The period of the Townshend Acts, 1767-1770, marks the crisis in a long and bitter controversy which rightly belongs to the preliminaries of the American Revolution. According to Mellen Chamberlain, whose view in part agrees with that of some other writers, the attempt to set up the Anglican episcopal system in the colonies must be counted among the chief causes of their separation from the parent state.
He cites as principal authorities John Adams and Jonathan Boucher. Who "will believe," wrote Adams in 1815, "that the apprehension of Episcopacy contributed fifty years ago, as much as any other cause, to arouse the attention, not only of the inquiring mind, but of the common people, and urge them to close thinking on the constitutional authority of parliament over the colonies? This, nevertheless, was a fact as certain as any in the history of North America. The objection was not merely to the office of a bishop, though even that was dreaded, but to the authority of parliament, on which it must be founded "; for "if parliament can erect dioceses and appoint bishops, they may introduce the whole hierarchy, establish tithes, forbid marriages and funerals, establish religions, forbid dissenters."
Similarly, in 1797, Boucher insisted that it was then "indisputable" that the opposition to bishops was connected "with that still more serious one afterwards set up against civil government," although he admits that in Virginia the fact "was not indeed generally apparent at the time." This controversy, he adds, was "clearly one great cause that led to the revolution."
Here, then, if this theory be true, is a fact, much neglected by the general historian, which ought to receive due emphasis in any account of the origin of the American nation. Fortunately, the research of several American scholars, notably that of Dr. Cross, has put us in a position to follow throughout their entire course the efforts to establish bishops in the colonies, and to appreciate at something near its real value the significance of those efforts in their relation to the civil policy of Great Britain.
During the colonial era, the church of England was established by law in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Maryland. Elsewhere, save in three counties of New York, it had no legal existence, although here and there single congregations were planted. In New England, particularly, there was a traditional antipathy to bishops. Since the Hampden Court conference, episcopal despotism was closely associated with the absolutism of the Stuarts. The independent churches had been founded in America by those who had fled from episcopal tyranny in the old home. Episcopacy and monarchy were associated in the Puritan mind, and with the spread of democratic ideas, any attempt to set up bishops, however restricted in their authority and functions, was sure to be looked upon with a jealous eye. Indeed, in Virginia, where the Anglican church was strongest, there was, mainly on secular grounds, as little inclination as in New England to welcome the institution of a hierarchy.
Moreover, the earliest attempt to create an American episcopate was not auspicious. It came as a part of Laud's scheme for forcing conformity to the Anglican church upon the English settlers throughout the world. In 1638, according to Heylyn, "to prevent such mischiefs," as might ensue from the "receptacle" of "schismatical persons" in New England, Laud resolved "to send a bishop over to them, for their better government, and back him with some Force to compel, if he were not otherwise able to persuade Obedience. But this Design was strangled in the first Conception, by the violent breakouts of the Troubles in Scotland." These troubles were not surmounted before the meeting of the Long Parliament, which in 1645 sent Laud to the scaffold.
Thus, through the primate, the earliest attempt to establish the Anglican system in the colonies came from the government. From the same source during the following century arose several other projects, although at no time did the appointment of bishops in America become an essential part of England's colonial policy. At most, these isolated schemes, formed directly or indirectly under the auspices of the state, may have served to nourish the traditional dread of an Anglican hierarchy. In Massachusetts, especially, the jealousy of the rival Congregational establishment, intolerant and aggressive, was easily excited. Yet the strife regarding this subject, which finally became a cause of revolution, came immediately from another source. It arose mainly from the zeal of the American episcopal clergy and the unwise efforts of certain English prelates to establish bishops in the colonies, under the influence of the well-meant appeals of the Society for Propagating the Gospel.
Previous to the Restoration, a tradition had grown up that the bishop of London ought by preference to be consulted regarding the affairs of the English churches in America. But it has been pretty clearly demonstrated that even his restricted suffragan authority in the colonies had no legal sanction until the time of Henry Compton, who was translated to the see of London in 1675. When a formal inquiry had disclosed this fact, at Compton's instance, two new provisions were henceforth inserted in the instructions to the royal governors. Governor Culpepper, of Virginia, who was first so instructed, is required to see that the Book of Common Prayer is "read each Sunday and Holy Day," and the "Blessed Sacrament administered according to the rules of the Church of England"; while hereafter no minister may be preferred to any benefice in the colony without a certificate from the bishop of London "of his being conformable" to the doctrine of that church.
