 35 .
These views, as has been stated indirectly, were advanced to a higher ground than that held by the rulers of Massa- chusetts Bay. They were still entangled in those jun- gles of sovereignty-where church members only adminis- tered the state-jungles which easily put forth essential tyranny. The Connecticut men found it better to get out and move on. As above stated, it was not chance, but political sagacity which precipitated the issue. We should study Hooker's Survey of Church Discipline,36 published after his death in 1648. As cited below, we find a dim recognition of the absolute difference in administration of spiritual and temporal things; and this perception of Hooker's brought about important results in Connecticut. It is true, the freemen were practically church members, but pastor or elder could not go into town meeting and cry out in form or substance " thus saith the Lord " after such teaching as Hooker gave them.
Hooker was thoroughly Puritan, and believed in theo- cratic ascendancy. Yet though he might be loyal to the dictates of conscience, he perceived that the will of the
35 Col. Conn. Hist. Soc., I., 20.
36 At page 4 we read, " Men sustain a double relation. As mem- bers of the Commonwealth, they have civil weapons, and in a civil way of righteousness, they may and should use them. But as mem- bers of a Church their weapons are spiritual, and the work is spiritual, the censures of the Church are spiritual, and reach the souls and consciences of men." He did not hold and is careful at page 14 to guard himself from religious toleration. In the passage he farther elaborates the idea of separation. "No civil rule can properly convey over an Ecclesiastical right. The rules are in specie distinct, and their works and ends also, and therefore cannot be confounded. . . . But the taking up an abode or dwelling in such a place is by the rule of policy and civility. Ergo this can give him no Ecclesiastical right to Church fellowship."
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citizen and his political action, whether as ruler, judge, or constable, must be firmly set within the " bounds and limitations " of power constituted in a legitimate way. This is of the essence of constitution-making.
If we adopt the large historic view of Bancroft in re- garding the Puritan, these beginnings of government in Connecticut are worthy of constant notice. He says, though the superficial may sneer at their extemporaneous prayers and other formalities, if we look to the genius of the sect itself, " Puritanism was religion struggling for the people." Great England-freed in parts-absolutely persecuted Nonconformists, until the repeal of the penal statutes in 1690; driving two thousand ministers out of their livings in 1662. Even after that repeal some stat- utes had to be " liberally interpreted " through the nine- teenth century to give Nonconformists practical religious and political liberty. Puritans might live, as it were, in a detached and drained receiver, but the atmosphere around was not free. Occasionally now an unscrupulous politician sneers at the " nonconforming conscience." A disinterested critic might remark that, it may prove to be quite as important in England's future as the betting- book or tennis-racket. As Emerson remarked, it would be well to stop the people from doing many things, before stopping their praying.
On the other hand, Puritanism proscribed in England was virtually established in Massachusetts, where it blocked religious liberty until well into the nineteenth century.
The development of Connecticut was not toward liberty of conscience, but along the lines of a modified theocracy. By a series of legislative acts in 1697, 1699, 1708,87 the colony riveted an ecclesiastical system firmly on the necks 37 "Col. Rec. Conn.," IV., 198, 316; V., 87.
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of all citizens. The act of 1708 was very positive, ap- proving " the confession of faith, heads of agreement and regulations in the administration of discipline agreed to by the synod at Saybrook and enacting that all churches thus united in doctrine, worship, and discipline, should be owned and acknowledged established by law." 38 Political government might proceed without interference from church or clergy, as Hooker had laid down. But the conscience of the individual must be held by the church. Provision was made " for the ease of such as soberly dis- sent from the way of worship and ministry established." But however the dissenter might think, he must 39 pay as ordinary citizens did and could not be excused " from paying any such minister or town dues, as are now or shall be hereafter due." 40
After much discussion of these questions in the agita- tion for the constitution which replaced the charter in 1818; these restrictions were swept away and religion was left entirely to voluntary support. With all his powerful eloquence, Dr. Lyman Beecher preached against this, de- claring " it would open the floodgates of ruin on the state." Connecticut writers have called this condition of things " complete religious liberty." Their conception of liberty within the bounds of Connecticut assumed in naïve manner that this was equivalent to liberty everywhere. Their society being homogeneous and sufficient unto itself, liberty of opinion elsewhere did not enter into consider- ation. This quietism is finely expressed in the words of one of her ablest sons, Leonard Bacon, uttered in 1859. He claimed that Episcopal, Baptist and Methodist churches formed there were of the Connecticut sort, and
38 Trumbull, " Historical Notes," p. 30.
39 Ibid.
40 Bacon, " Historical Discourse," p. 70. -
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Roger Williams an American Torch
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"is there no meaning in the fact that not one of our churches, and only one of our parishes fell in the Unita- rian defection? " 41
The excellent political system of Connecticut created a thriving and contented community under the charter, as well as under the constitution. Perhaps no people in the world were more happy. But such closed circuits and local districts of universal truth could not survive the free communication and exchange of thought prevailing in modern times. The "land of steady habits," like other parts of the United States, has become free in thought and the open ground of liberty of conscience.
It is fair to observe that Thomas Hooker was the greater statesman, while Roger Williams was the greater prophet. Hooker brought a candle into state manage- ment that lighted a community through peaceful life for one or two centuries. Roger Williams kindled a flaming torch 42 in the fire of truth, which burned through the fierce democratic disputes and town-contentions of the plantations until its serene beams are now shed abroad through the civilized world.
