I am persuaded [wrote the Rev. Lyman Beecher to Rev. Asahel Hooker in the following November] that the time has come when it becomes every friend of the State to wake up and exert his whole influence to save it from innovation…. That the effort to supplant Governor Smith will be made is certain unless at an early stage the noise of rising opposition will be so great as to deter them; and if it is made, a separation is made in the Federal party and a coalition with Democracy, which will in my opinion be permanent, unless the overthrow by the election should throw them into despair or inspire repentance.
If we stand idle we lose our habits and institutions piecemeal, as fast as innovations and ambitions shall dare to urge on the work.
My request is that you will see Mr. Theodore Dwight, expressing to him your views on the subject, … and that you will in your region touch every spring, lay or clerical, which you can touch prudently, that these men do not steal a march upon us, and that the rising opposition may meet them early, before they have gathered strength. Every blow struck now will have double the effect it will after the parties are formed and the lines drawn. I hope we shall not act independently, but I hope we shall all act, who fear God or regard men. [206]
Writing of the meeting to organize the Society for the Suppression of Vice and the Formation of Good Morals, Dr. Beecher in his "Autobiography" gives a sketch of the politics of the time that had led up to the occasion. One of the prominent actors of the time, he tells us that this meeting, composed of prominent Federalists of all classes, was unusual, for—
it was a new thing in that day for the clergy and laymen to meet on the same level and co-operate. It was the first time there had ever been such a consultation in our day. The ministers had always managed things themselves, for in those days the ministers were all politicians. They had always been used to it from the beginning…. On election day they had a festival, and, fact is, when they got together they would talk over who should be Governor, and who Lieutenant-Governor, and who in the Upper House, and their councils would prevail. Now it was a part of the old steady habits of the state … that the Lieutenant-Governor should succeed to the governorship. And it was the breaking up of this custom by the civilians, against the influence of the clergy, that first shook the stability of the Standing Order and the Federal party in the state. Lieutenant Governor Treadwell (1810) was a stiff man, and the time had come when many nlen did not like that sort of thing. He had been active in the enforcement of the Sabbath laws, and had brought on himself the odium of the opposing party. Hence of the civilians of our party, David Daggett and other wire-pullers, worked to have him superseded, and Roger Griswold, the ablest man in Congress, put in his stead. That was rank rebellion against the ministerial candidate. But Daggett controlled the whole of Fairfleld County bar, and Griswold was a favorite with the lawyers, and the Democrats helped them because they saw how it would work; so there was no election by the people, and Treadwell was acting Governor till 1811, when Griswold was chosen. The lawyers, in talking about it, said: "We have served the clergy long enough; we must take another man, and they must look out for themselves." Throwing Treadwell over in 1811 broke the charm and divided the party; persons of third-rate ability on our side who wanted to be somebody deserted; all the infidels in the state had long been leading on that side … minor sects had swollen and complained of certificates. Our efforts to reform morals by law were unpopular. [t]
Finally the Episcopalians went over to the Democrats. The Episcopal split was due to a foolish and arbitrary proceeding on the part of the Federals. In the spring of 1814, a petition was presented to the General Assembly for the incorporation of the Phoanix Bank of Hartford, offering "in conformity to the precedents in other states, to pay for the privilege of the incorporation herein prayed for, the sum of sixty thousand dollars to be collected (being a Premium to be advanced by the stockholders) as fast as the successive instalments of the capital stock shall be paid in; and to be appropriated, if in the opinion of your Honors it shall be deemed expedient, in such proportion as shall by your Honors be thought proper, to the use of the Corporation of Yale College, of the Medical Institution, established in the city of New Haven, and to the corporation of the Trustees of the Fund of the Bishop of the Episcopal church in this state, or for any purpose whatever, which to your Honors may seem best." The capital asked for was $1,500,000. "The purpose of this offer a was a double one,—creating an interest in favor of the Bank Charter among Episcopalians and retaining their influence on the side of the Charter Government, as there was no inconsiderable amount of talent among them." The Bishop's Fund, slowly gathering since 1799, amounted to barely $6000. This bonus would give it a good start, and conciliate the Episcopalians, still indignant at the refusal of the Assembly to incorporate their college. When presented to the Assembly, the Lower House favored the bank charter; the Council, rejecting it, appointed a committee to consider its request. They soon originated an act of incorporation, granting a capital of $1,000,000, and ordered the bonus to be paid into the treasury. An act of incorporation, rather than a petition, was, they claimed, the way established by custom of granting bank charters. The same session of the legislature originated bills giving $20,000 to the Medical Institution of Yale College, and one of the same amount to the Bishop's Fund, "in conformity to the offer of the petitioners for the Phnix Bank, and out of the first moneys received from it as a bonus." The bill for the medical school was passed unanimously by the House; that for the Bishop's Fund uniformly voted down. [v] The Episcopalians, to whom the Republicans were quick to offer their sympathy, asserted that by the "grant to Yale the legislature had committed themselves in good faith to make the grant to the two other corporations connected with it in the same petition." [w] Stripped of formal and courteous wording, the petition, both in letter and in spirit, had offered its conditions to all, if accepted by one; or, if refused at all, the opportunity to divert the money from all three recipients to some other and quite different use which should be approved by the legislature.
The further bad faith of both branches of the Assembly increased the enmity of the Episcopalians. In the spring of 1815, they petitioned for their first installment of $10,000. They were told that the treasury was empty, and that war time was no time to attend to such matters. In the fall, in answer to their second petition, they found the Lower House still hostile; the majority of the Council, including the governor, in their favor, until the discussion came up, when the Council, with one exception, sided with the House. The explanation of the change appeared to the Episcopalians to be due to the fact that during the session the Medical School had petitioned for the balance of the $30,000, and seemed likely to receive it at the spring meeting. This was too much for the Episcopalians, and thereafter the Democrats claimed nine tenths of their vote. The sect was estimated in 1816 to contain from one eleventh to one thirteenth of the population. The Democratic-Republicans had won over discontented radicals, a majority of the dissatisfied dissenters, a few conservatives, and now the indignant Episcopalians. Their political hopes rose higher, but the War of 1812-1814 interfered, substituting national interests for local ones, yet all the while adding recruits to the Republican ranks, so that at its close there was a strong party. There was also a Federal faction in process of disintegration. The result was that when the constitutional reform movement again became the issue of the day, though supported by the Republicans, the question at issue soon drew to itself a new political combine which under various forms kept the name of the Toleration Party, and which eventually won the victory for religious freedom and disestablishment.
FOOTNOTES:
[a] This party, called for short "Republican," stood for the principles known as "democratic,"—the appellation of the party itself since 1828. This was the school of Jefferson.
There were men of mark among the Anti-Federalist leaders, such as William Williams of Lebanon, a signer of the Declaration, Gen. James Wadsworth of Durham, and Gen. Erastus Wolcott of East Windsor,—these three were members of the Council; Dr. Benjamin Gale of Killingworth, Joseph Hopkins, Esq., of Waterbury, Col. Peter Bulkley of Colchester, Col. William Worthington of Saybrook, and Capt. Abraham Granger of Suffield. At the ratification of the Constitntution the Tote stood 128 to 40. Afterwards for about ten years, in the conduct of state politics, there was little friction, for in local matters the Anti-Federalists were generally conservatives."