In various ways, Compton strove to increase his diocesan authority in the colonies. From 1685 onward, at his instance, the governors were commanded to "give all countenance and encouragment in the exercise" of the jurisdiction of the bishop of London, "excepting only the Collating to Benefices, granting licenses for Marriages, and Probate of Wills," which are reserved to the governor and the "Commander in Chief for the time being"; while henceforward no school-masters were to be "permitted to come from England and to keep school" in the province "without the license of the said Bishop." With equal zeal, he sought to improve the spiritual conditions of the colonial clergy.
To this end, Compton "instituted the practice of appointing commissaries who from this time until the middle of the eighteenth century continued to exercise delegated authority in the colonies," and with the aid of Archbishop Tennison, in 1701, he procured the incorporation of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The work begun by Compton was carried further by Gibson (1723-1748), who received a royal commission authorizing him or his commissaries to hold spiritual courts. In South Carolina, at least, such tribunals were vigorously employed for correcting the morals and irregularities of the clergy.
Meanwhile, from its first organization, the Society for Propagating the Gospel or its adherents had been clamoring for the institution of bishops in America. To this end, letters, petitions, and memorials were sent to England, especially by missionaries in the middle and the northern colonies; for the established clergy of Virginia and the south were too well satisfied with the liberty which they enjoyed to invite the interference of a resident hierarchy. These efforts were prompted mainly by spiritual motives, although they eventually gave rise to bitter political strife. Bishops were needed, it was urged, for the purpose of ordination, confirmation, and a more rigorous discipline of the clergy. In England, the zeal of the society was almost successful. Its scheme for an American episcopate won the sanction of Queen Anne, and a "bill was drafted and about to be introduced into parliament, when her Majesty's death put a stop to further proceedings."
The new king, George I, looked coldly upon the project, and Sir Robert Walpole was too wise to try so dangerous an experiment. For a quarter of a century, the agitation waned, but at the very end of Walpole's ministry, it was revived in a significant way by a sermon preached before the society by Thomas Seeker, bishop of Oxford. His words are ominous of the growing political trend of this discussion. "Such an establishment," he says, would not "encroach at all on the present rights of the Civil Government in our Colonies"; nor would it endanger their "dependence" as "some persons profess to apprehend ..., who would make no manner of scruple about doing other Things much more likely to destroy it; who are not terrified in the least that such numbers there reject the Episcopal Order entirely; nor would perhaps be greatly alarmed, were there ever so many to reject Religion itself: though evidently in Proportion as either is thrown off, all Dependence produced by it ceases of course."
Equally enlightening is the reply of the Reverend Andrew Eliot, which discloses a suspicion of the good faith of the advocates of a colonial episcopate and a dread of the encroachments of the hierarchy were it once set up. "If a prelate is introduced, some way must be found out for his support. Every art will be used to prevail with our assemblies to lay a tax; and who can assure us, that they will never be cajoled into a compliance. ... If the provincial assemblies should refuse to tax the inhabitants for the support of a bishop, the whole strength of the Church of England will be united to procure an act of parliament" to tax the colonies for this purpose. "If this is obtained, no colony can expect an exemption," not even New England; for "we have been told, that 'when any part of the English nation spread abroad into colonies, as they continued a part of the nation, the law obliged them equally to the church of England, and to the Christian religion.'"
From this time onward, the political aspects of the question became more and more pronounced. In its next phase, the bishop of London took the lead. From 1748 to 1761, that see was held by Thomas Sherlock, who strove without ceasing to secure the installation of bishops in America. He refused to receive a royal patent defining his colonial jurisdiction and declined so far as practicable to exercise any diocesan authority in the colonies. Apparently, it was his deliberate policy to force the Episcopalians in America "to demand an episcopate of their own." His memorial relating to "Ecclesiastical Government in his Majesty's Dominions in America' failed to receive the approval of the Privy Council, and one of its members, Horatio Walpole, gave him solemn warning of the bitter feeling which the presentation of such a scheme would arouse. The dissenters at home who "are generally well - affected, & indeed necessary supporters to ye present establishment in state" will "be loud in their discourses and writings upon this intended innovation in America, and those in ye Colonies will be exasperated & animated to make warm representations against it to ye Government here, as a design to establish Ecclesiastical power in its full extent among them by Degrees."