If we revert to the main colony, the home of Pilgrims and Puritans, the early political aspirations of Massachu- setts can be hardly separated from the strong theocratic tendency which moved her in applying a religious test to practical government. There are not only the promi-
41 Rhode Island was moving in the opposite direction. In 1716 an act was passed preventing churches from using " the civil power for the enforcing a maintenance for their respective ministers." Support " may be raised by a free contribution and no other way."- " Arnold," II., 58.
42 In the words of Doctor King " he became not only an orthodox Puritan, as Mr. Bryce calls him, but an intense logically consistent ultra-orthodox, radical Puritan, outstripping his human teachers, a Pilgrim of the Pilgrims."-" The True Roger Williams," p. 11.
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nent proceedings like the banishment of Williams and the Antinomians, the expulsion of Baptists and Quakers, but other incidents, which show a constant adminis- tration of affairs on the narrow lines held by the In- dependent Congregational churches. In 1629, Endicott sent out John and Samuel Browne, because they insisted on using the Prayer Book. "New England was no place for such as they." The case of William Vassall in 1646 43 is very interesting.
It is pathetic to enter into the doings of Massachusetts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and to per- ceive the struggles of well-meaning men trying to work out their idea of good, yet producing only evil. The ecclesiastical politicians of that time were centuries be- hind either Connecticut or Rhode Island; but they fancied they were the Lord's anointed. From John Cotton and Hubbard, through Cotton Mather to Quincy and Palfrey, one story filled the ears of these men and colored their imagination, when applied to the facts of history and government. In their distorted vision, an inevitable, providential necessity 44 forced the admisistration of their state from one form of bigotry to another, until the widening political and social activities of the community compelled her into a complete separation of church and state.
When the nineteenth century was well advanced, Massa- chusetts finally swept away the despotic foundations of
{ " Winthrop," II., 261
44 " But to excommunicate an Heretick is not to persecute; that is, it is not to punish an innocent, but a culpable and damnable person, and that not for conscience, but for persisting in error against light of conscience, whereof it hath been convinced." Cot- ton's answer to Williams .- " N. Club," III., 48, 49; also II., 27. The back action of the conscience of a theocratic persecutor could turn any evil into good, or vice versa.
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her religious system. In the words of Mr. C. F. Adams, " a modified form of toleration was grudgingly admitted into the first constitution of the state in 1780; it was not until 1833 that complete liberty of conscience was made part of the fundamental law." 45
The Puritans of the Bay fondly fancied that they were creating a commonwealth, which through the support and interaction of the churches should absorb the old political functions of a state, and thus turn the world at large into a kingdom of heaven. Orderly political develop- ment was impossible under this fanciful ideal; it was the lack of such development that kept Massachusetts seething. and vibrating in political unrest. The actual movement developing a modern state was in the opposite direction, just as Mr. Doyle 46 viewing us from Europe, clearly comprehended. The " worldly people," the men in the street in Massachusetts as in other states, worked out a political freedom culminating in the American Revolution ; this finally penetrated the congregations of the churches and converted them to practical Christianity. No episode in history indicates more clearly the large currents of evolution, which turn the swirling eddies of theocratic cul- ture to wider political development. As the eighteenth century moved on, America discovered, by the second quarter of the nineteenth she had developed into prac- tical politics, the large idea that a free democratic expression at the polls was better political freedom and even better religion than imperial decree, mandate of synod or papal bull.
It is often asserted in apology for the early rulers of the Bay that, their course was inevitable-under the tacit assumption that theocratic absolutism was the only pos-
45 " Mass. Historians," p. 33.
40 " Puritan Colonies," I., pp. 187, 188.
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sible working government. But the Netherlands had a comparatively liberal administration, and Connecticut, as we have shown, under Hooker was adapting theocracy to democratic representation without persecution. We need not change the colors of the rainbow to justify Cotton and his fellow managers. At least, we can go as far as Winthrop in his confession that there was "too much " theocracy.
There are two constant marvels in this bit of history, as especially developed in these three colonies of the new and newest England. 1. That, the idea of Roger Williams once formulated, worked itself so slowly into the consciousness of other communities, even in the ad- joining districts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
2. That a civic principle deemed so revolutionary in the seventeenth century should have affected the political and social development of Rhode Island so little, as the principle emerged from theory and was adopted into the life of a state. Rhode Island has been noted for oddities and particular individualities. Yet these per- sonal differences have affected very little the steady development of the community along the lines inevitable to the progress of America. In increase of population it has averaged with the whole Union, surpassing most Eastern states. In industrial progress and in acquisi- tion of property, it is equal to any district of the United States. It is true that the infant colony suffered from the vagaries of wild theorists; Samuel Gorton and those like him who drifted into these open harbors. But there came with them much free thought which grew and pros- pered. Political order in some way established itself over and through these chaotic elements of life.
The individual man may be odd in that he is uncommon, but he must be strong, whatever his social condition and
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Individualism in Rhode Island
environment. In all the military development of our country-that superior test which welds the right arm of individual men into the true consolidation of the state -Rhode Island has shown that individual liberty works toward the highest patriotism. In the old French and Spanish wars, in the struggles with Great Britain, in our tremendous civil war, Rhode Island, notwithstanding her strong Quaker heredity, was ever at the front.
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