The "Connecticut Herald," indignant at the Assembly's conduct in the Phoenix Bank affair, left the Federal party and independently nominated Jonathan Ingersoll for lieutenant-governor instead of the regular candidate of that party, Chauncey Goodrich. The "American Mercury," the organ of the American Toleration party, the union of Republicans, dissenters, and dissatisfied, in order "to produce that concord and harmony among parties which have too long, and without any real diversity of interests, been disturbed, and which every honest man must earnestly desire to see restored," nominated for governor, Oliver Wolcott; for lieutenant-governor, Jonathan Ingersoll. The Federal candidate for the executive was Governor John Cotton Smith, up for reëlection. The Tolerationists failed by a few hundred votes to seat their candidate for the executive, with the result that the election of 1816 raised to office Governor Smith and Lieutenant-Governor Ingersoll. Governor Smith received 11,589 votes, Mr. Wolcott 10,170, while Lieutenant-Governor Ingersoll polled a majority of 1453 over his opponent, Mr. Calvin Goddard. [t] It was the first time that a dissenter had held so high an office. The Federalists might have seized the opportunity to renew their former friendship with the Episcopalians had it not been for their stubbornness and for their old fear of Churchmen in political office. At the October town meetings, the returns from ninety-three towns gave a Federal vote of 7995 and a Republican of 6315 for representatives, with a Federal majority of about thirty in the House. [2ll]
The Federalists, realizing that the Episcopal vote was almost lost to them, that their domestic policy was in disfavor, and that their conduct during the war had damaged them and was leading to their downfall in Connecticut even as in the nation, resolved upon a desperate measure to conciliate a larger number of the dissenters. This was the Act of October, 1816, for the Support of Literature and Religion. Briefly, it divided the balance of the money which the nation owed Connecticut for expenses during the war, namely $145,000, among the various denominations. To the Congregationalists it gave in round numbers, and including the grant to Yale, $68,000; to the Episcopalians, $20,000; to Methodists, $12,000; and to Baptists, $18,000; to Quakers, Sandemanians, etc., nothing. The Quakers were assumed to be satisfied with their recent exemptions from military duty upon the payment of a small tax; Sandemanians and other insignificant sects to be conciliated by the act of the preceding April, which repealed, after a duration of nearly one hundred and eighty years, the fine of fifty cents for absence from church on Sunday. The people were at last free, not only to worship as they chose, but when they chose, or to omit worship. They had yet to obtain equal privileges for all denominations, and exemption from enforced support of religion. The passage of the Act for the Support of Literature and Religion raised, as the Congregationalists ought to have known it would, a violent protest from every dissenter and from every political come-outer. Some of the towns in town-meetings opposed the bill as unnecessary for the support of schools and clergy; as wasteful, when it would be wiser to create a state fund; and as unduly favorable to Yale, where the policy was to create an intellectual class and not to advance learning and literature among the commonalty. At Andover, February 1, 1817, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Methodists met together and denounced the act because they disapproved of the union of Church and State which it encouraged; because of Yale's tendency to bias religion; because they all approved of the voluntary support of religion; and because they all scorned such a political trick as the bill appeared to them, namely, an attempt to win by their acceptance of the money their apparent approval of the enforced support of religion. The Baptist societies in different towns met to condemn the measure on the same grounds, and on the additional ones that it was unfair to the Quakers, who had no paid preachers; to the Universalists, because they were numerically still too small to be of political importance; and indeed to many men, since, as every man had contributed to the expense of the war, every man ought to be rewarded proportionally. The Methodists agreed in all these criticisms, and were no more backward in denouncing a measure which forced on them money they did not seek, and for a purpose of which they disapproved. The Methodist Society of Glastonbury were most outspoken, declaring the law—
incompatible with sound policy and inconsistent with any former act of the legislature of the state; the ultimate consequence of which will prove a lasting curse to vital religion, which every candid and reflecting mind may easily foresee; and we view it as a very bold and desperate effort to effectuate a union between Church and State…. We are induced to believe that Pilate and Herod, and the chief Priests are still against us,… $12,000 to the contrary notwithstanding. Resolved—
(1) We don't want such reparation for being characterized as an illiterate set of enthusiasts devoid of character; our clergy a set of worthless ramblers, unworthy the protection of our civil laws.
(2) Pity and contempt for the Legislature should be expressed for bribery.
(3) We believe the money, if received, would be a lasting curse.
(4) The measure was intended for politics, not religion, and was a species of Tyranny.
(5) We should use our best endeavors to have the money used for
state expenses.
(6) Thanks should be sent to the members of the Legislature who had opposed the measure.
All Methodists were further angered by the affront put upon them by the General Assembly, which, in spite of their known determination not to receive the money, appointed Methodist trustees, of whom a majority were Federalists, to receive their share of the appropriation. The trustees accepted the money, defending their action on the ground that they believed that their claim would become void if they did not draw the money, and it might then be put to a worse use. But the Methodist societies did not uphold the trustees, and "regretted the committee imposed on us by the Legislature of the state." The chairman of the committee, the Rev. Augustus Bolles, refused to serve, and the societies rejected the money. [v]