Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1877-08-17

NOIlbElultN ~ thc
ligious belief, and those standards of belief,
or profession, called orthodox, to he found in
certain accredited platforms" Upon the
New Lights in doctrine, and the Separates
from the standing order, it bore hard to be
compelled by law TO pay towards the build
ing of meeting houses which they would not
attend and to contribute to tho support OF
ministers to whom they would not listen,
and this. while sustaining, unaided, their own
systems of worship and teaching and then,
If their own ministers CHANGED TO DO caught
preaching outside tho limits of their own
parish, without orderly invitation, to see them
treated as poachers or tramps, with fines and
the stocks The religious liberty which they
enjoyed in this their asylum they founded
and established. They stamped upon their
earliest church records their reputation OF
the doctrine OF State interference with mat
tiers OF religious doctrine and worship, and
made their plan of organization MS church
II charter of religious liberty Thus in or
ganizing 1.-The church of Christ in Benning
ton, December 3, 1872, the first church or
ganization OF the New Hampshire Grants, it
was agreed and voted to except, from their
adoption OF the Cambridge Platform, that
part 'in respect of using the civil law to sup
port the gospel" and also that part ''in re-
spect of the civil magistrates coercive
power"
Whatever else may be said of the religious
teachings customs and observances OF the
New England of that day, 1t can not be de-
MED that they trained up people mighty in
the Scriptures, scLooled to great acuteness of
intellectual perception by study of the meta
physics of theology, practice of its dialectics,
and clash of discussion Of the mysteries of
| religion and the entanglements OF creed ;
and that the study ofthe questions OF church
government educated them to knowledge OF
the principles Of all just government, and
| their application to the affairs OF the State.
Bigots shall we call them They were in
deed religious according to the law and logic
of religion, rather than in its emotions and
enthusiasms. would rather say of them
that they we're God-fearing men, and so in
| fear of no one else orderly. self-restrained,
though self-reliant in thought and will.
staunch, stable men stiff in opposition,
| stout in resistance. determined in defence OF
| their rights against aggression.
Though these first immigrants were mostly
| farmers, not greatly conversant with books,
save the one book, yet coming from the then
most enlightened part of America, the heart
| of New England, the home of the school
house and the meeting house, and OF those
| little town democraces, training schools In
the science of popular self-government, they
were by no means rude, and had that practi-
| cal education in tho common affairs OF civil
| life which books cannot give. The minister,
| if he did not come in their company, soon
| followed, together with the lawyer, the ply
stefan, graduates of college and men OF cul-
ture, so that, one hundred years ago, and
from the earliest controversy about title and
| jurisdiction of the New Hampshire Grants
4 A. 81, Of lao n
| Vermont to the Union of the United States,
March 4, 1871, it may be fairly doubted
whether these people were not as intelligent
as any community OF equal number then IL
New England. This may be safely said, that
| none were better suited to the turbulent
| times /; none who ever conducted more wise
ly. astutely and brayely than they managed
| the affairs of peace and Of war, and of that
half-war, half-lawsuit, which SO long ragged
between the settlers and the land jobbers o
eNw York, with its complications Of bounda
nv. jurisdiction and title and collision of con
fiicting claims of New York. New Hampshir,
and Massachusetts, tho men of Concord ant
Lexington not reader than they, TO spring
up in resistance to the aggressions of Grea
Britain upon the liberties of the colonies
nor any more patriotic, self-sacrificing, uni
ted and steadfast in defence of the common
cause none shrewder and wiser in the dip
lomacy of war than the leaders OF these PEG
pie, who, when the infant State. unsuppolt
ed by Congress and deserted by the neigh
boring States, was left alone to make sucl
defence rs she could against powerful in
vasion by the common enemy gatherin!
upon her northern border. repealed the in
vason and secured victory without conflict
disarming the fee by the charm of words
| l,,t a.. of Urn IN TN
common cause the results of q successful
campaign and none who ever displayed
keener sagacity and skill of polite admins
tration and management than they VIII
made .'the Grants State who maintain
ed its independence as separate sovereignt
for fourteen years, and then put 1t IN plac
rs one of the United States of America.
