The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

The colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven were grounded in the system which became known as Congregational, and later as Congregationalism. At the out...

The rule of absolutism forced the transplanting of a democratic church. The arrogance of the House of Stuart compelled English Puritans to seek refuge in America. The exercise o...

With the great Puritan body in England, and with the great mass of the English nation, whatever their religious opinions, the colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut,...

In each of the New England colonies under consideration, the settlers organized their church system and established its relation to the State, expecting that the strong arm of t...

Though Massachusetts had been indifferent and had left Connecticut to work out, unaided, her religious problem, the two colonies were by no means unfriendly, and in each there w...

The Heads of Agreement are but a repetition of the articles that, under the same title, were passed in London, in 1691, by fourteen delegates from the Presbyterian and English C...

that nothing herein shall be intended or construed to hinder or prevent any Society or Church that is or shall he allowed by the laws of this government, who soberly differ or d...

The dissenters found the terms of the Toleration Act too narrow; the conditions under which they could enjoy their own church life too onerous. Consequently, they almost immedia...

The opposition of Episcopalian, Quaker, and Baptist to the Connecticut Establishment, if measured by ultimate results, was important and far-reaching. But it was dwarfed almost...

From such a revival as that of the Great Awakening, parties must of necessity arise. Upon undisciplined fanaticism, the Established church must frown. But when it undertook to d...

The omission of all persecuting acts from the revision of the laws in 1750 was evidence that the worst features of the great schism were passing, that public opinion as a whole...

During the fifteen years following the ratification of the Constitution of the United States by Connecticut, January 9, 1788, no conspicuous events mark her history. These years...

The legal recognition of conscience, the acknowledgment of fundamental dogmas held in common, the gradual approachment of the various religious organizations in polity, their co...

Leland's attack upon the constitution of Connecticut during the excitement over the Western Land bills called for new tactics on the part of the dissenters. Thus far, in all the...

The Federal grip upon Connecticut, one of the last strongholds of that party, was weakening. Preceding the deflection of the Episcopalians in Connecticut, there had been through...

13, Henry Barrowe, Discovery of False Churches, pp. 166, 275; Robert Browne, Book which Sheweth, Def. 51; A True and Short Declaration, p. 20; The True Confession of Faith, Arti...

17, The Commons prayed, "that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge, without common consent by Act of Parliament....

22, J. Cotton, Way of the Churches, pp. 6, 7; Plymouth Col. Rec., ii, 67; Mass. Col. Rec., i, 216, iii, 354; Hartford Town Voter, in Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vi, 32; Conn. Col. R...

"_Whereas_ there is a cursed sect of heretics lately risen up in the world, which are commonly called Quakers, who take upon them that they are immediately sent of God and infal...

122, S. L. Blake, The Separatists, pp. 183, 192. (This book gives the origin and end of every Separate church.) Also 0. W. Means, History of the Enfield Separate Church.

174, Letter of Sept. 11,1788, one of the series in answer to the quotations from Richard Price's "Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution." See American Mercur...

207, Constitution of the United States, Article II, Sect, ii, 1; Art. I, Sect, viii, 15. For the correspondence between General Dearborn and Gov. J. C. Smith, see Mies' Register...