The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

The Development of Religious
Liberty in Connecticut

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Title: The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut
Author: M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN
CONNECTICUT
BY
M. LOUISE GREENE, Ph. D.

PREFACE
The following monograph is the outgrowth of three earlier and shorter
essays. The first, "Church and State in Connecticut to 1818," was
presented to Yale University as a doctor's thesis. The second, a briefer
and more popularly written article, won the Straus prize offered in 1896
through Brown University by the Hon. Oscar S. Straus. The third, a
paper containing additional matter, was so far approved by the
American Historical Association as to receive honorable mention in the
Justin Winsor prize competition of 1901.
With such encouragement, it seemed as if the history of the
development of religious liberty in Connecticut might serve a larger
purpose than that of satisfying personal interest alone. In Connecticut
such development was not marked, as so often elsewhere, by wild
disorder, outrageous oppression, tyranny of classes, civil war, or by any
great retrograde movement. Connecticut was more modern in her
progress towards such liberty, and her contribution to advancing
civilization was a pattern of stability, of reasonableness in government,
and of a slow broadening out of the conception of liberty, as she
gradually softened down her restrictions upon religious and personal

freedom.
And yet, Connecticut is recalled as a part of that New England where
those not Congregationalists, the unorthodox or radical thinkers, found
early and late an uncomfortable atmosphere and restricted liberties. By
a study of her past, I have hoped to contribute to a fairer judgment of
the men and measures of colonial times, and to a correct estimate of
those essentials in religion and morals which endure from age to age,
and which alone, it would seem, must constitute the basis of that
"ultimate union of Christendom" toward which so many confidently
look. The past should teach the present, and one generation, from
dwelling upon the transient beliefs and opinions of a preceding, may
better judge what are the non-essentials of its own.
Connecticut's individual experiment in the union of Church and State is
separable neither from the New England setting of her earliest days nor
from the early years of that Congregationalism which the colony
approved and established. Hence, the opening chapters of her story
must treat of events both in old England and in New. And because
religious liberty was finally won by a coalition of men like-minded in
their attitude towards rights of conscience and in their desire for certain
necessary changes and reforms in government, the final chapters must
deal with social and political conditions more than with those purely
religious. It may be pertinent to remark that the passing of a hundred
years since the divorce of Church and State and the reforms of a
century ago have brought to the commonwealth some of the same
deplorable political conditions that the men of the past, the first
Constitutional Reform Party, swept away by the peaceful revolution of
1818.
For encouragement, assistance, and suggestions, I am especially
indebted to Professor George B. Adams and Professor Williston
Walker of Yale University, to Professor Charles M. Andrews of Bryn
Mawr, to Dr. William G. Andrews, rector of Christ Church, Guilford,
Conn., and to Professor Lucy M. Salmon of Vassar College. Of
numerous libraries, my largest debt is to that of Yale University.
M. LOUISE GREENE.
NEW HAVEN, October 20, 1905.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I. THE EVOLUTION OF