XIX. OUR COLONIAL BLUE LAWS.*

ARTICLE I.- -UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

Why we treat this subject-Who are, and who have been the persecutors?-Meaning of the term Blue Laws-Effort at concealment-Bancroft's reserve-Other historians of New England-Character of the Puritans-Their good and their bad qualities-Their treatment of the Aborigines-Their inconsistency-Two classes of Blue Laws-Union of Church and State-Conformity-The franchiseEstablished religion-Observance of the Sabbath-Severe enactments-Law against priests-Spirit of persecution in New York-Miscellaneous laws- Indians and wolves-Use of tobacco-Manner of dress-Cut of the hair-Matrimony-And divorce-By whom were the Blue Laws repealed?— Some Blue Laws of Virginia-The land of "steady habits"-Catholic Colony of Maryland.

If we be asked, why we treat of the Blue Laws at this particular time, our answer is at hand. We are moved by no feeling of uncharitableness, but simply by a love of historic truth, and a motive of just self-defense. A systematic attempt has been made to fasten all the odium of narrowmindedness and persecution on the Catholic Church; and at present this is the favorite battle-cry of those who seek, in this free country, to render Catholics hateful to their fellow-citizens, and to deprive them even of their undoubted civil rights. With strange inconsistency, this undisguised effort to crush Catholic liberty and rights, is made in the name of liberty itself! It is with this hallowed word on their lips, that the misguided agents of a truculent secret political society rush to the sack or burning of our churches, and to the open slaughter or secret assassination of our people ! This much-abused name of liberty is the staple of the hired street brawler, who openly excites the mob to riot and arson, in our heretofore peaceful streets and highways. The minister of religion, too, whose office should incline him to exhort men to the love of God and of the neighbor, is not unfrequently found to take up the same maddening cry, and to throw his influence into the scale of hatred and anarchy, instead of that of love and peace!

*I. The Blue Laws of New Haven Colony, usually called the Blue Laws of Connecticut; Quaker Laws of Plymouth and Massachusetts; Blue Laws of New York, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. First Record of Connecticut; interesting extracts from Connecticut Records; cases of Salem witchcraft; charges and banishment of Rev. Roger Williams, &c., and other interesting and instructive antiquities. Compiled by an Antiquarian. Hartford Printed by Case, Tiffany & Co. 1838. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 336.

II. The Code of 1650; being a compilation of the earliest Laws and Orders of the General Court of Connecticut: also, the Constitution, or civil compact entered into and adopted by the towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, in 1638–9. To which are added some extracts from the laws and judicial proceedings of the New Haven Colony, commonly called Blue Laws. Hartford: Judd, Loomis & Co. 1836. 1 vol. 16mo., pp. 119.

The most singular feature in the present unholy warfare against Catholies in this country, is the fact, which can be established by the most overwhelming evidence, that while we are made to bear all the odium of intolerance and persecution, our opponents, and they ALONE, are fairly open to the charge, so far at least as the history of this country is concerned. We defy any one to lay his finger on the fact of history, which proves that Catholics have ever been guilty of a single act of persecution in the United Stats, either before or since the revolution. This matter is easily tested. Our standard histories are mostly the productions of Protestant writers, and their pages are spread out before the world. If any such act of intolerance can be pointed out, as having been perpetrated by Catholics in this country, we would really desire to see the evidence, even on respectable Protestant authority; for we have never yet found a solitary instance, though our reading in this department of history has been tolerably extensive. What we want is FACTS, not WORDS. Until our bitter opponents are prepared to meet this fair and reasonable issue, they should surely remain silent, if they have any sense of decency or of justice left,

Have American Catholics ever attempted to get up a persecution of slander against their fellow-citizens? Have they ever employed street preachers to vilify their brother religionists? Have they ever sought to burn Protestant churches? Have they ever enacted persecuting laws, when-as in the Maryland colony-they had the power to do so. If they have done or attempted none of these things, then why all this bitter opposition to their civil and religious rights in this country?

Can our enemies come out of this ordeal of historic facts equally unscathed? We think not. The evidence of all our colonial history must be blotted out, before they can hope to escape the accusation, that, while so strongly denouncing their neighbors for a persecuting spirit, they and their ancestors have been, in point of fact, the only persecutors in this hemisphere !

