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 Hence of the civilians of our party, David Daggett and other wire-pullers, worked to have him superseded, and Roger Griswold, the ablest man in Congress, put in his stead.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]