USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 39
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The heavy taxes levied during and after the French and Indian War were applied in part to retiring outstanding currency, and in part to war expenses, including heavy charges for interest on the public debt steadily accumulated because of England's failure to reim- burse the colony adequately. Meanwhile most public improvements except those that must be met immediately, thus requiring emergency appropriations, were met by lotteries, the first of which for a public purpose was authorized in 1744, to rebuild Weybosset Bridge in Providence. Other lotteries for public purposes were authorized as follows: To rebuild Pawtucket Bridge, 1750; to build a bridge across the Blackstone River between Cumberland and Smithfield, 1750; to pave Queen Street (the Parade) and Thames Street in Newport, 1752; to reimburse certain inhabitants for repairs on Pawtucket Bridge, 1752; to finish Kent County Courthouse, 1752-1753; to build a bridge in Scituate, 1754; to raise £ 10,000 for the improvement of Fort George, 1756; to buy land for the Colony House in Providence, 1759; to pave streets in Newport and in Providence, 1761; to build a weir for fish at Pawtucket Falls, 1761 ; to build a new harbor at Block Island, 1762; to pave West- minster Street, Providence, 1763. These lotteries were additional to some of a quasi-public nature, such as building Masonic Hall, including a large room for public meetings, at New-
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port; replacing the library burned with the Colony House in Providence; erecting a market building in Newport; building churches in Johnston and Providence; and to private lotteries for the relief of debtors and to recoup a shipowner for the loss of a vessel not covered by insurance. Improvements undertaken at colony expense included the building and rebuilding, after destruction by fire, of the lighthouse at Beaver Tail; a pesthouse at Providence; and the Colony House at Providence. The lighthouse at Beaver Tail, 1749, was the first erected on the Atlantic coast of North America. Constructed of wood, it was destroyed by fire, 1754, and rebuilt of brick and stone. A beacon or other signal light had been maintained at various times at Beaver Tail from 1680. The British destroyed the Beaver Tail lighthouse as they evacuated Newport in 1779. The lottery to purchase the Colony House lot in Providence was first authorized to raise the money in dollars; subsequently the lottery act was amended to permit financing in currency. In the instance of a bridge across Hunt's River the colony ordered each of the towns of East Greenwich and North Kingstown to build a stone abutment on its own side of the river, the colony furnishing the span. A terrific gale and high tide car- ried away Weybosset Bridge, Providence, and the bridge across the Pettaquamscott River, October 24, 1761 ; the colony appropriated £ 1000 for the Providence bridge and £300 for the Narragansett bridge. In 1762 a lottery was granted to finance building a draw in Wey- bosset Bridge to facilitate the passage of vessels, which at that time ascended the Moshassuck River to the first falls; the bridge earlier than 1761 had been constructed in such manner that a section could be removed to permit the passage of vessels.
SECTIONAL POLITICS-The earliest political controversy in Rhode Island was sectional. Newport and Portsmouth, which had established a civil government under a Governor, so much resented the granting of the Parliamentary Patent under the name of Providence Plan- tations that organization of the four original settlements under the patent was delayed by reason thereof. The situation was reversed somewhat by the King Charles Charter of 1663, which named the colony Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and designated Newport as the capital by making it the meeting place for the annual General Assembly. If the men from the northern settlements nourished resentment, they concealed it in the general rejoicing because of the liberality of the Charter. Newport was the capital, and Newport and Ports- mouth men were influential in the new organization, in which they had a majority of two Deputies. For sixty years Newport furnished Governors for Rhode Island in a continuous unbroken line of succession. Then came Joseph Jencks of Providence, who had earned the office of Governor by long and meritorious service in the General Assembly and as Deputy Governor. The General Assembly directed Governor Jencks to establish a residence at New- port. When Governor Jencks committed a political blunder by carrying his protest against the issuing of paper money in 1731 to the King, his opponents made the utmost possible advantage of the accusation that by doing so he had conspired against and endangered the lib- erties of the colony ; for twenty-three years thereafter, with the exception of William Greene, the Governors were Newport men. Governor William Greene, of Warwick, was allied with the Newport group.
