Chapter I: The Undermining of Puritan Standards and Institutions (1)

1. RAPID DISINTEGRATION OF PURITANISM AFTER THE REVOLUTION

Back of the War of Independence was the less absorbing but scarcely less harrowing contest of the French and Indian War. Thus for a period of fully thirty years the people of New England had been subjected to the rough and unsettling experiences of military life. This consideration, taken in connection with the fact that a growing declension from the standards of the Puritan fathers had been the occasion of increasing comment and concern from the middle of the seventeenth century on,[4] will make explicable the fact that the average citizen of New England emerged from the Revolutionary struggle with the edge of his conscience dulled. The secularizing spirit of the post-Revolutionary period, when questions of national organization and unity, of the rehabilitation of commerce and industry, and of international relations and policies were foremost in the thought of the day, left marks upon the human spirit over which stern and rigorous adherents to the old order wept copiously and long. For one thing, the lives of the men and women of New England were never again to be as barren of diversified interests as they had been in the past. The successful issue of the struggle for political independence had so enlarged the mind of the common man that he of necessity entertained considerations of private desire and of public policy which he formerly would have rejected entirely. The avenue of retreat to the ancient simplicity and seclusion was forever closed.

The soundness of this estimate of the rapid disintegration of Puritanism will be apparent if the changing attitude of the people on the subject of theatrical entertainments is considered.[5] As early as the year 1750 the General Court of Massachusetts had found it necessary to enact legislation to prevent stage-plays and other theatrical entertainments.[6] That Puritan standards dominated the situation at the time is evidenced both by the reasons advanced by the framers of the law for its enactment and by the stringent penalties attached to it. The justification of the measure was found in the economic waste, the discouraging effect upon industry and frugality, and the deleterious effect upon morality and religion which stage-plays were believed to exercise. The penalties imposed called for a fine of twenty pounds upon any owner of property who permitted his property to be used for such purposes, while a fine of five pounds was to be assessed upon any actor or spectator found in attendance upon or participating in any such exercises where more than twenty persons were assembled together.[7] How meekly the craving for pleasurable excitement bowed its head in submission, there is no evidence to show; but it is very clear that as the century drew toward its close the people of Massachusetts began to manifest a decidedly intractable spirit with respect to legislative control of their amusements and pleasures.

The days of the Revolution supplied thrills of their own, and the colonists gave themselves in devotion to their great task-at-arms, with little desire for the amenities of life. Accordingly, when the Continental Congress, on October 16, 1778, passed a resolution deprecating every species of public entertainment which would be likely to divert the minds of the people from the considerations of public defence and the safeguarding of their liberties,[8] there was nothing singular about the episode, and we may believe readily that the people of New England, fortified by their grim spirit of determination and their long tradition of self-denial, in no sense fell short of the general standard. But by the year 1790 the people living in and about Boston had come to a very different state of mind. In that year by petition to the General Court they sought to have the prohibitory act of 1750 revoked.[9] The incident has importance because it registers a determined effort to feed desires whose hunger-pains had grown insistent.

The history of this particular effort to remove legislative restrictions in the way of harmless amusements is illuminating. The petition referred to received scant consideration at the hands of the legislators of Massachusetts. The following year certain gentlemen of Boston, to the number of thirty-nine, presented a memorial to the selectmen of that city, requesting that a vote of the citizens be taken on the questions of permitting the erection and use of a building for theatrical entertainments, and the issuing of instructions to Boston’s representatives in the legislature calling for the repeal of the obnoxious law. Apparently the plebiscite was not taken; but the general question was debated in town meeting. A committee was appointed to prepare instructions. The committee reported favorably concerning the proposed instructions to Boston’s representatives in the legislature, and these representatives later undertook the task of bringing a majority of the members of the General Court to the more liberal point of view; not, however, with immediate success. Meanwhile, to the scandal of Governor John Hancock, and doubtless many another advocate of decency and order, theatrical entertainments, “under the Stile & Appellation of Moral Lectures,”[10] flourished openly in Boston.[11]

It was during the progress of the debate in the legislature over the proposed repeal of the law against theatrical entertainments that John Gardiner, one of Boston’s representatives in that body, delivered himself of sentiments touching what he styled “the illiberal, unmanly, and despotic act” of 1750. His speech gave evidence of how fresh and independent the judgments of some minds had come to be. Addressing the presiding officer, Gardiner said:

Sir! I really and truly venerate; I would rather say, I sincerely
and almost enthusiastically admire the many great and splendid
virtues of our renowned puritan ancestors ... ; but still, Sir,
they were only men; and, like all other men, were fallible; liable
to frailties, to prejudices, and to error. Some errors, and some
unjust prejudices, they undoubtedly had. Would to God a veil
was drawn over all their absurd prejudices which, like spots in
the sun, tend in some small degree to bedarken and obscure the
otherwise truly-resplendent glories of their character. One of these
prejudices, in my opinion, was their inveterate opposition and
abhorrent aversion to the theatre.[12]

That Gardiner was the spokesman of a very considerable number of citizens is demonstrated by the fact that on March 28, 1793, a bill drawn to take the place of the older legislation against theatrical amusements and granting specifically to the people of Boston the right to erect a theatre and to have “stage plays performed under certain regulations and restrictions,” was enacted by the legislature of Massachusetts.[13] It is very evident that public sentiment had veered round to a radically new and different view respecting the place and function of the theatre. So much so, indeed, that some who sought to shape the thought and determination of the times recommended the establishment of the theatre as the only possible way of drawing the desires and interests of the people away from grosser and more injurious excitements toward which, it was believed, an alarming growth of frivolity and lack of moral concern was rapidly sweeping the people of New England.[14]

