The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-18

| LedCn 10 nnal stop, The conclusion
 may be right or wrong; but a conclu-
 sion 1t ls
 sherman was a deacon of the New
 Milford church, the clerk and treasur-
 CT of the society. and one of the school
 committee At the age of forty he re-
 moved to New Haven, and connected
 himself with the White Haven church,
 one of the two original bodies out of
 which grew the United society and the
 United church. Here again the records Show his faithful work on committees and as collector of the rates imposed
 by the society
 Five years later he was appointed a Judge of the superior court, a position
 which he continued to hold for nearly
 a quarter of a century
 The British legislation culminating
 In the Stamp Act had now begun to
 arouse the spirit of independence in
 the American colonies. Sherman was one of those who took the most ad- Vanced ground. He maintained that parliament had no Jurisdiction over | them, whatever.
 Connecticut sent him as one of her delegates to the first Continental Con-
 gross, in l774, and there he maintained
 this doctrine with all his power. John Adams reports him as declaring upon 1 the floor that there was no legislative | power superior to the Colonial assem- I blies and that Americans had adopted 1 the common law of England, not as the 1 e mmon law. but as the highest req son.
 It was his thorough going republican, | ism, indeed, which had carried hn1 h.
 10 public life, and put him in lead- Ing place among the legislators of his
 State, He had been first elected to the Governors Council or upper house of | the General Assembly in 1766 The Stamp Act had brought the sons of Liberty into existence. They had fore cd, under threat of death, Jared Inger- soil of this city, who under the adyice ] of Franklin had accepted the position | of stampmuster for Connecticut. to re- sign. the office. Governor Fitch, though with reluctance, had taken the official oath which the obnoxious act required. 1 It cost him his place, William Pltkin ! being elected his successor a year lat er With hm went out of office four of l his council, who sympathixed with his difference to parliamentary authority, | dropped by the people to make room for. others who were reguarded as more fully Americans in spirit and. doctrine,
 No one was then eligible for seat on the council board, who had not been 1 officially nominated in the previous | year. Twenty were an- nually made for the twelve places and the election was so managed that the twelve in office always headed the list and were voted on first. IA majority was not required for an election nor even a plurality. Whoever of the coun- cillors had more votes in his favor than were cast against him was return- ed To be once nominated for the up- per house was in this way substantial assurance of an ultimate election, and to be once elected was substantial assurance of an annual reelection for life.
 sherman, in 1176 mad been on the waiting list for five year. A political whirlwind unexampled in our colonial annals, then made five vacancies. and death sixth. He went in with five other new men, and remained a mem- Der until after the close of the .Reyolu- tion,
 Religion in those days, so far as form at least was concerned, was part of politics. There was a religious estab- lishment In Connecticut It put the church beside the schoolhouse on the village green. It made church and state largely one, tH
 sherman was not wiser than his gen. eration in regard to matters of religion. Ills reading had been mainly in English history and law, but the subject next most interesting to him was theology. He accepted Calvinism. He believed in the Puritans. He dlstrusted and feared the church of England. It was the day when so tolerant and fair minded a man as President Stiles could record as among the fourteen trials and difficulties of this life: Concern for the Congregational Churches, and Preva- fence of Episcopacy and Wckedness"
 When, therefore, about the middle of the eighteenth century the Eplsco- palans. who were especially strong in ConnectiCpt began to push for the ap- pointment of one or more American bishops, it is not surprising that Sher- mans voice was raised in opposition.
 A long letter on this subject, written in i76S, which it Is believed came from his pen, is among the files of the New Haven East Association, to, which this church belonged. In this 1t is urged that of Parliament provides for American bishops, they might bring here all the functions and authority of those of England and hold ecclesiastical courts like those of Laud, from which our fathers fled into the wilderness.
 There was this piece of solid ground under sherman's argument Grant the power of Parliament to establish an American episcopate, and new point was made in favor of the general right of Parliament to legislate as to all American affairs. This consideration no doubt greatly influenced his course, and 1t was sufficient to defeat the con secration of any bishop for America un- til that of Dr. Seabury, which followed closely after the Revolution.
 Silas Deane, his colleague in the Con- I tinental Congress. in a frank letter to his wife, written about this time, thus paints Sherman, as he appeared at iNAw Yarl dInparnarfv.
 MT Sherman is clever in private, hut I will onfNy oo1y ha ic hodIxy ooI-