Meanwhile a new political star had risen in the north, as Stephen Hopkins, of Scituate* first and afterwards of Providence, became a prominent figure in the colonial government. Entering public life in 1732, Stephen Hopkins was elected as Speaker of the House of Deputies in 1738, and thereafter to the same office frequently in the rapid rotation of semi- annual elections in practice as a new house was organized in each of May and October. Other- wise his name appeared on the more important committees appointed by the General Assem- bly, and he was entrusted occasionally with particular missions, indicating a recognition by his associates of unusual ability. He was Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature,
*In the General Assembly. Hopkins was born in Providence.
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1751-1755 and 1770-1776. Resigning as Chief Justice in May, 1755, to become Governor, in August he was reelected to succeed Francis Willett for the term expiring in May, 1756, thus for a time serving as Governor and Chief Justice. It should be noted that the General Assem- bly exercised supreme judicial functions, and that trial courts included the Governor and Assistants as judges in the early organization. The coincidence of Governor and Chief Jus- tice in 1755-1756 marked merely a return to older practices temporarily. Stephen Hopkins was a good Rhode Islander always, but his activity in promoting the interests of Providence was noted by his contemporaries. He was associated intimately in many ways, including business enterprises, with the group of keen and influential men who were building up the commercial and industrial affairs of the northern town, and laying there a foundation for economic stability, wealth and culture eventually. Rivalry between Newport and Providence grew steadily more intensive as Newport watched the growth of the northern town. The rising political influence of the latter may be inferred from the construction of the brick Colony House in Providence at an expenditure of more than £ 15,000; and eventually, prac- tically, a matching for Providence of every grant for the improvement of Newport, still claiming precedence as metropolitan town of the colony. Thus, in 1761, when two lotteries were authorized to pave streets in Newport, Providence had similar grants for equal amounts. Stephen Hopkins became the recognized leader for the northern section and Providence ; Samuel Ward, freeman and resident of Westerly, but native son of Newport, entered the lists as champion for the latter. Eventually, the intense political rivalry of sections became an almost unseemly personal quarrel between Hopkins and Ward, with parties known by the names of the champions, as Ward party and Hopkins party. The Hopkins-Ward controversy involved a combination of sectional partisanship with a bitter personal vendetta, and a resort by both parties to the vituperative type of pamphleteering campaign that anticipated muck- raking and lampooning by modern yellow newspapers.
William Greene, of Warwick, was elected as Governor in 1743 and 1744; for three years thereafter he alternated annually as Governor with Gideon Wanton of Newport; and was elected annually as Governor from 1748 to 1755. Though opposed by Newport at first, Wil- liam Greene was accepted eventually by the Newport party as more friendly to the island town than to Providence. When, therefore, Stephen Hopkins became a candidate for Gov- ernor in 1754, Newport rallied to the support of Governor Greene and the latter was reelected. Stephen Hopkins and Martin Howard, Jr., attended the Albany Congress in June, 1754, and on their return reported to the General Assembly for favorable consideration Frank- lin's plan for a union of the colonies. Eventually Franklin's plan met favor neither in America nor in England; in Rhode Island the plan was opposed because of fear that confederation might involve surrender of the unique privileges enjoyed under the Char- ter. Because his political enemies persisted in identifying him with the Albany plan, repre- sented by them as contrary to Rhode Island's welfare, Hopkins published "A True Repre- sentation of the Plan Formed at Albany," a pamphlet defending the project and himself as a citizen interested only in fulfilling his duty as he understood it. The Hopkins pamphlet was answered, but, in spite of vigorous opposition, Hopkins was elected as Governor in 1755 and again in 1756. Throughout his two years of service his enemies criticised almost his every official act, accusing him, among other things of having used and of using his position in the government to promote his own and his family's financial interests. He did, as an executive and as a member of the war committee of the period, disburse a great deal of money, and he was paid, according to the practice of the period, for some of his public service a commission upon the money passing through his hands. In anticipation of the election of 1757, Hopkins issued a pamphlet defending his administration; it was answered by Ward in a pamphlet charging Hopkins with unfitness for office. The Newport party was triumphant, and Wil- liam Greene was elected as Governor in 1757, only to die in office, February 22, 1758, and to
