The earliest dissident religious group which entered the Puritan scene was the Society of Friends, or Quakers. During the decade after 1656, when feeling against the Quakers was at its height, Connecticut Colony did pass laws to prevent them from settling in the area, to forbid any introduction of their books into the Commonwealth, and even to break up meetings. But no fines greater than ten pounds were allowed to be imposed, and no laws carrying a death penalty were ever enacted. In 1675, in fact, they were “temporarily” relieved of the necessity of paying fines for not attending church, just as long as they did not gather into assemblies or cause any public disturbance: a most unusual privilege. In New Haven Colony, Quakers were treated even worse.
Quakers were disliked because of their belief that no church congregation, or even clergyman, was necessary to minister to them in God’s name. Rather, they believed that God communicated directly with each believer. In the last part of the l7th century they were granted a boost towards toleration at least: the right to believe in their different way. This was because they, it was clear, made excellent citizens and had a way with the Indians. In addition, they had an information network which was able to communicate grievances all the way to London, and they were strong in Rhode Island with which colony Connecticut did not want to be at odds at that time of crisis with the Indians.
A flare-up of anti-Quaker feeling about 1702 brought many petitions of complaint to Queen Anne who in 1705 annulled all laws restricting the Quakers, William Penn being in favor at the Court at that time. Connecticut’s General Assembly repealed the old laws insofar as they related to Quakers, although they still had to pay church taxes just as other non-Congregational groups did; while they also paid to support their own; in reality, a form of double taxation.
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The number of Quakers in Connecticut remained small, and by 1818 there were about seven societies within the state.
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Under the Congregational Establishment there were four degrees of freedom eventually won by the minority religious groups. First was simply the right to believe and, more than this, the right to tell another person. One reason Quakers had been feared was because they wanted to talk to as many people as they could. The second degree was being able to exist institutionally, that is, as a legitimate group with a building and a minister.
This right was in large measure won by the dissenters by the passage by the General Assembly of the Toleration Act of 1708, which read, in part:
. . . for the ease of such as soberly dissent from the way of worship and ministry established by the ancient laws of this government . . . if any such persons shall at the county court . . . qualify themselves . . . they shall enjoy the same liberties and privilege in any place in this colony . . .
provided that such persons don’t think that this excludes
. . . any person from paying any such minister or town dues as are or shall hereafter be due from him.
This act was passed to assure the more independent-minded Congregational churches of their place in the universe if they insisted in staying outside the reorganization of the Church under the Saybrook Platform of 1708 which gave new power to church associations, to the ministers, and especially to the elders.
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The Toleration Act was passed also because of pressure from England, and Connecticut feared royal disfavor. The pressure from the mother country came partly because of the act of religious toleration of 1689 passed by Parliament following the Glorious Revolution and partly because of pressure put on Queen Anne by complaints from Connecticut Anglicans. They were the American members of Church of England, whose policies had caused the Puritans to come to Connecticut in the first place. They said they were being harassed in their attempt to establish churches: Connecticut, they cried, was not tolerating churches which have been allowed existence in England since the tine of Henry VIII. Colonel Heathcote, an ardent American Anglican, told the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1705 the best idea was to set up an Anglican church at Rye and “from that point to act upon Connecticut, which was wholly Puritan and withal not a little bigoted and uncharitable.”
That was quite true, and Puritan Connecticut was very much afraid of people like the Colonel and missionary-minded Anglican priests who were trying to extend the English church’s power throughout America, bringing Connecticut closer to British dominance. Connecticut residents were made very nervous by the continual pleadings of Anglicans to Canterbury, beginning in 1700, for the establishment of an American diocese with its own bishop. This possibility called to mind Archbishop Laud’s arrogation of power and frightened the Puritans to death. So they did what they could to prevent the organization of Anglican churches. In 1707 Puritan Fairfield closed its meetinghouse after services lest it should be used for Anglican services and be “defiled by idolatrous worship and superstitious ceremonies.”
The Toleration Act of 1708 was only a partial help. Anglicans who set up and belonged to their own churches were now taxed doubly, and they would be one step removed from the center of prestige and influence in the Colony. The latter problem was solved gradually, of itself, since many Anglicans were well-educated and people of means. Some represented their towns in the General Assembly even before the Revolution. Set back during that conflict, the Episcopal Church rebuilt afterwards, and in 1800 it was a large and respected minority.
