Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

isters were to be fined or expelled from the colony. The following year,
toleration of dissent as established in the Act of 1708 was repealed and
religious dissidents were required to obtain special permission from the
Assembly. When the New Lights tried to set up their own training school,
the Connecticut legislature passed a law prohibiting any school, college, or
seminary from being created without the license of the Assembly. For
unlicensed preaching at Milford and New Haven, the New Light Presbyterian
Reverend Samuel Finley, afterwards president of the College of
New Jersey, was arrested and expelled from the colony. Furthermore, suspected
New Lights were ejected from public office, and elected representatives
from New Light towns (such as Canterbury, Plainfield, and Lyme in
eastern Connecticut) were refused their seats in the Assembly.
The Old Siders were by no means alone in persecuting the Great Awakening.
This was particularly true among the liberals. In 1743, Governor
Jonathan Law of Connecticut wrote the powerful Dissenting deputies of
Great Britain defending the persecutions in view of the troublesomeness of
the Great Awakening movement. The Dissenting deputies replied in a
friendly but firm reminder of libertarian principles. They too deplored the
"delusions" and disruptions of the Great Awakening, "but great and manifest
as those mischiefs are, we cannot be of the opinion that the magistrate
has anything to do in this matter but to see that the public peace is preserved,
that there are no riots or tumults, and that his subjects are not
allowed to assault, hurt, maim, wound, plunder or kill one another in these
religious contests." Laws against differing religious opinions, on the other
hand, are unfortunate, as Connecticut should well have known from the
experience of the establishment in England. The deputies proceeded to
criticize sharply the Connecticut law of 1742 and its severe penalties for
dissent from Connecticut's own establishment. The deputies concluded eloquently:
"In short, whether we consider this matter in a religious or political
light, it seems every way most advisable to let these men alone, how wildly
erroneous soever both you and we may take their sentiments to be." So great
was the prestige of the Dissenting deputies in New England that before
long Connecticut had adopted the bulk of their advice.
The campaign of persecution did not stamp out the New Lights; rather, it
led to a libertarian opposition among the New Light ministry. The New
Light Association of Ministers of Western Fairfield County denounced the
use of the civil power to impose ecclesiastical discipline. They also called
for more genuine Congregationalism in the Connecticut church.
The Separatist New Lights only came to adopt a libertarian antiestablishment
posture by the logic of their political position as a dissenting minority,
after they had been clearly defeated in their attempt to control the Congregational
church. Only after several years did the logic of the situation push
more and more Separatists into opposing an establishment. The first clear-
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