This favoritism to Yale was not the only legislation to anger the dissenters, and especially the Baptists. Another measure, mooted at the same time as the certificate acts and the special grant to the college, was accepted as a further mark of the government's determination to ignore the rights of dissenters. In 1785-86 the Assembly had granted lands for the support of the Gospel ministry, for schools, and to the first minister to settle in each township of the Western Reserve. This act, as has been shown, was considered to unduly favor the Presbyterians. But little had come of this legislation beyond the survey of the land and the opening of a land office there for its sale. Five years later, in 1791, even though no part of the tract had been sold, the Assembly introduced a new bill appropriating the anticipated proceeds from the sale of the land to the several ecclesiastical societies as a fund with which to pay their ministers so as to enable them to do away with the tax for salaries. But the excitement roused by the first certificate law—of 1791—was so great that it was deemed prudent to continue this Western Land bill over to the next session of the legislature, and there it was lost. The session of May, 1792, contented itself with only such legislation in regard to the Western Reserve as that by which it granted the "Fire Lands," so called, a grant of 500,000 acres as indemnity to the citizens of New London, Groton, Fairfield, Norwalk, and Danbury, for the destruction of their property in the burning of their towns by British troops.
As the lands of the Western Reserve did not sell well, [d] the Assembly, in 1793, appointed a committee to dispose of the tract to the highest bidder if the amount offered should be duly guaranteed with interest; principal and interest payable to the state within four or six years, whether paid in lump sum on demand, or by installments. The sale was widely advertised both within and without the state. It was now calculated that the amount realized from the sale of the lands would be a sum yielding an annual interest of $60,000, or an average of $600 to a town, beside a bonus to Yale of $8000. Therefore, the Assembly, in October, 1793, voted that—
moneys arising from the sale of the territory belonging to the State, lying west of the state of Pennsylvania, be, and the same is hereby established a perpetual fund, the interest whereof is granted, and shall be appropriated to the use and benefit of the several ecclesiastical societies, churches, congregations of all denominations in this State, to be by them applied to the support of their respective ministers or preachers of the Gospel, and schools of education, under such rules and regulations as shall be adopted by this or some future session of the General Assembly. [188]
An earlier bill had been proposed, discussed, and tabled. This act was originally a resolution framed by a large committee whose members represented both the friends and opponents of the proposal for the immediate sale of the lands. When the vote passed, it was by eighty-three yeas to seventy nays in the House and by a large and favorable majority in the Council.
One fault that the dissenters found with the law was that, under the rules and regulations adopted by the Assembly, they believed that the alternative which the law allowed of voting the money to the ministerial fund, or to the school, would work to their disadvantage. Where there were few dissenters, the Presbyterian vote would carry the money over to the minister's use, and where there were many, the same vote would be sufficient, if thrown, as it probably would be, to direct the money to the school appropriation. It would follow that the dissenters might never have the use of the money for the support of their own worship.
The Baptists voiced the general opposition among the dissenters,—an opposition so strong that it appealed to some of the conservatives as sufficient reason in itself to condemn the law. "A Friend to Society" wrote to the "Hartford Courant" that—
if a religion whose principles are universal love and harmony is to be supported and promoted by a means which will blow up the sparks of faction and party strife into a violent flame, it is a new way of promoting religion. Much better would it be for the State of Connecticut that their Western Lands should be sunk by an earthquake and form part of the adjoining lake than that they should be transplanted hither for a bone of contention.
Apart from sectarian interests, the law met with hostility. There were those who thought that the money ought to be applied at once to the remaining indebtedness of the state, rather than for it to wait for another installment on the Revolutionary debt that was still due from the national government. There were more who thought that the money ought to go for the expenses of government, or for direct advantages, such as the repair of bridges and highways. But the expenses of government were light, [e] and, as a rule, the people were willing to keep the highways in repair. There was still another party who contended that the money should go for schools, both because they were needed in larger numbers, and because they ought to be able to pay larger salaries and not ones so small as to tempt only the farmer lad, or the ambitious student, to keep a country school for a few months in winter, or a somewhat similarly equipped woman to teach in summer. And there was yet another party who were convinced that the money should go to the support of the ministry, for they believed that morality could be taught only by religion, and that the people were losing interest in the latter because of the inferiority of the preachers whom the small salaries and insecure support kept in the field. [189]
While this discussion of certificate laws, of grants to Yale, and of grants of land and money to the ecclesiastical societies had been constantly before the public, there had also been present a minor grievance due to the Assembly's interest in the missionary work that the General Association had extended to include parts of Vermont, western New York, Pennsylvania, and the outlying settlements in Ohio. In the western field the missionaries sent by Connecticut frequently met those sent out by the Presbyterian General Assembly. Drawn together by their interests in these missions in 1794, the practice was begun of having three delegates from the General Association meet with the Presbyterian General Assembly in their annual convention, and three delegates from the General Assembly take their seats in the yearly convocation of the General Association of Connecticut. So long as the Connecticut churches were strongly Presbyterian in sentiment, there was no clashing of interests among the workers in the mission field. Naturally, Connecticut wanted to do her full share of missionary work; and feeling the need of more money for the purpose, the General Association, in 1792, appealed to the legislature for permission to take up an annual collection for three years. The Association hesitated to take up such a collection in all the churches, dissenting or Established, without such permission. The Baptists expressed their indignation at the wording of Governor Huntington's proclamation, "that there be a contribution taken up in every congregation for the support of the Presbyterian Missions in the western territory." More than that, they refused to contribute, on the ground that if the collection had been "recommended" they would gladly have helped a Christian cause, but that it was inexpedient to yield to a demand that all societies should contribute to the support of missions that were entirely under the control of one religious body. Furthermore, with reference to the appropriation of money from the Western Lands, they would join with other dissenters in opposing it, on the ground that, in order to obtain their share of the money, they would have to admit their inferiority through the showing of the compulsory certificates. Moreover, even the scant favor secured through these was in danger from the continual favoritism of the legislature, with its treasury open at all times to its Congregational college, and with its enactments in favor of the Established Churches.
At the May session of the Assembly, 1794, the Baptists from all over the state thronged the steps of the capitol at Hartford, angered almost to the point of precipitating civil war. There John Leland addressed them, urging the necessity of government; the power of constitutional reform; arguing for rights of conscience, citing both European and colonial history to prove their reasonableness and their value to the body politic; and setting forth Connecticut's departure from the glorious freedom mapped out by her founders. He declared to that great and angry crowd:—