The problem of double taxation, however, would be solved only by the Anglicans’ achievement of the third degree of freedom, the right not to pay taxes for the support of the Congregational Church if one was financially supporting a recognized dissenting church. The Anglioan church at Stratford had that right for its members, since it was for a while the only organized church of that denomination and was a large, respected group. Finally, in 1727, a law was enacted by the General Assembly granting certain rights to those regular members of Anglican congregations served by regularly-ordained priests: they were not to be charged with taxes used to build Congregational buildings; the tax money they paid for the support of the Congregational Church would be passed on to their own society; and if their churches needed money beyond this source, they were free to impose any further taxes on themselves. In May, 1729, Quakers were “released from contributing to the support of the established ministry and from paying any tax levied for building its meeting-houses, provided they could show a certificate from some society of their own . . . vouching for their support of its worship and their presence at its regular meetings.” In October the same third degree of ecclesiastical freedom was grated to the Baptists. “. . . it was an admission that a century’s progress had brought the knowledge that brethren of different religious opinions could dwell together in peace.”
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It seemed to some that religious liberty now existed in Connecticut; but this was not so, as spokesmen for the dissenting sects pointed out. In the first place, attaining the fourth step toward freedom under the Establishment still remained, for the law requiring attendance at some church continued in effect; the old law still demanded five shillings as penalty for an unnecessary absence from church. This law was done away with only in 1815.
In the second place, the certificate requirement was deemed odious and humiliating by those groups who were in the position of either using it or being subject to double taxation. A Baptist, let us say, must present to the clerk of the Congregational society a document signed by a Baptist official testifying to his support of, and attendance at, the local Baptist church. This done, the dissenter was excused from paying any tax to the established church. Occasionally Baptists, individuals or small groups, who wished to make a public witness to their traditional belief in the separation of church and state and religious liberty would refuse either to pay the Congregational tax or file a certificate. In such cases a fine or imprisonment loomed as a punishment, or town officials confiscated property belonging to the defiant ones and sold it in a kind of rummage sale.
Why do they take their Neighbors (that don’t worship with them, but have solemnly covenanted to worship God in another place) by the throat and cast them into prison? Or else for a rate of Twenty Shillings, Three or Six Pounds, send away Ten, Twenty, or Thirty Pounds worth of Goods, and set them up at Vendue?
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By 1791 the Standing Order became alarmed by the more organized character of the attacks on the system, and the General Assembly passed a law requiring the certificates to be signed by a Justice of the Peace, in almost every case an Establishment figure who would have power to make searching inquiry into the genuine character and standing of the petitioner. Because of the outcry against this rule, it was in force for only six months, replaced by another rule which placed dissenting churches in a different bind: each individual would sign his own certificate:
I certify that I differ in sentiment from the worship and ministry in the ecclesiastical society of ______ in the town of ______. . . and have chosen to join myself to the -(Insert here the name of
society you have joined) in the town of ______.
This hurt the dissenting churches, because it tended to burden them with lukewarm adherents who were likely not to support them.
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In the third place, the settlements of 1727 and 1729 were inadequate, because for fifty years or so there was a new group discriminated against. These were the Separatist Congregational churches who, after the “Great Awakening” of 1740-1742 and its pietistic fervor, began to split away from established parish churches in protest against ministers who did not show sufficient emphasis on salvation by faith and church structures which did not grant enough leeway for individual responses to God’s presence in their lives. The General Assembly made it clear that such groups would not be allowed to organize by its repeal of the Toleration Act in 1743. These groups were harassed by local and Colony authorities in building their buildings and hiring their ministers. Baptists, Quakers, and Anglicans were privileged groups compared to these Separates, as they were called, who were regarded with more frantic animosity, since the new movement seemed a traitorous attack from within. When the events preceding the Revolution served to bind the people of Connecticut closer in unity, the official attitude changed, since the Separates showed their patriotism as clearly as anyone else. In 1770 their worship in their churches was considered to meet the requirement of church attendance, so fines were no longer imposed on them for neglecting worship. Their ministers no longer had to pay taxes (at that time all other clergymen were exempt from taxes). In 1777 they were allowed the certificate route of getting around double taxation.
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In 1784 was published a revised edition of “Laws and Acts of the State of Connecticut in America.” All religious groups, it was stated, could manage their affairs as freely as the churches of the Establishment, but certificates were still necessary to gain exemption from parish taxes, and a fine of three shillings was imposed on anyone who for any trivial reason was absent from church on Sunday. The important contribution that these statutes made toward religious freedom really their recognition of the act of religious choice: strangers, widows, and minors coming of age all had a year to make a decision between various religious alternatives. Religious choice is finally legitimized, a further step towards pluralism.
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Only the final step toward religious freedom now remained to be taken: disestablishment itself, with each denomination on the same political basis as any other, that is to say, completely unaided by the state, yet free to pursue its religious purposes and maintain its operations. The political struggle of 1800 to 1818 involved a fight for this prize.