Much as we regret to write it, the narrow-minded persecuting spirit of the Puritans still survives in their descendants. Survives, - did we say? We are unjust to the memory of the Puritans. They had, at least, some method, some religion, and some decency in their persecution; their descendants have retained only their inveterate hatred of Catholicity. This does not, of course, apply to all or even to the greater portion of American Protestants; but it is fairly applicable to all those who are either openly or tacitly engaged in the present unscrupulous and unprincipled crusade against Catholics in this free country.

It is with these views that we republish the articles written some years ago on our Colonial Blue Laws. The facts we will unfold, entirely on Protestant authority, will show conclusively, who first brought the spirit along with the practice of persecution into this country.

We will not pause to examine the question, whether the denomination Blue Laws originated in the trivial circumstance that the first printed edition of them was put forth enveloped in blue colored paper, or from the

fact that the laws themselves were deemed intrinsically blue. A partiality to the former opinion, it may be, induced the authors or publishers of the two works which we propose to review, to have the first put up in a blue cover, and the second printed entirely on blue paper; while, in confirmation of the latter opinion, it may be said that the popular acceptation of the term certainly denotes something more than the mere color of paper or covering. The skillful antiquary may, perhaps, reconcile the two opinions, by supposing that the name was originally given in consequence of the circumstance alluded to, but that afterwards it was associated in the popular mind with the peculiar nature of the laws themselves. Every philologist knows, that many words in all languages have been subject to these variations in signification. One thing is certain, that the epithet Blue Laws now denotes a system of legislation, marked by narrow-minded policy and proscriptive exclusiveness.

There has been manifestly a studied effort on the part of the descendants of the New England Puritans to cover up and to conceal, as far as was possible, all traces of the very peculiar legislation adopted by their forefathers. It was only after very considerable exertions and delay, that we could succeed in procuring copies of the two little works under review; a circumstance not a little remarkable, when we consider that the editions of them are comparatively recent. Whether it is that the editions were bought up by the curious almost as soon as they were issued,—which we think scarcely probable,-or that they were suppressed, or met with but little encouragement, we would not venture to say. Certain it is, that the copies are now very scarce, and that the works themselves are but little known to our booksellers, at least to those in the west and south. If we are to believe the compilers of the works under consideration, they too had great difficulty in procuring the necessary materials. The anonymous "antiquarian" to whom we owe the first publication, assures us that, of the first edition of five hundred copies, comprising the laws compiled by Governor Eaton at the instance of the general court of the New Haven colony, and printed in London in 1656, only two copies, so far as his researches extended, are now to be found in this country. Mr. Silas Andrus, the author of the other smaller work, tells us "that the first revision of the early laws of Connecticut was never before printed; "2 that the earliest laws of the colony were recorded only in manuscript; and that he had often the greatest difficulty in deciphering the text, "particularly for the reason that the record, in some parts, was nearly obliterated, and in others totally gone." He adds: "other parts of the record, therefore, have been resorted to, and the copy rendered complete. The ancient orthography has been accurately preserved."

Both productions carry with them intrinsic evidences of laborious research, and of a sincere wish to be accurate; and we are quite sure that the compilers will receive the thanks of all who are interested in the study of the early history and antiquities of our country. All that we regret is,

1 Preface, p 5.

2 Preface.

3 Ibid.

that the works are not gotten up in better style, that they have had apparently so limited a circulation, and that the authors had not the courage to attach their names to the title-page. Does it, then, really require so great an amount of moral courage to tell the truth, when it conflicts with popular error and prejudice ?

It would seem so. Thus, how very gently does not Mr. Bancroft, in his late popular History of our colonies, touch upon the eccentricities of character, and the legislative peculiarities of the pilgrim fathers! How much, and how very skillfully does he not labor to soften down, or to obliterate altogether, the shades of the historic picture! We do not venture to characterize this course as disingenuous and wholly unworthy the honest and impartial historian,-this might appear too sweeping a censure, but we do say, that we would have admired the work of our historian much more, had he ventured to tell the whole truth. He cannot enter the plea of expediency; for the historian should prefer truth to expediency. He cannot plead ignorance; for he certainly must have had, spread out before him, the original records of the New England colonies, and, among others, those identical documents which are reproduced in the two works under consideration.