This alleged declension of morals may be more vitally viewed from the standpoint of the subject of intemperance. Convivial habits were a fixed part of the New England character, and the sin of drunkenness was as old as the settlement of the country. The practice of brewing was numbered among the employments of the first settlers.[15] Rum was generally used by the people, and the commercial life of the colonies was inextricably woven with its importation and exportation.[16] Cider was the native New England beverage.[17] The importation of wine was large from the first.[18] A general tendency in the direction of increased habits of drinking was to be expected.[19]

The period of the Revolution made its own special contribution to the gravity of the case. The soldiers of the Continental armies received regular rations of liquor,[20] and at the expiration of the war carried back to their respective communities the habits of intemperance which in many cases their army life had strengthened. Rum was more and more coming to be regarded as one of the necessities of life;[21] and with the revival of industry and commerce after the war the business of distilling mounted rapidly to amazing proportions.[22]

A growing uneasiness over the social and economic consequences involved in the spread of alcoholism is apparent. Under the date of July 29, 1789, the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, minister of the church in Long Lane, Boston, is found writing thus to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Philadelphia’s celebrated physician and early apostle of temperance reform:

With respect to spirituous liquors I believe some good has been
done, but much more remains to be done. The distilleries here are
so ready a source of gain, that, till the _auri sacra fames_ shall
cease to be a ruling passion, I fear there will no end be put to
them. The demand from abroad I am told increases, particularly from
the north of Europe, & while the stills are kept going there will
be a large home consumption. In an excursion of about 80 miles into
the country a few weeks since, I met many loads of pot & pearl
ashes coming down, & on my return the teams which I met were loaded
with dry fish, hogsheads of salt, & barrels of rum. The thirst for
spirits in the back country is so ardent, that in the fall & winter
they will sell their wheat for this sort of pay, & then in the
spring and summer following go 40 or 50 miles after bread. However,
we do what we can by way of precept & example, & we do not intend
to be discouraged.[23]

The correspondence which the Reverend Bulkley Olcott, minister of the church in Charlestown, New Hampshire, had with Belknap is of like import.[24] He had tried to obtain accurate statistical information from the Excise Master as to the quantity of spirituous liquors consumed in his county, and had not succeeded. However, it is a matter of his personal knowledge that many good estates have been squandered through drinking, and much time, labor, and health, and many lives destroyed in the same way. He recognizes that many concurring circumstances come to the aid of spirituous liquors in working fatal results; still the general abuse of drink is declared to be one of the heaviest and most threatening evils under which the country groans.

The taverns of the day on all public occasions,[25] and frequently in the ordinary course of their business, were filled with gambling, carousing, drinking crowds. The extent to which the great occasions of state were seized upon as opportunities for open and shameless drinking had become a scandal. The custom of granting a certain allowance of rum per day to laborers was honored in at least some sections of the country.[26] Accidental deaths due to drunkenness, and cases of suicide and insanity traceable to the same cause, were frequently reported.[27] All classes of society, young and old, rich and poor, men and women, fell victims to the great scourge. The colleges were not immune. At Yale, wine and liquors were kept in the rooms of many of the students and intemperance was one of the commonest of student faults.[28] Clergymen, though generally restraining themselves from gross indulgence, were accustomed to feel that the spirit of conviviality and the discussion of the affairs of church and state went hand in hand;[29] and now and then the bounds of propriety were overstepped.

Other unfavorable aspects of the situation may be found in the habits of card-playing and gambling which everywhere prevailed, and in the frequent allusions to instances of social vice and illegitimacy with which the pages of the diary of such a careful observer as the Reverend William Bentley were laden.[30]

The opinion that the social life of the period was desperately unsound was accepted without question by many a so-called interpreter of the times. The observations which President Timothy Dwight, of Yale, made in his Century Sermon[31] expressed the views of many minds. Dating “the first considerable change in the religious character of the people of this country” with the beginning of the French and Indian War,[32] he continued:

The officers and soldiers of the British armies, then employed
in this country, although probably as little corrupted as those
of most armies, were yet loose patterns of opinion and conduct,
and were unhappily copied by considerable numbers of our own
countrymen, united with them in military life. These, on their
return, spread the infection through those around them. Looser
habits of thinking began then to be adopted, and were followed,
as they always are, by looser conduct. The American war increased
these evils. Peace had not, at the commencement of this war,
restored the purity of life which existed before the preceding
war. To the depravation still remaining was added a long train of
immoral doctrines and practices, which spread into every corner
of the country. The profanation of the Sabbath, before unusual,
profaneness of language, drunkenness, gambling, and lewdness were
exceedingly increased; and, what is less commonly remarked, but is
perhaps not less mischievous than any of them, a light, vain method
of thinking concerning sacred things and a cold, contemptuous
indifference toward every moral and religious subject.[33]

But this sweeping judgment of Yale’s president, together with the specific explanation of the situation which he offered, are to be checked up by other and less pessimistic considerations. That there was much pertaining to the customs and manners of the times to be deplored, is not to be denied. On the other hand, that society in New England, as the eighteenth century drew toward its close, was actually lapsing from soundness and virtue to the extent that its fundamental views and habits were being altered, is far from clear. Observers who spoke to the contrary listened chiefly to the murmurs of the shallows and were unresponsive to the deeps.

