Among the minor changes, the law that before the constitution of 1818 had conferred the right of marrying people upon the located ministers and magistrates only, thereby practically excluding Baptist, Methodist and Universalist clergy, now extended it to these latter. While formerly the only literary institution favored was Yale College, Trinity College, despite a strong opposition, was soon given its charter, and one was granted later to the Methodists for Wesleyan College at Middletown. Moreover, the government appropriated to both institutions a small grant. The teaching of the catechism, previously enforced by law in every school, became optional. Soon a normal school, free to all within the state, was opened. The support of religion was left wholly to voluntary contributions. [am] The political influence of the Congregational clergy was gone. "The lower magistracy was distributed as equally as possible among the various political and religious interests," and the higher courts were composed of judges of different political opinions. The battle for religious liberty was won, Church and State divorced, politics and religion torn asunder. The day of complete religious liberty had daw'ned in Connecticut, and in a few years the strongest supporters of the old system would acknowledge the superiority of the new. As the "old order changed, yielding place to new," many were doubtful, many were fearful, and many there were who in after years, as they looked backward, would have expressed themselves in the frank words of one of their noblest leaders: [an] "For several days, I suffered what no tongue can tell _for the best thing that ever happened to the State of Connecticut."_ FOOTNOTES: [a] Party names were "American," "American and Toleration," "Toleration and Reform." [b] Three fourths of Connecticut's exports were products of agriculture. [c] "All institutions, civil, literary and ecclesiastical, felt the pressure, and seemed as if they must he crushed. Our schools, churches and government even, in the universal impoverishment, were failing and the very foundations were shaken, when God interposed and took off the pressure."--Lyman Beecher, _Autobiography_, i, 266. [d] The Massachusetts militia were placed under General Dearborn, August 5, 1812. [e] Governor Griswold died Octoher, 1812, and was succeeded in office by Lieutenant-Governor John Cotton Smith.