The Beginnings of New England: Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious LibertyFiske, John
History
The Beginnings of New England: Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty
Fiske, John
New England -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Puritans
At first it led to the departure of the men who founded Connecticut,
and thereafter the way was certainly open for those who preferred the
Connecticut policy to go where it prevailed. Some such segregation was
no doubt effected, but it could not be complete and thorough. Men who
preferred Boston without the franchise to Hartford with it would remain
in Massachusetts; and thus the elder colony soon came to possess a
discontented class of people, always ready to join hand in glove with
dissenters or mischief-makers, or even with emissaries of the crown. It
afforded a suggestive commentary upon all attempts to suppress human
nature by depriving it of a share in political life; instead of keeping
it inside where you can try conclusions with it fairly, you thrust it
out to plot mischief in the dark. Within twenty years from the founding
of Boston the disfranchisement of such citizens as could not participate
in church-communion had begun to be regarded as a serious political
grievance. These men were obliged to pay taxes and were liable to be
called upon for military service against the Indians; and they naturally
felt that they ought to have a voice in the management of public
affairs. [Sidenote: It was a source of political discontent]
Besides this fundamental ground of complaint, there were derivative
grievances. Under the influence of the clergy justice was administered
in somewhat inquisitorial fashion, there was an uncertainty as to just
what the law was, a strong disposition to confuse questions of law with
questions of ethics, and great laxity in the admission and estimation of
evidence. As early as 1639 people had begun to complain that too much
power was rested in the discretion of the magistrate, and they clamoured
for a code of laws; but as Winthrop says, the magistrates and ministers
were "not very forward in this matter," for they preferred to supplement
the common law of England by decisions based on the Old Testament rather
than by a body of statutes. It was not until 1649, after a persistent
struggle, that the deputies won a decisive victory over the assistants
and secured for Massachusetts a definite code of laws. In the New Haven
colony similar theocratic notions led the settlers to dispense with
trial by jury because they could find no precedent for it in the laws of
Moses. Here, as in Massachusetts, the inquisitorial administration of
justice combined with partial disfranchisement to awaken discontent, and
it was partly for this reason that New Haven fell so easily under the
sway of Connecticut. [Sidenote: Inquisitorial administration of justice]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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