The fact is, new ideals and new forces were working upward in the common life of the age. The new sense of freedom which the War of Independence ushered in, the steadily growing prosperity of the people, the development of social intimacies as the population of the country increased, the intrusion and growing influence of foreign ideas and customs, the steadily diminishing domination of the clergy—these all tended to inaugurate a new order which clashed more or less violently with the old. The memories of the old Puritan régime were still sufficiently vivid to make every lapse from liberty into license appear ominous in the extreme.

A general relaxing of social customs expressed itself in manifold ways over all those areas where actual stagnation had not come to pass; but this loosening was by no means characterized by deep-seated coarseness or general immorality.[34] The people had begun to claim for themselves some relaxation, and hence to amuse and satisfy themselves in the light of their enlarged conceptions of the freedom and privileges of life. On the whole, their enjoyments and amusements were such as characterize a state of healthy-mindedness at a time of marked transition.

In the main, the condition of the people was deplorable for what they lacked in the way of incitements to pleasurable and helpful social and cultural employments rather than because of what they possessed.[35] When it is recalled how considerable was the dearth of material for mental occupation; how undeveloped, for example, were music and painting;[36] how the newspapers and magazines of the day supplied little or nothing of a constructive or inspiring character; how science was almost totally undeveloped,[37] libraries few in number and destitute of stimulating material, the colleges for the most part mooning the years away over insipid and useless abstractions and dogmatic formulations, the wonder is that the rebound against Puritanism, in this period of intense political excitement and the growing secularization of thought, was not tenfold more violent and subversive than it was.[38]

The impression communicated by this view is heightened when it is recalled that the struggle for political independence not only had affected profoundly the status of the people of New England with respect to both their internal and their external relations; it had also made substantial and significant modifications in the very constitution of society itself. When the reorganization of affairs after the Revolutionary struggle was over, it became increasingly apparent that the control of the forces and institutions of society in New England was in the hands of new leaders and arbiters. The aristocracy of unquestioned conservatism which had all society under its thumb before the Revolution, had been swept away generally in the flood of that epochal event. Up from the small towns and villages of the country to the great centers, to Boston particularly, came a small army, made up largely of squires and gentry,[39] to establish a new but less secure sovereignty, to assume control of the social and political forces of the day, and, more or less unaware of the precise significance of the turn of events, to measure its strength against those new forces of democracy which in New England, as no place else in the nation, were to find themselves compelled to fight a long and stubborn battle to secure their emancipation.

Assuming without question the direction of affairs, this new aristocracy, after the fashion of the old leaders who were gone, addressed itself to the task of social, political, and religious control.[40] Manifestly the situation was big with possibilities with respect to the effect to be produced upon the thought and habits of the people. There they dwelt in their spacious houses,[41] these modern aristocrats and autocrats of fashion and custom, by no means rolling in luxury and idleness, yet claiming and enjoying a degree of relaxation and social pleasure vastly more lavish than that accorded to their plebeian neighbors, occupying themselves with their parties, their weddings and dances,[42] their refinements of dress[43] and behavior, but with little or no disposition to abandon themselves to scandalous conduct.

The constant challenge of the political necessities of the times, it may be urged, was altogether too compelling to admit of any such looseness. Still, one cannot scan the newspapers of the period, or read the story of the social commerce of the times as it pieces itself together out of the private records and correspondence of the day, or listen even to the pulpit’s copious flood of denunciations,[44] without a feeling of mingled admiration and astonishment that in an age everywhere characterized by upheaval and ferment there was really as little of shameless and wanton conduct in New England as the records of the period reveal. It cannot but be viewed as a notable tribute to the essential soundness and nobility of that type of moral and religious culture which Puritanism had supplied from the first that the New England character should be able to pass through a period of profound social readjustment, of the discarding of old value judgments and the adoption of new, such as came near the close of the eighteenth century, and this without serious loss of moral power and prestige. Manifestly, whatever hollowness and insincerity Puritanism may have developed in other lands and times, it did not so cramp and fetter the human spirit in New England as to render it incapable of self-guidance when the old restraints and limitations were no more.[45]

Now that its controlling spirit of gravity and provincialism was being replaced by a general temper of comparative light-heartedness and open-mindedness, of unaffected enjoyment of the good things of life, of the acceptance of standards far more natural than those of the earlier day, the transition was accomplished with a relative absence of accompanying instances of moral lapse and disaster nothing less than remarkable. A considerable amount of the boisterousness and heat of the day over which clerical Jeremiahs and others of like conservative leanings ceased not to pour out their complaints,[46] is explicable on the ground of the growing habit of the mass of the people to exercise the rights of citizenship through direct participation in the affairs of the day. For far more significant than any evidence of moral blindness and perversity on the part of the people in general is the fact that a great, crowding, hungry democracy was knocking at the gates of the old aristocratic régime and insistently urging the consideration of its rights.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] An early and yet typical example of this unfavorable view of the moral and religious life of the people after the first generation of the Puritans was gone, may be found in _The Result of 1679_,—a document prepared by the Synod in response to directions from the Massachusetts General Court, calling for answers to the following questions: “What are the euills that haue provoked the Lord to bring his judgments on New England? What is to be donn that so those euills may be reformed?”. The following brief excerpt from _The Result_ supplies the point of View: “Our Fathers neither sought for, nor thought of great things for themselves, but did seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things were added to them. They came not into the wilderness to see a man cloathed in soft raiment. But that we have in too many respects, been forgetting the Errand upon which the Lord sent us hither; all the world is witness: And therefore we may not wonder that God hath changed the tenour of his Dispensations towards us, turning to doe us hurt, and consuming us after that he hath done us good. If we had continued to be as once we were, the Lord would have continued to doe for us, as once he did.” The entire document, together with much valuable explanatory comment, may be found in Walker, _Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism_, pp. 421–437. Backus, _History of New England_, vol i, pp. 457–461, contains a group of similar laments.