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be succeeded by Hopkins who was elected Governor in grand committee of the General Assembly on March 13, 1758, and annually thereafter by the people until May, 1762. Imme- diately after the publication of the Ward pamphlet Hopkins sued Ward for defamation, lay- ing his damages at £20,000. The writ was returnable in Providence County in the Inferior Court of Common Pleas. Ward petitioned the General Assembly for a change of venue, alleging that Hopkins had "a great many relations and a very extensive influence" in the county, and that Ward imagined "upon that account that the trial would not be so impartial as it ought to be," and also that Ward had been "threatened with regard to his life." Hopkins avoided the action of the General Assembly staying trial pending a hearing on the petition for change of venue, by discontinuing the action, and starting another. In June, 1757, Hopkins and Ward appeared before the General Assembly and signed an agreement that Ward should go to Rehoboth on Thursday, June 23, and thus give Hopkins opportunity to arrest Ward there in an action to be sued out in the courts of Massachusetts. Hopkins appealed from a verdict for the defendant, in September, 1757, and eventually discontinued the suit in 1760. In the election of 1758, Hopkins defeated Ward for Governor by sixty-six plurality in a total vote of 3390 ; again in 1759 Hopkins defeated Ward by 351 plurality. Hopkins was reelected in 1760 and again in 1761, after Ward had rejected a proposal originating with Hopkins that both withdraw as candidates and end the public quarrel. In the following year, 1762, Hop- kins rejected Ward's proposal that both retire, conditional upon an agreement to elect a Gov- ernor from Newport and a Deputy Governor from Providence. Again there was exchange of pamphlets, in which Ward renewed, restated and reiterated his charges against Hopkins that the latter was enriched through misuse of public office. Ward was elected as Governor in 1762, but defeated by Hopkins in 1763 by 271 plurality. On October 20, 1762, William Goddard began to print in Providence the "Providence Gazette and Country Journal," which was identified immediately as the newspaper of the Hopkins party .* Stephen Hopkins was one of the earliest contributors to the columns of the "Gazette," and a frequent contributor during the period preceding the Revolution. The "Gazette" was the third Rhode Island newspaper. The first, the "Rhode Island Gazette," was published in Newport for six months in 1727 by James Franklin; it was a single page broadside measuring eight by twelve inches. The second Rhode Island newspaper was the "Newport Mercury," which was printed weekly and regularly except during the British occupation of the town, from June 12, 1758, under its own name until merged in 1928 with the "Newport Daily News."
The Ward party's administration in 1762 opened with a quarrel over counting proxies that occasioned widespread dissatisfaction, advantage of which was taken by the Hopkins party. The election laws were revised in 1762, and this action also contributed to Ward's rising unpopularity, which carried Hopkins back to office in 1763. Both Ward and Hopkins made overtures for peace in 1764, and each rejected the other's proposition. Ward proposed, as before, that both withdraw and that a Newport man be elected as Governor; Hopkins offered Ward nomination as Deputy Governor on a ticket to be headed by Hopkins as Gov- ernor. Hopkins won by 24 votes in 1764, but lost the election of 1765 by 200 votes. Ward was successful again in 1766. In 1765, the town of Providence, in spite of vigorous protest, was divided into two towns, one of which was named North Providence. Perhaps this was retribution for the division of Newport in 1743. The new town of Providence was much smaller in area than the present city. In ordering a colony tax in 1765 the statute of 1762 establishing an apportionment was ignored; Providence, Cumberland and Scituate refused to assess and collect the tax, and the General Assembly in 1766 threatened suit against the town treasurers in each instance. Thus the stage was prepared for the political battle of 1767, which Hopkins won with a plurality of 414. In this election, Hopkins received every vote cast in Providence; in Newport Ward received three votes for every one cast for
*The newspaper was discontinued May 11, 1765, for want of financial support, but revived August 9, 1766, with Sarah Goddard as publisher.
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Hopkins. Before the election of 1768, an agreement was reached that both Hopkins and Ward should withdraw altogether from the contest for Governor, and that a union ticket should be nominated by both parties. Josias Lyndon of Newport, was elected as Governor, and Nicholas Cooke of Providence, as Deputy Governor. Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward were Rhode Island's representatives in the Continental Congress, 1774-1776, until the death of Samuel Ward. In the events leading up to the Revolution both were staunch patriots ; the agreement for peace that ended the long controversy between them was reached in view of the necessity for harmony within the colony in view of danger threatening from without.