Besides, he might have imitated the candor, and profited by the labors, of at least three distinguished New Englanders, who had preceded him in the historical career; and who had not feared to tell the truth, and to call things by their right names. We refer to Belknap's biographical and other works; to Barber's Antiquities of New Haven; and to Peter's work on the Blue Laws. The truth seems to be, that Mr. Bancroft wrote his work quite too near Plymouth rock, the blarney stone of New England;" and that he sought too much to cater to the prejudices of his countrymen. We can scarcely find any other explanation of his great discretion, in regard to matters upon which he should have been more explicit and detailed. Had he been only as candid in reference to the Blue Laws, as he was in regard to the persecution of Roger Williams, of the Quakers, and of the Witches, we would have deemed these strictures wholly uncalled for. As it is, we may venture the suggestion, that the eminent historian will yet supply the deficiency we have indicated, in some future edition of his valuable work, and that he will furnish us, at least in an appendix or a note, a faithful abstract of the early colonial Blue Laws of New England. This is what we purpose to attempt in the present paper, which we might entitle,-A Chapter that should have beer in Bancroft.

We would deem it unjust to the memory of the Puritans who settled New England, to say that they had no good qualities whatever, or even that their vices very greatly preponderated over their virtues. Faults they certainly had, faults as grievous as they were notorious and clearly marked. But they had excellencies also, which should be taken into the account in the estimate of their character. They were bold, daring, ourageous, industrious, sober, enterprising, and religious after their own

fashion. With an arduous mission to accomplish, they shrank not from the difficulties which encompassed them. Trained in the painful school of suffering and privation, and possessed of iron nerve, they were discouraged by no reverses, appalled by no dangers. Men of less sternness of purpose would have given up the undertaking upon which they embarked, as utterly impracticable. They, however, never lost hope of a favorable issue; and, with an elasticity of character which does them honor, they surmounted obstacles, even as a ship rides the waves which threaten to engulf it in the abyss. And they have bequeathed this same enterprising and indomitable spirit to their children.

This much we say in their praise. But when this is said, all is told. Their faults stood forth, at least as prominent as their virtues. They were narrow-minded, exclusive, proscriptive, and short-sighted in their character, and in the whole line of their conduct and policy. In temporal matters, they sacrificed every thing to their own paltry interests. Their treatment of the poor Indians who then peopled New England, is worthy of a reprobation which we can find no words in our language strong enough properly to characterize. We have already stated the facts, on the authority of Bancroft;' and until they can be blotted from the pages of history, we must be excused from entertaining that lofty opinion of the Puritan character, which our Fourth-of-July orators, and Plymouth-rockanniversary declaimers would fain wish to thrust on us. These fulsome eulogists must give us fuller and fairer statements of facts, ere we can change our opinion of the pilgrim fathers, or regard their glowing representations as a faithful picture of the real character of those men. We must have the shades, as well as the lights of the picture. We must have an account of the Blue Laws, of the Quaker Laws, of the Witch Laws-of the stocks, of the whipping-posts, and of the branding-irons; as well as of the pure religious feelings, and of the lofty patriotic aspirations of the pilgrim fathers.

We must be told that, whereas they fled from the old world for the avowed purpose of escaping a grinding Protestant persecution, and of breathing, in a virgin hemisphere, the pure air of religious liberty, they notwithstanding had no sooner established themselves in their new homes, than they boldly set to work to establish odious religious tests, to enforce religious uniformity, to persecute and to drive into the wilderness brother Protestants who had the misfortune to interpret the Scriptures differently from themselves; to banish, to hang, to brand, or to bore with red hot irons the tongues of the inoffensive Quakers; to hunt up and exterminate the poor witches; and to enact the Blue Laws. Really, we can be satisfied with nothing less; and though the Plymouth orators may make wry faces, and protest loudly against taking a medicine so very unpalatable, they should still take it like men, if they be the lovers of historic truth.

The days of idle declamation and of overstrained or false eulogy are, we fondly hope, drawing to a close, and those of sober truth are beginning

1 In the Review of Webster's Bunker Hill Speech.