[5] Snow, _A History of Boston_, p. 333.

[6] Weeden, _Economic and Social History of New England_, vol. ii, p. 696.

[7] _Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massachusetts Bay_, vol. iii, pp. 500 _et seq._ The Preamble of this Act is highly interesting: “For preventing and avoiding the many and great mischiefs which arise from publick stage-plays, interludes and other theatrical entertainments, which not only occasion great and unnecessary expenses, and discourage industry and frugality, but likewise tend generally to increase immorality, impiety and a contempt for religion,—Be it enacted”, _etc._

[8] Seilhamer, _History of the American Theatre_, vol. ii, pp. 51 _et seq._; Winsor, _The Memorial History of Boston_, vol. iv, ch. v: “The Drama in Boston,” by William W. Clapp, pp. 358 _et seq._

[9] Seilhamer, _op. cit._, vol. iii, p. 13; Dunlap, _History of the American Theatre_, vol. i, p. 244; Snow, _History of Boston_, pp. 333 _et seq._

[10] _Acts and Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts_, 1792–3, pp. 686 _et seq._

[11] The public discussion and legislative phase of the situation, together with the disorders occasioned by the determination of the supporters of the theatre to serve their enterprise at any cost, are well covered by Clapp in the chapter already cited in Winsor’s _Memorial History of Boston_. _Cf._ also Seilhamer, vol. iii, pp. 14 _et seq._; Dunlap, vol. i, pp. 242 _et seq._; Willard, _Memories of Youth and Manhood_, vol. i, pp. 324, 325; Bentley, _Diary_, vol. i. pp 340, 379, 380, 414, 415, 418, _etc._

[12] _The Speech of John Gardiner, Esquire, Delivered in the House of Representatives. On Thursday, the 26th of January, 1792_, Boston, 1792, p. 18. Another publication of the same year, _The Rights of the Drama: or, An Inquiry into the Origin, Principles, and Consequences of Theatrical Entertainments. By Philo Dramatis_ (pseud.), discussed the subject in different vein, but with the same object in view. In the final chapter on “The Outlines of a Theatre, it’s Necessary Appendages, a Plan of Regulation, Calculation of Expenses, Profits, &c.”, doubtless by way of turning the balance of public judgment in favor of the establishment of a local theatre, the author suggests that the following ends may be served: the development of native genius, and thus the elevation of America to a high rank in the republic of letters; the reservation of a certain portion of the revenues of the theatre by the Commonwealth, for the care of the poor of Boston, or of the state, and for the support of the University at Cambridge (Harvard), thus easing the burden of taxation. The closing words of this pamphlet, stripped of their bombast, are not unworthy to stand with Gardiner’s: “Whenever I consider this subject, and contemplate the formation of a Theatre, I cannot help feeling a kind of enthusiasm ... I anticipate the time when the Garricks and Siddons of America shall adorn the Stage, and melt the soul to pity. But here let me pause.—Let the most rigid Stoic, or the greatest fanatic in religion, or the most notorious dupe to prejudice, once hearken to the tale of the tragic muse, whose office it is to soften, and to subdue the violent passions of the mind, by painting the real misfortunes and distresses, which accompany our journey through life; or attend to the laughable follies, and vain inconsistencies, which daily mark the character of the human species—the deformity of vice—the excellence of virtue—, and, from the representation of the lively Comedy, ‘catch the manners living as they rise,’ and then say, if he can, that lessons of instruction are unknown to the Drama. If these have no effect, let him listen, with mute attention, to the occasional symphonies, which burst from a thousand strings, and accompany, and give life and animation to the Comic scene—and then, if sunk below the brute creation, let him be fortified against the impressions of sensibility. The stoicism of man must surpass our comprehension, if the dramatic scene can be contemplated without emotion; more especially when the representation of life and manners is intended to correct and to enlarge the heart....”

[13] _Cf._ (Boston) _Independent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser_, Thursday, March 28, 1793.

[14] _Pseud._: _Effects of the Stage on the Manners of a People: and the Propriety of Encouraging and Establishing a Virtuous Theatre. By a Bostonian_, Boston, 1792. The author is insipid enough; none the less the pamphlet is by no means void of a certain practical-mindedness and good sense as the author argues for the frank acceptance of the theatre as an institution in the city’s life. The following constitute his chief contentions: The theatre, in some form or other, is bound to come, because of the fact that the people generally are interested in the subject of amusement; the tastes and appetites of the people already give painful evidence of serious debasement and corruption; the acceptance of a “Virtuous Theatre” is the only possible expedient if the people are to be saved from worse debauchment.

