Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 | Page 8

Fearon, Sketches of
America, 114.] yet this had been achieved only recently and but
incompletely.
We find, therefore, that the alliance of Episcopalians and Dissenters
against the dominant clergy and the Federalists was the key to internal
politics at the opening of our period. "The old political distinctions,"
wrote the editor of the Vermont Journal, "seem to have given place to
religious ones." But the religious contentions were so closely
interwoven with the struggle of New England's democracy to throw off
the control of the established classes, that the contest was in reality
rather more political and social than religious. By her constitutional
convention of 1818, Connecticut practically disestablished the
Congregational church and did away with the old manner of choosing
assistants. [Footnote: Baldwin, "The Three Constitutions of Conn.," in

New Haven Colony Hist. Soc., Papers, V., 210-214.] In the election of
1820 the Republican candidate for governor was elected by a decisive
vote, and all of Connecticut's representation in the lower house of
Congress was Republican, [Footnote: Niles' Register, XVIII., 128.]
although, in 1816, the Federalist candidate had been chosen by a small
majority. [Footnote: Adams, United States, IX., 133.] New Hampshire's
toleration act was passed in 1819, but she had achieved her revolution
as early as 1816, when a union of the anti- Congregational
denominations with the Republicans destroyed the ascendancy of the
Federalists and tried to break that party's control of the educational
center at Dartmouth College. [Footnote: P. B. Sanborn, New
Hampshire, 251 et seq.; Barstow, New Hampshire, chaps, xi., xii.;
Plumer, William Plumer, 437-460.]
The contest was not so clearly marked in Massachusetts as in the other
states, for the old centers of Congregational power, notably Harvard
College, had already begun to feel the liberalizing influence of the
Unitarian movement. Congregationalism in Massachusetts divided into
warring camps [Footnote: Walker, Cong. Churches in the U.S.,
303-308.] and was not in a position to exercise the political power it
had shown in other states of New England. The discussion in that state
between the Unitarian and orthodox wings of the Congregational
churches tended, on the whole, to moderate the extreme views of each,
as well as to prevent their united domination. In her constitutional
convention of 1820, Massachusetts refused to do away with the
advantage which the Congregational church had in the matter of public
support, and it was not until 1833 that the other denominations secured
the complete separation of church and state. The moderate attitude of
the Federalists of the state lengthened their tenure of power. Governor
Brooks, elected by the Federalists in 1817, was a friend of Monroe, and
a moderate who often took Republicans for his counselors, a genuine
representative of what has been aptly termed the "Indian summer of
Federalism in Massachusetts."
The Republican party controlled the other states of the section, but
there was in New England, as a whole, a gradual decline and absorption,
rather than a destruction, of the Federalist party, while, at the same time,

marked internal political differences constituted a basis for subsequent
political conflicts. Just before he took his seat in Congress in 1823,
Webster lamented to Judge Story that New England did not get out of
the "dirty squabble of local politics, and assert her proper character and
consequence." "We are disgraced," he said, "beyond help or hope by
these things. There is a Federal interest, a Democratic interest, a
bankrupt interest, an orthodox interest, and a middling interest; but I
see no national interest, nor any national feeling in the whole
matter."[Footnote: McMaster, Webster, 99.]
In general, northern New England--Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont- -showed a distinct tendency towards Democracy; in southern
New England the fortifications of Federalism and Congregational
power lay in a wide belt along the Connecticut River, while along the
sea- coast and in the Berkshire region the Democratic forces showed
strength.
From the outlying rural forces, where Democracy was strong, the
settlement of New-Englanders in the middle west was to come. To
Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, who voiced the extreme
conservatism of Federal New England, the pioneers seemed unable to
live in regular society. "They are impatient of the restraints of law,
religion, and morality; grumble about the taxes, by which Rulers,
Ministers, and School-masters, are supported; and complain incessantly,
as well as bitterly, of the extortions of mechanics, farmers, merchants,
and physicians; to whom they are always indebted. At the same time,
they are usually possessed, in their own view, of uncommon wisdom;
understand medical science, politics, and religion, better than those,
who have studied them through life." These restless men, with nothing
to lose, who were delighted with innovation, were, in his judgment, of
the type that had ruined Greece and Rome. "In mercy, therefore,"
exclaimed Dwight, "to the sober, industrious, and well-disposed
inhabitants, Providence has opened in