In the fall of 1817, the reform party had forced the repeal of the obnoxious Stand-Up Law, and it demanded that other restrictive measures should be annulled. So bitter was the Federal antagonism in the Council that during all the spring session of 1817, the Tolerationists loudly complained that every reform measure proposed in the House was lost in the Federal Senate. The committees to which parts of the governor's speech had been referred for consideration did little. That on taxation made a report in the fall recommending that a careful investigation of conditions and resources should be made, because, as capital sought investment, in banks, manufacturing, and various commercial enterprises unknown to the earlier generations, [ad] the fairness of the old system of taxation was lapsing. The mixed committee, including several Tolerationists and having an Episcopal chairman, that was to report upon the religious situation, gave no encouragement to dissenters. The spring session allowed one barren act to pass, the "Act to secure equal rights, powers, and privileges to Christians of all denominations in this state." It enacted that henceforth certificates should be lodged with the _town clerk,_ and permitted a come-outer to return to the society from which he had separated. In the following spring, when an attempt was made to pass a bill to supersede this act, it was maintained that the law of 1817 "did not effect the object or answer the desire of the aggrieved party," for it retained the certificate clause and continued to deny to dissenters the measure of religious liberty freely accorded to the Established churches. The Tolerationists were determined to carry the elections of 1818. In the fall elections of 1817, they again had a majority of nearly two to one in the House, and consequently the struggle was for the control of the Senate. At the fall meetings, they placed in nomination their candidates for senators, and all through the winter they agitated in town meetings and in every other way the discussion of their "Constitution and Reform Ticket." Party pamphlets were scattered throughout the state. One of these, the most in favor, was "The Politics of Connecticut: by a Federal Republican" (George H. Richards of New London). At the spring elections of 1818, the Constitution and Reform Ticket carried the day, seating the reflected governor and lieutenant-governor, eight anti-Federal senators, and preserving the anti-Federal majority in the House. The political revolution was complete, and the preliminary steps towards the construction of a new constitution were at once begun. [ae] The governor's inaugural address specified the main task before the Assembly in the following words:--