The view taken by the Reverend William Bentley, Salem’s well-known minister, was less specious, though tinged with a mildly pessimistic view of popular tastes. Under date of July 31, 1792, he wrote: “So much talk has been in the Country about Theatrical entertainments that they have become the pride even of the smallest children in our schools. The fact puts in mind of the effect from the Rope flyers, who visited N. England, after whose feats the children of seven were sliding down the fences & wounding themselves in every quarter.” _Diary_, vol. i, p. 384. Later, he wrote: “The Theatre opened for the first time [in Salem] is now the subject. The enlightened who have not determined upon its utter abolition have yet generally agreed that it is too early introduced into our country.” _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 81. _Cf. ibid._, pp. 258, _et seq._, 299, 322. It is clear that Bentley was apprehensive.

[15] Weeden, _Economic and Social History of New England_, vol. i, pp. 188, 195; Bishop, _History of American Manufactures_, vol. i, pp. 245 _et seq._

[16] _Ibid._, p. 250; vol. ii, pp. 501, 502. See also Clark, _History of Manufactures in the United States_, p. 480.

[17] _Ibid._ Bishop notes the fact that in 1721 a small village of forty houses, near Boston, made 3000 barrels of cider.

[18] _Ibid._, p. 269; Weeden, _op. cit._, vol. i, pp. 144, 148 _et seq._

[19] The impression that this decline toward a general state of drunkenness set in early will appear from the following excerpt taken from the Synod’s report on “The Necessity of Reformation”, presented to the General Court of Massachusetts in 1679: “VIII. There is much Intemperance. The heathenish and Idolatrous practice of Health-drinking is become too general a Provocation. Dayes of Training, and other publick Solemnityes, have been abused in this respect: and not only English but Indians have been debauched, by those that call themselves Christians, who have put their bottles to them, and made them drunk also. This is a crying Sin, and the more aggravated in that the first Planters of this Colony did (as in the Patent expressed) come into this Land with a design to Convert the Heathen unto Christ.... There are more Temptations and occasions unto _That Sin_, publickly allowed of, than any necessity doth require; the proper end of Taverns, &c. being to that end only, a far less number would suffice: But it is a common practice for Town dwellers, yea and Church-members, to frequent publick Houses, and there to misspend precious Time, unto the dishonour of the Gospel, and the scandalizing of others, who are by such examples induced to sin against God.” _Cf._ Walker, _Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism_, p. 430.

[20] Hatch, _The Administration of the American Revolutionary Army_, pp. 89 _et seq._ The supplies of beer, cider, and rum furnished the armies were not always held to be adequate. After the battle of Brandywine, Congress ordered thirty hogsheads of rum distributed among the soldiers as a tribute to their gallant conduct in that battle. _Cf._ _One Hundred Years of Temperance_, New York, 1886, article by Daniel Dorchester on “The Inception of the Temperance Reformation”, p. 113, for comments on the effects of the return of drunken soldiers to the ranks of citizenship.

[21] Weeden, _op. cit._, vol. ii, p. 883, supplies the following concerning the character of the coasting and river trade, which the exigencies of the war greatly stimulated: “A cargo from Boston to Great Barrington and Williamstown contained 11 hdds. and 6 tierces of rum, 3 bbls. of wine, 2 do. of brandy, 1/2 bale of cotton, and 1 small cask of indigo. The proportion of ‘wet goods’ to the small quantity of cotton and indigo is significant, and indicates the prevailing appetites”.

[22] In 1783 Massachusetts had no fewer than sixty-three distilleries. In 1783 this state distilled 1,475,509 gallons of spirits from foreign, and 11,490 gallons from domestic materials. From 1790 to 1800 in the United States, 23,148,404 gallons of spirits were distilled from molasses; of this 6,322,640 gallons were exported, leaving a quantity for home consumption so large as to supply its own comment. Low grain prices, together with the difficulty of gaining access to the molasses markets, hastened a transition to grain distilling near the end of the eighteenth century, with the result that in 1810 Mr. Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, reported not less than 9,000,000 gallons of spirits as having been distilled from grain and fruit in 1801. Bishop, _History of American Manufactures_, vol. ii, pp. 30, 65, 83, 152; Clark, _History of Manufactures in the United States_, p. 230.

[23] _Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society_, 6th ser., vol. iv, Belknap Papers, pt. iii, p. 440.

[24] _Ibid._, p. 508.

[25] _Diary of William Bentley_, vol. ii, p. 92: May 31, 1794: “The observation of holydays at Election is an abuse in this part of the Country. Not only at our return yesterday, did we observe crowds around the new Tavern at the entrance of the Town, but even at this day, we saw at Perkins’ on the neck, persons of all descriptions, dancing to a fiddle, drinking, playing with pennies, &c. It is proper such excesses should be checked.” _Cf._ also _ibid._, pp. 58, 363, 410, 444 _et seq._ _Cf._ also Earle, Alice Morse, _Stage-coach and Tavern Days_, New York, 1900.

[26] _Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society_, 6th Series, vol. iv, Belknap Papers, pt. iii, p. 456. Jeremiah Libbey writes of the situation at Portsmouth, [N. H.?]: “The common allowance of rum to labourers here is half a pint per day, which has been the rule or custom as long as I can remember. There are several persons in this town that are endeavouring to abolish the custom by giving them more wages in lieu of the _allowance_, as it is call’d; but the custom is so rooted that it is very difficult to break it. The attachment is so great, that in general if you were to offer double the price of the allowance in money it would not be satisfactory to the labourers, and altho’ that is the case & it is the ruin of them and familys in many instances ... untill a substitute of beer or some other drink is introduced in general, it will be difficult to get over it”.

