Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

soon began to crumble. Once again it was the Quakers who took the lead in
religious liberty. Despite attempts in 1702, 1706, and later to compel Quakers
to pay for the Puritan establishment and to force Quaker towns to support a
Puritan minister, Quaker resistance continued. The Quakers kept protesting to
England over the compulsion to pay "the demands of the priest." Finally, in
1728, the Massachusetts establishment was seriously weakened. A law of that
year permitted Quakers and Baptists to refuse to pay taxes for support of
Puritan ministers on the grounds of conscience. The provision was hedged
about with numerous conditions, such as the necessity of the objectors to
attend some church, and their taking an oath of allegiance to the colony. But
in 1731, all Quakers were unconditionally exempted from religious taxes, and
four years later Baptists were likewise exempted. Only in new towns without
a minister were Baptists and Quakers still obliged to pay for the Puritan
church. And even in new towns the regulation was often unenforced, as witness
a law of 1759 allowing non-Quakers in any town with a Quaker majority
to elect as many assessors for church taxes as the Quakers. Thus, by the
middle of the eighteenth century, the Puritan establishment had, to some
extent, broken down in Massachusetts.
Hand in hand with the Puritan establishment came, in 1692, a law compelling
each town to provide for and impose compulsory schooling on its inhabitants.
Many towns, however, did not abide by the provisions, or did not
impose penalties for violations. Massachusetts then tightened the screws,
imposing more stringent enforcement in 1701. Further linking government
schooling with religion was the fact that the schoolmaster had to be approved
by a board of Puritan ministers.
Inability to enforce compulsory schooling led to still further interventions,
and to still more rigorous and brutal attempts at enforcement. Not only were
fines increased on towns not furnishing compulsory schooling, but in 1735
parents not educating their children in ways thought fit by the state might see
their children seized by the government and shipped to arbitrarily designated
foster families.
In general, rule in Massachusetts by the Puritan oligarchy—once so rigorous
and so fanatical—had been greatly weakened by blows from without and
by crumbling from within by the end of the seventeenth century. With the
advent of the eighteenth, the decline of Puritan control accelerated still further.
For the first time, moreover, a determined liberal opposition developed
within the church, and was able to retain a foothold.
Within the church there had emerged with the Salem witch-hunt liberal
opposition led by the merchant Thomas Brattle and by the Reverend John
Wise of Ipswich, who had gone to prison for protesting the Andros tyranny.
In 1699, a group of influential liberals of Boston, headed by Thomas Brattle,
his brother William, and John Leverett, founded the Brattle Street Church
within the Puritan fold. The new church issued a manifesto, endorsing the
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