Upon plain grounds of common justice
the rebellion of the New Hampshire Grants
so far as it was a rebellion, and the formin
of an independent State stand justified. Tn
rebellion was against the injustice OF rot
berry, and the State was necessity as an III
strument of resistance. The lands embrace
within the territorial limits of this presen
State of Vermont had been understood to b
within the limits and jurisdiction OF tn
Province of New Hampshire. Upon this III
derstanding, the Royal Governor of ths
Colony, Benning Wentworth, had granted b
charter in the Kings name about one hun
dred and thirty townships OF these lands
or nearly three millions of acres, in share
to some eight thousand persons, when o
the Doth day of July, 17Gl. without motto
to the settlers and plainly against their wis
es, the colonial government OF New lor
succeeded in obtaining from the King i
council an order, declaring the West bank c
the Connecticut River to be the boundar
line between the two Provinces of Ne'
Hampshire and New York,-thus placing tn
settlers upon those Grants and their land
under the jurisdiction of New York. Sine
the title to these lands was originally in tn
King and the King lad granted them, an
the purchase price may be said to have gon
into the Kings treasury. the question {
rightful colonial jurisdiction hardly seems t
touch the question of legal right to the lands
and, certainly. since the lands had been pun
chased and paid for in good faith, it WAS
plain violation of equity, on the part of tn
colonial government of New York, to trea
those grants as void and the settlers as tres
passers, and to regrant the lands to stranger
and thus turn out from their new mad
homes a whole people to beggary and vaga
bondage. Nor does any effect of the orde
establishing the boundary. such AZ to in
pair by retroaction the Royal grants alrend
male, seem to have been intended by tn
Home government But the New York go,
eminent gave the order this Interpretation
treating it rs the sanction of their previou
claim Of jurisdiction and right and SO sue
cessive Royal governors of that Colony set
work granting these lands i'll large tracts
upon careful selection and survey OF the best
to their retalners and fayorites, Regardless
wholly of the rights OF the settlers unde
the New Hampshire charters. This IL
Justice had its incentive in the gree
iof those Governors to acquire fortune
for themselves by the extravagant fee
demanded and paid for such grants
or by themselves and their fayorites becom
Ing partners with other SPECTATORS and job
beers in the lands granted. The injustice @
thus disregarding the claims OF the settler
was so manifest and gross, as to receive tn
rebuke of the Home government and re
peated prohibitions ; but the loyalty of thes
Tory Governors gave way ut the point wher
the Royal order touched their own emolu
nents, and the bad work went on rs before
and SO the honest settler became accustomed
to see surveying parties of Workers crossing
his ont fields and crcling his homestead il
their delineations of manors and barenies
and to receive their salutations of notice t,
| quit. wa
Of process OF ejectment, calling him to Alba
ny to answer to the plant of some specula
tor, disguised under the name of John Doe
who pretended to have bought from undel
him the lands he had bought, paid for. clear
ed and titled, and the house which sheltered
his wife and babes. If he made appearance,
| in answer to such summons, he found the
court in suspicious accord with the rapa
cious governors and spectators, in treating
his grant, under the royal seal of New Hamp-
shire, as nulity. Such decision Of one
case WAS a precedent for all others, number
ing thousands, and so the alternative was
presented to every grantee and settler under
n New Hampshire charter, to give up his
lands and home, or buy his peace On impos-
| sible terms of al unsympathizing stranger
who had schemed to despoil hun, or yet for
| chilly to resist such monstrous injustice. We
are wont to applaud the forcible resistance
made to the stamp act, and the destruction
of the tea in Boston harbor. MS patriotic eXhi-
billions of rightful resistance TO authority ar
bitrarily unjust What shall we say, then, of
the resistance of these settlers of 1.-THE
Grants" to that scheme of plumber which
would take from people not merely petty
4