Connecticut Quakers, though few in numbers, were very determined to have their rights. From 1706, the Newport Yearly Meeting had encouraged the collecting and recording of all cases of "sufferance." In 1714, at the close of Queen Anne's War (1702-13), the Newport Yearly Meeting reported to that of London that "there is much suffering on account of the Indians at the Eastward, yet not one (of ours) had fallen during the last year, Travelling preachers having frequently visited those parts without the least harm…. Friends in several places have suffered deeply on account of not paying presbyterian priests, and for the Refusing to bear Armes, an Account of which we Doe herewith Send." In 1715, the English law had granted them the perpetual privilege of substituting affirmation for oath. The Quakers were determined to have the same freedom in the colonies as in England. Accordingly, they watched with interest the test case between the Quaker constables of Duxbury and Tiverton,—both, then, under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts,—and the authorities of that colony. Fines and persecutions were so much alike in Connecticut and Massachusetts that a dissenter's victory in one colony would go far towards obtaining exemption in the other. The Quaker constables had refused to collect the church rate, and for this refusal were thrown into prison. Thereupon a petition, with many citations from the colony law books, was sent to England, begging that the prisoners be released and excused from their fines, and that such unjust laws be annulled. The Privy Council ordered the prisoners released and their fine remitted. This decision was rendered in 1724, and, with the success of the Episcopalians three years later, still further encouraged both Quakers and Baptists to seek relief from ecclesiastical taxes and fines. Two years later, in May, 1729, the Quakers appealed to the Connecticut Court for such exemption, and were released from contributing to the support of the established ministry and from paying any tax levied for building its meeting-houses, provided they could show a certificate from some society of their own (either within the colony or without it, if so near its borders that they could regularly attend its services) vouching for their support of its worship and their presence at its regular meetings. [93]
Turning to the Baptists, the oppressive measures employed to make them violate their conscience ceased on the inauguration of Governor Talcott in 1724. Thereafter, those among them who conformed to the requirements of the Toleration Act received some measure of freedom. To the neighborly interest of the Association of Baptist Churches of North Kingston, Rhode Island, and to the influence of leading Baptists in that colony, including among them its governor (who subjoined a personal note to the Association's appeal to the Connecticut General Court), was due the favor of the Court extended in October, 1729, [94] to the Baptists, whereby they were granted exemption upon the same terms as those offered the Quakers.
Thus in barely twenty years from the passage of the Toleration Act, Episcopalian, Quaker, and Baptist had driven the thin edge of a destroying wedge into the foundations of the Connecticut Establishment. Each dissenting body was pitifully small in absolute strength, and they had no inclination toward united action. Quakers and Baptists were required to show certificates, a requirement soon to be considered in itself humiliating. The new laws were negative, in that they empowered the assessor to omit to tax those entitled to exemption, but they provided no penalty to be enforced against assessors who failed to make such omission. Indeed, in individual cases, the laws might seem to be scarcely more than an admission of the right to exemption. However, it was an admission that a century's progress had brought the knowledge that brethren of different religious opinions could dwell together in peace. It was an exemption by which the government admitted, as well as claimed, the right of choice in religious worship. It was a far cry to the acknowledgment that a man was free to think his own thoughts and follow his own convictions, provided they did not interfere with the rights of other men. The new laws were a concession by a strongly intrenched church to the natural rights of weaker ones, whose title to permanency it greatly doubted. They were a concession by a government whose best members felt it to be the State's moral and religious obligation to support one form of religion and to protect it at the cost, if necessary, of all other forms,—a concession, by such a government, to a very small minority of its subjects, holding the same appreciation of their religious duty as that which had nerved the founders of the colony. It was a concession by the community to a very few among their number, who were divergent in church polity and practice, but who were united in a Protestant creed and in the conviction, held then by every respectable citizen, that every man should be made to attend and support some accepted and organized form of Christian worship.
FOOTNOTES:
[a] The Rev. John Hart of East Guilford, Samuel Whittlesey of Wallingford, and Jared Ellis of Killingworth. These men were always friendly to the Churchmen.
The Rev. Daniel Brown died in England. In the next forty years, one tenth of those who crossed the sea for ordination perished from dangers incident to the trip.
[c] This year the home influence of the Church of England had been brought to bear with sufficient pressure to forbid the calling of a general synod of the New England churches which had been desired, and towards which Massachusetts had taken the initial step. See A. L. Cross, Anglican Episcopate, pp. 67-70.
[d] Stratford.
[e] This same year, George I granted to Bishop Gibson a patent confirming the jurisdiction which, as Bishop of London, he claimed over the Church of England in the colonies. George II renewed the patent in 1728-29.
[f] Between 1700 and 1741 more than thirty new towns were organized, making twice as many as in 1700.