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

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 the vast western wilderness a retreat, sufficiently alluring to draw them away from the land of their nativity. We have many troubles even now; but we should have many more, if this body of foresters had remained at home." [Footnote: Dwight, Travels, II., 458-463.]
Perhaps the most striking feature of New England life was its organization into communities. What impressed the traveler from other sections or from the Old World was partly the small farms, divided into petty fields by stone fences, but, above all, "the clustering of habitations in villages instead of dispersing them at intervals of a mile over the country." The spires of the white churches of separate hamlets dotted the landscape. Simple comfort and thrift were characteristic of the