[27] _Diary of William Bentley_, vol. i, pp. 167, 175, 217, 218, 244, 247, 248, 255, 256, 281 _et seq._

[28] _Autobiography and Correspondence of Lyman Beecher_, vol. i, p. 30.

[29] _Ibid._, p. 24. The description of the meeting of the Consociation, pp. 214 _et seq._, is unusually vivid: “ ... the preparation for our creature comforts in the sitting-room of Mr. Heart’s house, besides food, was a broad sideboard, covered with decanters and bottles, and sugar, and pitchers of water. There we found all the various kinds of liquors then in vogue. The drinking was apparently universal. This preparation was made by the society as a matter of course. When the Consociation arrived, they always took something to drink round; also before public services, and always on their return. As they could not all drink at once, they were obliged to stand and wait, as people do when they go to mill. There was a decanter of spirits also on the dinnertable, to help digestion, and gentlemen partook of it through the afternoon and evening as they felt the need, some more and some less; and the sideboard, with the spillings of water, and sugar, and liquor, looked and smelled like the bar of a very active grog-shop. None of the Consociation were drunk; but that there was not, at times, a considerable amount of exhilaration, I can not affirm.” It was Beecher’s judgment that “the tide was swelling in the drinking habits of society.—” _Ibid._, p. 215.

[30] _Ibid._, vol. i, pp. 133, 138, 163, 255, 256, 371; vol. ii. pp. 294, 328 _et seq._

[31] _A Discourse on Some Events of the Last Century, delivered in the Brick Church in New Haven, on Wednesday, January 7, 1801. By Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College_, New Haven, 1801. _Cf._ this author’s _Travels in New England and New York_, vol. iv, pp. 353 _et seq._

[32] Dwight’s _Century Sermon_, p. 18.

[33] _Ibid._, pp. 18 _et seq._

[34] The testimony of a European traveller should prove as edifying as that of an intimate participant in the country’s life. In 1788, Brissot de Warville visited America. He remarked the change which had come over the people of New England, of Boston in particular. The old “Presbyterian austerity, which interdicted all pleasures, even that of walking; which forbade travelling on Sunday, which persecuted men whose opinions were different from their own” was no longer to be encountered. Yet no evidence of the corruption of morals presented itself to the distinguished traveller. On the contrary, he remarked the general wholesomeness and soundness of domestic life, and the general poise and temperance of a people which, “since the ancient puritan austerity has disappeared”, was able to play cards without yielding to the gambling instinct and to enjoy its clubs and parties without offending the spirit of courtesy and good-breeding. The glow upon the soul of Brissot as he contemplates the prosperity and unaffected simplicity of the people of Boston is evident as he writes: “With what pleasure did I contemplate this town, which first shook off the English yoke! which, for a long time, resisted all the seductions, all the menaces, all the horrors of a civil war! How I delighted to wander up and down that long street, whose simple houses of wood border the magnificent channel of Boston, and whose full stores offer me all the productions of the continent which I had quitted! How I enjoyed the activity of the merchants, the artizans, and the sailors! It was not the noisy vortex of Paris; it was not the unquiet, eager mien of my countrymen; it was the simple, dignified air of men, who are conscious of liberty, and who see in all men their brothers and their equals. Everything in this street bears the marks of a town still in its infancy, but which, even in its infancy, enjoys a great prosperity.... Boston is just rising from the devastations of war, and its commerce is flourishing; its manufactures, productions, arts, and sciences, offer a number of curious and interesting observations.” (Brissot De Warville, _New Travels in the United States of America_, pp. 70–82.) Equally laudatory comment respecting the state of society in Connecticut is made by Brissot (pp. 108, 109).

John Bernard, the English comedian, who was in this country at the close of the eighteenth century, found the state of society very much like that which he had left in his own country. “They wore the same clothes, spoke the same language, and seemed to glow with the same affable and hospitable feelings. In walking along the mall I could scarcely believe I had not been whisked over to St. James’s Park; and in their houses the last modes of London were observable in nearly every article of ornament or utility. Other parts of the state were, however, very different.” (Bernard, _Retrospections of America, 1797–1811_, p. 29.) Bernard found in New England abundant evidences of progress such as he had not been accustomed to in England, and splendid stamina of character (p. 30). Nothing, apparently, suggested to him that the people were not virile and sound.

[35] Bentley, _Diary_, vol. i, pp. 253 _et seq._, discusses at length “the Puerile Sports usual in these parts of New England”. Weeden, _Economic and Social History of New England_, vol. ii, p. 696, comments on the dearth of public amusement. _Cf._ also _ibid._, p. 864. The changed attitude of the public toward dancing, as reported by Weeden, pp. 696 and 864, doubtless finds its explanation in the growing consciousness that the resources in the way of entertainment deserve to be increased. At the close of the century, however, dancing was still frowned upon. Bentley, _Diary_, vol. ii, pp. 17, 232, 233, 296, 322, 363.

[36] Brissot, _New Travels in the United States of America_, p. 72: “Music, which their teachers formerly prescribed as a diabolic art, begins to make part of their education. In some houses you hear the forte-piano. This art, it is true, is still in its infancy; but the young novices who exercise it, are so gentle, so complaisant, and so modest, that the proud perfection of art gives no pleasure equal to what they afford.” _Cf._ also Bentley, _Diary_, vol. ii, pp. 247 _et seq._, 292.

