CHAPTER I✦

THE UNDERMINING OF PURITAN STANDARDS AND INSTITUTIONS

1. RAPID DISINTEGRATION OF PURITANISM AFTER THE REVOLUTION

Back of the War of Independence was the less absorbing but scarcely less harrowing contest of the French and Indian War. Thus for a period of fully thirty years the people of New England had been subjected to the rough and unsettling experiences of military life. This consideration, taken in connection with the fact that a growing declension from the standards of the Puritan fathers had been the occasion of increasing comment and concern from the middle of the seventeenth century on,[4] will make explicable the fact that the average citizen of New England emerged from the Revolutionary struggle with the edge of his conscience dulled. The secularizing spirit of the post-Revolutionary period, when questions of national organization and unity, of the rehabilitation of commerce and industry, and of international relations and policies were foremost in the thought of the day, left marks upon the human spirit over which stern and rigorous adherents to the old order wept copiously and long. For one thing, the lives of the men and women of New England were never again to be as barren of diversified interests as they had been in the past. The successful issue of the struggle for political independence had so enlarged the mind of the common man that he of necessity entertained considerations of private desire and of public policy which he formerly would have rejected entirely. The avenue of retreat to the ancient simplicity and seclusion was forever closed.

The soundness of this estimate of the rapid disintegration of Puritanism will be apparent if the changing attitude of the people on the subject of theatrical entertainments is considered.[5] As early as the year 1750 the General Court of Massachusetts had found it necessary to enact legislation to prevent stage-plays and other theatrical entertainments.[6] That Puritan standards dominated the situation at the time is evidenced both by the reasons advanced by the framers of the law for its enactment and by the stringent penalties attached to it. The justification of the measure was found in the economic waste, the discouraging effect upon industry and frugality, and the deleterious effect upon morality and religion which stage-plays were believed to exercise. The penalties imposed called for a fine of twenty pounds upon any owner of property who permitted his property to be used for such purposes, while a fine of five pounds was to be assessed upon any actor or spectator found in attendance upon or participating in any such exercises where more than twenty persons were assembled together.[7] How meekly the craving for pleasurable excitement bowed its head in submission, there is no evidence to show; but it is very clear that as the century drew toward its close the people of Massachusetts began to manifest a decidedly intractable spirit with respect to legislative control of their amusements and pleasures.

The days of the Revolution supplied thrills of their own, and the colonists gave themselves in devotion to their great task-at-arms, with little desire for the amenities of life. Accordingly, when the Continental Congress, on October 16, 1778, passed a resolution deprecating every species of public entertainment which would be likely to divert the minds of the people from the considerations of public defence and the safeguarding of their liberties,[8] there was nothing singular about the episode, and we may believe readily that the people of New England, fortified by their grim spirit of determination and their long tradition of self-denial, in no sense fell short of the general standard. But by the year 1790 the people living in and about Boston had come to a very different state of mind. In that year by petition to the General Court they sought to have the prohibitory act of 1750 revoked.[9] The incident has importance because it registers a determined effort to feed desires whose hunger-pains had grown insistent.

The history of this particular effort to remove legislative restrictions in the way of harmless amusements is illuminating. The petition referred to received scant consideration at the hands of the legislators of Massachusetts. The following year certain gentlemen of Boston, to the number of thirty-nine, presented a memorial to the selectmen of that city, requesting that a vote of the citizens be taken on the questions of permitting the erection and use of a building for theatrical entertainments, and the issuing of instructions to Boston’s representatives in the legislature calling for the repeal of the obnoxious law. Apparently the plebiscite was not taken; but the general question was debated in town meeting. A committee was appointed to prepare instructions. The committee reported favorably concerning the proposed instructions to Boston’s representatives in the legislature, and these representatives later undertook the task of bringing a majority of the members of the General Court to the more liberal point of view; not, however, with immediate success. Meanwhile, to the scandal of Governor John Hancock, and doubtless many another advocate of decency and order, theatrical entertainments, “under the Stile & Appellation of Moral Lectures,”[10] flourished openly in Boston.[11]

It was during the progress of the debate in the legislature over the proposed repeal of the law against theatrical entertainments that John Gardiner, one of Boston’s representatives in that body, delivered himself of sentiments touching what he styled “the illiberal, unmanly, and despotic act” of 1750. His speech gave evidence of how fresh and independent the judgments of some minds had come to be. Addressing the presiding officer, Gardiner said:

Sir! I really and truly venerate; I would rather say, I sincerely and almost enthusiastically admire the many great and splendid virtues of our renowned puritan ancestors ... ; but still, Sir, they were only men; and, like all other men, were fallible; liable to frailties, to prejudices, and to error. Some errors, and some unjust prejudices, they undoubtedly had. Would to God a veil was drawn over all their absurd prejudices which, like spots in the sun, tend in some small degree to bedarken and obscure the otherwise truly-resplendent glories of their character. One of these prejudices, in my opinion, was their inveterate opposition and abhorrent aversion to the theatre.[12]

That Gardiner was the spokesman of a very considerable number of citizens is demonstrated by the fact that on March 28, 1793, a bill drawn to take the place of the older legislation against theatrical amusements and granting specifically to the people of Boston the right to erect a theatre and to have “stage plays performed under certain regulations and restrictions,” was enacted by the legislature of Massachusetts.[13] It is very evident that public sentiment had veered round to a radically new and different view respecting the place and function of the theatre. So much so, indeed, that some who sought to shape the thought and determination of the times recommended the establishment of the theatre as the only possible way of drawing the desires and interests of the people away from grosser and more injurious excitements toward which, it was believed, an alarming growth of frivolity and lack of moral concern was rapidly sweeping the people of New England.[14]

This alleged declension of morals may be more vitally viewed from the standpoint of the subject of intemperance. Convivial habits were a fixed part of the New England character, and the sin of drunkenness was as old as the settlement of the country. The practice of brewing was numbered among the employments of the first settlers.[15] Rum was generally used by the people, and the commercial life of the colonies was inextricably woven with its importation and exportation.[16] Cider was the native New England beverage.[17] The importation of wine was large from the first.[18] A general tendency in the direction of increased habits of drinking was to be expected.[19]

The period of the Revolution made its own special contribution to the gravity of the case. The soldiers of the Continental armies received regular rations of liquor,[20] and at the expiration of the war carried back to their respective communities the habits of intemperance which in many cases their army life had strengthened. Rum was more and more coming to be regarded as one of the necessities of life;[21] and with the revival of industry and commerce after the war the business of distilling mounted rapidly to amazing proportions.[22]

A growing uneasiness over the social and economic consequences involved in the spread of alcoholism is apparent. Under the date of July 29, 1789, the Reverend Jeremy Belknap, minister of the church in Long Lane, Boston, is found writing thus to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Philadelphia’s celebrated physician and early apostle of temperance reform: