abolishing the property qualification of voters. But in CHAPTER XVI. Virginia, in spite of the theoretical democracy of which that state was the fountain-head, all attempts failed to 1802. liberalize a constitution, as to the right of suffrage one of the most exclusive in the Union. We shall see hereafter with how little success the Pennsylvania Democrats attempted to throw off the yoke of the lawyers. But while political enthusiasm was thus expiring, religious enthusiasm ran on for many years a vigorous course; suppressing free thinking on the one hand and legal provision for the clergy on the other, and building up great and powerful religious establishments on the principle of free association and voluntary contributions. Nor did it stop there. Descending, in our day, from the heavens to the earth, and, with the more general diffusion of intelligence, taking on, among the better informed, a more practical shape, it has pushed and is pushing, with all its native energy, many great questions of social reform; and even dashing with fury against the very religious establishments it had formerly built up, whenever it finds in them obstacles to its present career; at times assailing even the fundamental dogmas of all formal religions with a species of artillery infinitely more dangerous than any that Paine or Jefferson ever used. Yet, as all general statements are to be taken with some allowance, so there were to be found among the New England Republicans a certain number of as zealous sticklers for the New England system of religious establishments as any of the Federalists; including even two or three eminent clergymen, the secret of whose politics is to be sought either in very hopeful views of the improvability of human nature, or, if their creed was more orthodox, in an inextinguishable hatred against England, kindled in the Revolution. CHAPTER relied, as most of the sectaries did, upon the visible conXVI. verting presence of the Holy Spirit; while both extremes 1802. had a strong bond of sympathy in their common hostility to the established clerical order, by which the Free-thinkers expressed their dislike to all priesthoods, while the sectaries not only indulged the bitterness of theological rivalry, but signified also their confidence that their own worship, being the true one, would be upheld by Divine aid, without need of a legal support, only necessary for a dead and formal religion-one of the head, and not of the heart. son. There was also a still deeper and more permanent bond of sympathy, not consciously perceived by either party. Enthusiasm in religion is, in its ultimate analysis, but a species of free thinking-that form which free thinking takes when developed in minds in which imagination and the feelings predominate over the reaFree-thinkers denounce prevailing opinions, and appeal to first principles, and religious enthusiasts do the same thing. Free-thinkers had united with Luther against the Church of Rome; Free-thinkers had united with the Puritans against the Church of England; Freethinkers had united with the Church of England against the Congregational Church establishments of Massachusetts and Connecticut; and Free-thinkers now, throughout the United States, united with the various enthusiastic sects against any public provision for the clergy. Political enthusiasm, discouraged by the results of the French Revolution, was already dying out, without having produced hardly any modifications of laws or constitutions. In Maryland, indeed, where such a change was necessary to secure the permanent ascendency of the Republican party, the triumphant Democrats brought in and presently carried an amendment of the Constitution abolishing the property qualification of voters. But in CHAPTER XVI. Virginia, in spite of the theoretical democracy of which that state was the fountain-head, all attempts failed to 1802. liberalize a constitution, as to the right of suffrage one of the most exclusive in the Union. We shall see hereafter with how little success the Pennsylvania Democrats attempted to throw off the yoke of the lawyers. But while political enthusiasm was thus expiring, religious enthusiasm ran on for many years a vigorous course; suppressing free thinking on the one hand and legal provision for the clergy on the other, and building up great and powerful religious establishments on the principle of free association and voluntary contributions. Nor did it stop there. Descending, in our day, from the heavens to the earth, and, with the more general diffusion of intelligence, taking on, among the better informed, a more practical shape, it has pushed and is pushing, with all its native energy, many great questions of social reform; and even dashing with fury against the very religious establishments it had formerly built up, whenever it finds in them obstacles to its present career; at times assailing even the fundamental dogmas of all formal religions with a species of artillery infinitely more dangerous than any that Paine or Jefferson ever used. Yet, as all general statements are to be taken with some allowance, so there were to be found among the New England Republicans a certain number of as zealous sticklers for the New England system of religious establishments as any of the Federalists; including even two or three eminent clergymen, the secret of whose politics is to be sought either in very hopeful views of the improva bility of human nature, or, if their creed was more orthodox, in an inextinguishable hatred against England, kindled in the Revolution.. XVI. CHAPTER The great mass, however, of the New England Republican party was made up of secret or open, latitudina1802. rian, free thinking, or fanatical dissenters from the religious establishment, who now sought support against that establishment, and aid to overthrow it, from the general government, just as, in the times of the first Massachusetts charter, a similar party had done from the government of England; while the New England Federalists, on the other hand, presently came to regard the general government, the infancy of which they had so carefully nursed, with much the same jealous and hostile spirit formerly exhibited toward the mother country. Nor was that political millennium, of which Jefferson so fondly hoped to become the high priest, delayed only by the execrations of the Federalists. Alarming symptoms appeared of growing divisions in the Democratic ranks. In Pennsylvania, where M'Kean was re-elected governor by forty-five thousand out of sixty thousand votes, with an overwhelming Republican majority in both branches of the Legislature, these dissensions, though already visible, were still kept in check; but in New York a decided breach had already occurred. Greenleaf's Argus, the former organ of the Republicans of New York, had been succeeded by the American Citizen, established by Dennison, a relation of the Clintons, and warmly devoted to their interests. Dennison having no ability as a writer, the editorship of the paper had been given to James Cheetham, a man of superior talents, an immigrant from Birmingham, in England, a devoted admirer of Paine's, and ultimately his biographer. This paper, simultaneously with the adjournment of Congress, began to attack Vice-president Burr with great vehemence, charging him with having forfeited his position in the Republican party by his secret intrigues XVI. with the Federalists, and some of the Republicans, on CHAPTER occasion of the late election of president. Of this, indeed, there was no very positive proof; for in cautious 1802. secretiveness and silent activity Burr was a match for Jefferson himself. Yet circumstances were cited going to show efforts on the part of Burr and his friends to operate on the New York and New Jersey members. This attack did not grow out of any special regard entertained by the Clintons and Livingstons for Jefferson. But it furnished a plausible and popular ground on which to attack Burr, and might help them to engross the control of the Federal executive patronage in New York, through the favor of the president, to whom, not less than to themselves, Burr was an object of jealous suspicion. Indeed, it was further alleged against him, that, with a view to the next presidential election, he still kept up with the Federalists a secret intrigue. He was charged with having been opposed to the late repeal of Adams's Judiciary Act, and with having influenced Ogden and Eustis, the only two Republicans who had voted against it. He had also attended at Washington a Federal celebration of Washington's birth-day, and had given for his toast "the union of all honest men.” A further proof urged against him was the paying a sum of money to suppress a history of John Adams's administration, compiled chiefly from the Aurora and Callender's pamphlets by one John Wood, a recent Scotch immigrant. This suppression had been attempted, as Cheetham said, on account of the developments it contained respecting Dayton and other of Burr's Federal friends, but, as Burr himself alleged, on account of the disgrace which its numerous libels and blunders would have reflected on the Republican party. To counteract these attacks, Burr and his friends es |