[37] Brissot, _New Travels in the United States of America_, pp. 86 _et seq._ Brissot generously explains this fact upon the ground that in a country so new, whose immediate concerns were so compelling, and where, also, wealth is not centered in a few hands, the cultivation of the arts and sciences is not to be expected. On the side of invention the situation was far from being as bad as a reading of Brissot might seem to imply. Weeden, _Economic and Social History of New England_, vol. ii, pp. 847–858.

[38] Goddard, _Studies in New England Transcendentalism_, p. 18. While the passage cited deals with an earlier situation, the general observation made concerning the well-poised character of the New England type of mind is as valid for the close of the eighteenth century as for the corresponding period of the preceding century; and the failure of New England to take a “plunge ... from the moral heights of Puritanism” is all the more impressive in the later period in view of the variety and character of the new incitements and impulses which the people of New England generally felt in the period following the Revolution.

[39] Conspicuous in this group was the new merchant class. In the wake of the Revolution came an industrial and commercial revival which profoundly affected the life of New England. While the period of the Confederation, on account of its political disorganization and the chaotic state of public finance and the currency, was characterized by extreme economic depression, on the other hand, the adoption of the Constitution communicated to the centers of industry and commerce a feeling of optimism. The sense that a federal government had been formed, equal to the task of guaranteeing to its citizens the rights and privileges of trade, gave early evidence that the economic impulses of the country had been quickened notably. Such evidence is too abundant and too well known either to permit or to require full statement here, but the following is suggestive: The fisheries of New England, which had been nearly destroyed during the Revolution, had so far revived by 1789 that a total of 480 vessels, representing a tonnage of 27,000, were employed in the industry. At least 32,000 tons of shipping were built in the United States, a very large part of this in New England, in 1791. Before the war the largest amount built in any one year was 26,544 tons. But the record of 1791 was modest. From 1789 to 1810, American shipping increased from 202,000 to 1,425,000 tons. Because of the federal government’s proclamation of strict neutrality with regard to the wars abroad, the carrying trade of the world came largely into the hands of shipowners and seamen of the United States, with the result that the dockyards and wharves of New England fairly hummed with activity. The exports of 1793 amounted to $33,026,233. By 1799 they had mounted to $78,665,522, of which $33,142,522 was the growth, produce, or manufacture of the Union. Within a very few years after the adoption of the Constitution, American merchants had become the warehousers and distributors of merchandise to all parts of the world. The wharves of New England were covered with goods from Europe, the Orient, the West Indies, and from the looms, shops, and distilleries of the nation. Directed by resourceful and far-sighted men who had the instinct for commercial expansion, ships sailed from New England ports for Batavia, Canton, Calcutta, St. Petersburg, Port Louis. They carried with them coffee, fish, flour, provisions, tobacco, rum, iron, cattle, horses; they brought back molasses, sugar, wine, indigo, pepper, salt, muslins, calicoes, silks, hemp, duck. The situation is dealt with in detail by Bishop, _History of American Manufactures_, vol. ii, pp. 13–82; Clark, _History of Manufactures in the United States_, pp. 227 _et seq._; Weeden, _Economic and Social History of New England_, vol. ii, pp. 816–857.

[40] Winsor, _The Memorial History of Boston_, vol. iii, pp. 191, 203; Morse, _The Federalist Party in Massachusetts_, pp. 37, 38; _Harvard Theological Review_, January, 1916, p. 104.

[41] Weeden, _Early Life in Rhode Island_, pp. 357 _et seq._, calls attention to the spacious and elegant houses which were built at Providence about 1790, and to the new group of merchants which the expansion of trans-oceanic commerce called into existence there. Weeden, _Economic and Social History of New England_, pp. 821 _et seq._, deals with the situation in a larger way.

[42] Parker, _History of the Second Church of Christ in Hartford_, p. 172. The passage contains a vivid picture of the state of polite society in an important Connecticut center. Love, _The Colonial History of Hartford_, pp. 244 _et seq._, deals with the transformation of social life with particular reference to the disintegration of Puritanism.

[43] An outcry against the excesses of fashion began to make itself heard. “An Old Farmer,” writing to the _Massachusetts Spy_, March 27, 1799, complains on account of the consequent drain upon the purses of husbands and fathers: “I am a plain farmer, and therefore beg leave to trouble you with a little plain language. By the dint of industry, and application to agricultural concerns, I have, till lately, made out to keep square with the world. But the late scarcity of money, together with the extravagance of fashions have nearly ruined me.... I am by no means tenacious of the _old way_, or of _old fashions_. I know that my family must dress different from what I used to when I was young; yet as I have the interest of husbands and fathers at heart, I wish there might be some reformation in the present mode of female dress.... In better times, six or seven yards of Calico would serve to make a gown; but now fourteen yards are scarcely sufficient. I do not perceive that women grow any larger now than formerly.... A few years since, my daughters were not too proud to wear good calfskin shoes; two pair of which would last them a year: But now none will suit them but morroco, and these must be of the slenderest kind.... Young ladies used to be contented with wearing nothing on their heads but what Nature gave them.... But now they dare not appear in company, unless they have half a bushel of gauze, and other stuff, stuck on their heads”. The letter closes with a humorous account of the writer’s embarrassing experience with the trains of the ladies’ dresses on the occasion of a recent visit to church.