The controversy between Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward has been interpreted variously, aside from the clear implications of sectionalism, rival towns and intense personal animosity, aroused in the first instance by the nature of the original charges against Hopkins and the resentment that they stirred. Thus a writer in the "Newport Mercury," not a con- temporary, however, styled Ward "the candidate of the aristocracy, at the head of which stood Newport ; Hopkins was as warmly supported by the democracy, at the head of which stood the town of Providence." The writer continued: "During all this time party virulence had been increasing until one general hostility pervaded the whole colony, which raged between the friends and supporters of the two candidates. It appears to have been a ques- tion about men, more than measures. Between the mercantile and the farming interests, between the aristocracy of wealth and magnificence, and the democracy of numbers, the colony was torn by domestic discord; town against town, and neighborhood against neigh- borhood; and almost every freeman was enlisted in one or the other ranks, and felt toward each other that hostility which abated even the charities and hospitalities of life." That the writer in the "Mercury" had drawn upon his imagination appears in what little remains of details of balloting for Governor. The division was north and south rather than between merchant and farmer. Hopkins was supported by the merchants and farmers of the north ; Ward, by the merchants and farmers of the south. The small pluralities given the successful candidates in the elections of the period rebut the suggestion of a conflict between "an aris- tocracy of wealth and magnificence," which means always a small number, "and the democ- racy of numbers." As a matter of fact, the group of men allied with Stephen Hopkins in Providence, in business and in politics, included some who were building princely fortunes. The aristocracy of wealth was shifting to Providence. Hopkins almost invariably carried the northern towns, and Ward the southern towns. Moreover, the vote for Governor was not indirectly by towns or town representatives in such manner as to overcome the weight of popular voting by gerrymandering; it was a direct vote by the freemen, and the classification by towns contains the evidence whereby to prove the eminence of sectionalism.
ELECTION LAWS-The governmental organization in the second half of the eighteenth century indicated changes brought about because of increase in population and of the experi- ence gained in practice. Beginning with provisions for the election of general officers, regu- lations were made to guard against evil practices. Freemen were forbidden to vote else- where than in the town of residence after 1743, and later provision was made for change of residence from town to town without loss of freemanship and the necessity for beginning anew the procedure for acquiring it. In 1760, electors, except members of the General Assembly, were required to vote by proxy. The act of 1760 recited that it had been "found, by long experience that the freemen going to Newport to put their votes in for general offi- cers at the election is very injurious to the interest and public weal of the colony, and occa- sions a great loss of the people's time at a season of the year when their labor is abundantly necessary for preparing the ground and planting the seed, on which the produce of the whole summer must depend"; and that "all the ends of voting for general officers may be as fully attained by the freemen's putting in their proxy votes at the town meeting in their own towns,
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appointed by law for that purpose, agreeably to the ancient and laudable custom of most of the prudent freemen." The annual election was set for the third Wednesday in April next preceding the general election "agreeably to the law and the well known custom of proxying." Bribery and corruption in elections were penalized, and electors and officers were required to take oath or affirmation to the effect that bribes had been neither offered nor accepted; the records of the General Assembly mention the ceremony of administering the oath and affir- mation in 1746 and thereafter. A committee was appointed to revise and consolidate the election laws in 1762. The election law of that year regulated the admission of freemen, and the conduct of elections. Persons who gave or received a deed of real estate for the purpose only of qualifying as freemen were liable to disfranchisement. Particular safeguards against illegal voting were prescribed for proxy voting in town election meetings. The General Assembly was required to meet in grand committee to elect freemen and to elect officers, and not permitted to act in separate houses. The election functions of the General Assembly had increased steadily as the number of officers, including justices of courts and military officers, steadily increased. The admission of freemen necessitated a meeting of the Assembly at Newport in anticipation of general election day, until this item of business loomed so large that the matter was reduced to a system of certifying lists of town freemen with their prop- erty holdings. The election meeting itself consumed so much time that the General Assem- bly adjourned immediately after completing the election business, to meet in June. Assem- bly sessions were frequent; thus, in 1757, for example, the General Assembly met in ses- sions opening on January 10, January 26, and March 14 at Providence; on the first Wednes- day in May, on June 13, on August 10 and September 19, at Newport; and on the last Wed- nesday in October at South Kingstown. Resort to fines as penalties for non-attendance was necessary in some instances to assure the quorum required for legal business. With the increase in the number of towns, the old process of proclaiming new laws by sending hand- written copies to town clerks gave way to printed schedules, made possible and practicable by the setting up of a printing press at Newport. Occasionally, in the instances of laws of an emergency nature to be put into effect at once, recourse was had to proclamation by roll of the drums and public reading. With the advent of William Goddard and his printing press at Providence, the General Assembly requested the Newport and Providence printers to sub- mit bids for the colony printing in 1763.