[44] Swift, Lindsay, _The Massachusetts Election Sermons_ (Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. i, Transactions, 1892–1894), pp. 428 _et seq._

[45] Weeden, _Economic and Social History of New England_, vol. ii, pp. 864 _et seq._

[46] Scudder, _Recollections of Samuel Breck, with Passages from His Note-Books_, pp. 178 _et seq._ Breck visited New England about 1791. He was impressed with the looseness of life and gross lawlessness which he saw. A fairer judgment appears on page 182: “The severe, gloomy puritanical spirit that had governed New England since the days of the Pilgrim forefathers was gradually giving way in the principal towns”, _etc._

2. OMINOUS DISCONTENT WITH THE STANDING ORDER

The general impression of a revolt against morality and religion in New England near the close of the eighteenth century was deepened by the bitterness of spirit which marked the last stages of the long struggle waged by dissenters to cut the bond between church and state.[47] The Congregational Church was one of the fundamental institutions of New England, and from the first the sword of the magistrate had been invoked to enforce conformity to its worship and polity. Strange enough seem the terms “Establishment” and “Standing Order”[48] in the history of a people whose forefathers came to America in quest of religious freedom. The freedom sought, however, was to be construed as loyalty to a new order rather than as the embodiment of tolerance. Thus it happened that for two whole centuries the battle on behalf of the rights of dissent had to be waged in New England.[49] To have this struggle construed by the aggrieved representatives of the Establishment as the crowning expression of what they had come to regard as the deep-seated and widespread irreligion of the age, was not the least of the bitter taunts which dissenters had to bear.

(a) _Massachusetts_

In Massachusetts the eighteenth century dawned with some faint promise of a kindlier day. The Charter of 1691 granted full liberty of conscience to all Christians except Roman Catholics.[50] The practical effects of this apparently sweeping reform were largely nullified, however, when in the following year the General Court made it obligatory for each town to have a minister for whose support all its inhabitants should be taxed.[51] With the removal of all bonds upon conscience and of all religious restrictions upon the right of suffrage on the one hand, but with the principle of enforced support of the institutions of religion on the other, the hallowed union of church and state in Massachusetts obviously stood in no immediate danger. The slight modifications speedily made in the law of 1692 did not touch the principle of taxation in the interests of religious worship.[52]

A measure of relief came to the Episcopalians in 1727,[53] and to the Quakers and Baptists in 1728,[54] in the form of exemption laws. In the case of the Baptists the exemption granted was not absolute, but only for a limited period of years. With the expiration of this period the struggle for relief of necessity had to be renewed.[55] The rights of dissent had begun to receive some recognition, but the limitations embodied in the foregoing legislation bore convincing testimony of a grudging temper of mind which would yield no ground without strong pressure.

The spirit of excitement and controversy which characterized the revival of religion of the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century (_i. e._, the Great Awakening) led to new complications and difficulties. Stirred by the revival, itinerant preachers, some of them of little learning and of less tact, invaded parishes of their clerical brethren without their consent, and presumed to censure the ministers and congregations that had not yielded to the emotional impulses of the revival.[56] A clash of parties followed, producing new antipathies and cleavages. Many who were in sympathy with the revival withdrew from orthodox congregations to organize new churches, nominally Baptist, with a view to obtaining exemption from the obligation to support the state church. To meet this evasion in 1752 the General Court of Massachusetts passed an act which provided

That no person for the future shall be so esteemed an A(n)nabaptist
as to have his poll or polls and estate exempted from paying a
proportionable part of the taxes that shall be raised in the
town or place where he or they belong, but such whose names shall
be contained in the lists taken by the assessors, as in said act
provided, or such as shall produce a certificate, under the hands
of the minister and of two principal members of such church,
setting forth that they conscientiously believe such person or
persons to be of their perswasion, and that he or they usually and
frequently attend the publick worship in such church on Lord’s
days.[57]

A further provision of the act denied to Baptist ministers and their parishioners the right of furnishing the required certificates unless three other Baptist churches previously should have certified that the persons granting the certificates were regarded as members of that body.[58] To make the situation more galling, if that were possible, certificates so obtained had to be lodged annually with the town clerk before the time to pay the rates arrived.

From every point of view this legislation was objectionable to the Baptists. Their protest was instant and vigorous.[59] It was decided to send one of their number as agent to England, to carry their case before the government of the mother country.[60] A sharp remonstrance, so plain in its language that its signers came very near being taken into custody, was drawn up and presented to the General Court at Boston.[61] But great as was the sense of injustice under which the Baptists smarted, the operations of the act appear to have been most severe in the case of those who had drawn off from the orthodox churches on account of the disturbances created by the Great Awakening. The position of these Separatists[62] was peculiarly vulnerable. Baptist leaders found themselves embarrassed when called upon to certify to the Baptist affiliations of the Separatists; such a distasteful judgment of the motives and scruples of others was to be avoided wherever possible.[63] On the other hand, if the Separatists sought to set up churches and establish ministers of their own, they were confronted by the fact that a second Congregational church could not be formed in a parish without legislative permission, and the orthodox party usually showed itself capable of forestalling all such sanction on the part of the state. It was left, therefore, to the Separatists either for conscience’ sake to bear the double burden of taxation,[64] or to seek a permanent religious home in one of the recognized dissenting bodies.[65]