While the General Assembly exercised judicial functions, the drastic penalties imposed upon persons who criticised it might be interpreted as of the nature of measures taken by modern courts of justice to punish contempt. The Rhode Island General Assembly con- tinued the practice after it had erected separate courts. Thus, in 1753, John Martin was sen- tenced to solitary confinement ; in 1754, Gideon Wanton was remanded for trial to one of the colony courts ; in 1756, Samuel Thayer was jailed ; and in 1757 John Wheaton was ordered arrested, all for abusing the General Assembly. The Governor and Deputy Governor and Assistants were established as a Superior Court of Judicature in 1729; after February, 1746- 1747, the court consisted of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices elected annually by the General Assembly. To the court thus erected the General Assembly delegated the major part of its judicial functions, and thus relieved itself of a burdensome and distracting schedule of business. But the courts were scarcely independent while the General Assembly retained the power to elect justices annually, and reserved the jurisdiction of regulating procedure occasionally. Jurors for trial courts were furnished by quotas apportioned to the towns; the creation of new towns necessitated a reappointment of the quotas. Until 1742, jurors were elected by towns; thereafter the names of jurors were drawn from a box. The number of freemen claiming exemption from jury duty became so great as to suggest in 1752 a statute limiting exemption to a list of colony officers; Newport firemen continued to be exempt.
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OTHER CHANGES-The development of town life was indicated by the provision for paving streets in Newport and Providence. The division of Newport into two towns, setting off Middletown, was partly a separation of an open-country farming section from a compact town. The separation of North Providence from Providence proceeded somewhat on similar lines. Newport had advanced to lighting some of the town streets in 1751; in that year a statute established a penalty for breaking street lights, public or private. Newport had an organized call fire department by 1750, and had ordered a fire engine. Four years later Providence had a fire department, with a requirement that every householder should provide two leather buckets, and provision for buying a fire engine. The new style calendar, called Gregorian for Pope Gregory, was introduced in England and throughout the colonies in 1752. It placed New Year's at January I, instead of in March, and necessitated the dropping of eleven calendar days, the variation from the Julian calendar accumulating because of the error in calculating the length of the solar year. The essential change consisted in dropping the century year as leap year. September, 1752, was a month of only nineteen days; there was no disturbance in Rhode Island, although the chronicles of the period report disturb- ances amounting almost to rioting in some parts of England by people who asserted that Parliament was shortening their lives by legislation, or who feared the Gregorian calendar as Popish. There was a savor of Puritanism in an act "to prevent stage plays and other theatrical entertainments within this colony," passed in August, 1762. The preamble follows : "For preventing and avoiding the many mischiefs which arise from public stage plays, inter- ludes, and other theatrical entertainments, which not only occasion great and unnecessary expenses, and discourage industry and frugality, but likewise tend generally to increase immorality, impiety and contempt of religion." The act forbade the letting of "any house, room or place whatsoever." The act also referred to a petition originating in Providence and reciting "that a number of stage players have lately appeared* and a playhouse hath lately been built in said town of Providence," and that the town meeting did "pass a vote that no stage plays be acted in said town, yet the actors thereof, in defiance of said vote, and in defiance of the public authority of said town, have been and are now daily continuing to exhibit stage plays and other theatrical performances." The act of the General Assembly was ordered proclaimed "by beat of the drum through the streets of the compact part of the said town of Providence."
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