Walpole's letter was answered by Seeker of Oxford, and about the same time, Joseph Butler, bishop of Durham, came to Sherlock's support. In 1750, he drew up a plan defining the principles on which an American episcopate should be set up. It is very moderate and apologetic in tone. Coercive authority over the laity is disclaimed; the maintenance of bishops is "not to be at the charge of the colonies," and no "bishops are intended to be settled in places where the government is left in the hands of dissenters." Only spiritual motives are disclosed, although the manifest anxiety to placate opposition is highly enlightening.
Still more significant was the so-called "Mayhew Controversy," which took place during Grenville's administration, 1763-1765. In a pamphlet published in 1763, Jonathan Mayhew, of Boston, attempted to show that the Society for Propagating the Gospel, neglectful of the spiritual purposes of its creation, had long had "a formal design to root out Presbyterianism," and to set up episcopacy throughout the colonies. Among the replies called out by Mayhew's pamphlet was one by Seeker, now archbishop of Canterbury, who claimed that as a matter of constitutional right the Episcopalians in the colonies were entitled to the ministrations of bishops; that, "in a land where there is any pretence of toleration," the members of the church of England "should have that privilege in full — should have bishops and other necessary officers." Accordingly, he presented "a plan of what the proposed bishop would be allowed to do and what not to do, a plan which corresponds in its essentials to that which Bishop Butler had drawn up in 1750."
In his answer, Mayhew insisted that if bishops were once introduced they would hardly be content without any of the temporal "power and grandeur" enjoyed by their brethren in England; and that "the number of Episcopalians might increase to such an extent as to attain a majority in the legislatures, and thereby secure, perhaps, not only an establishment of the Church of England, but also taxes for the support of bishops, test acts, ecclesiastical courts, and what not." Little that was new in argument was advanced by either side in this discussion; but under the influence of the sensitiveness created by the political contest of the hour, old arguments acquired new meaning, and the controversy undoubtedly tended to draw men closer together in the rising revolutionary parties. According to John Adams, at this time, the supposed design to set up an American episcopate "spread a universal alarm against the authority of parliament," by virtue of which alone it could be accomplished.
The crisis in the long struggle for bishops in the colonies was reached in the pamphlet war waged between Thomas Bradbury Chandler and Charles Chauncy, backed by their respective allies, in the years 1767-1771, the period of political strife caused by the measures of Charles Townshend. In 1767, the contest was opened by Chandler in his Appeal to the Public in Behalf of the Church of England in America, a paper prepared under the sanction of a convention of the Episcopalians of New York and New Jersey. From the religious point of view, he presented a powerful argument in favor of bishops, and sketched a plan similar in character to the schemes of Butler and Seeker already mentioned. Disclaiming all political purpose, he rejected as utterly groundless the assertions of some "London papers at the time of the Stamp Act agitation, to the effect that the discontent and uneasiness manifested by the colonists on that occasion were due in a great measure to the fear that bishops would be settled among them." That discontent he declared was "wholly due to what the colonists regarded as 'an unconstitutional oppressive act.'"
Yet it is to be feared that Chandler was not quite candid in his profession of purely spiritual motives, and that he kept back political reasons which might have justified the colonial dread of the hierarchy. In his letter transmitting a copy of his book to the bishop of London he admits, "There are some Facts and Reasons, which could not be prudently mentioned in a Work of this Nature, as the least Intimation of them would be of ill Consequence in this irritable Age and Country: but were they known, they would have a far greater Tendency to engage such of our Superiors, if there be any such as are governed by Political motives, to espouse the Cause of the Church of England in America, than any contained in the Pamphlet. But I must content myself with having proposed those only which could be mentioned safely, and leave the event to Divine Providence."
In his elaborate answer, Chauncy, besides presenting the usual arguments in opposition, added the forcible objection to the scheme for episcopizing the colonies, that it was supported "almost wholly by the clergy, and by the laity scarcely at all." It "is to me as well as to many I have conversed with upon this head, Episcopalians among others, very questionable, whether, if the members of the Church of England, in these northern Colonies, were to give in their votes, and to do it without previous Clerical influence, they would be found to be on the side of an American Episcopate." Moreover, it is highly probable that his statement would have been as true of the southern as of the northern provinces.
One other significant passage in Chauncy's pamphlet deserves mention. More boldly than any of his predecessors, he questioned the good faith of the advocates of an American episcopal and accused them of suppressing their real motives. "They have much more in design than they have been pleased to declare," he says. "We are as fully persuaded as if they had openly said it, that they have in view nothing short of a complete church hierarchy, after the pattern of that at home, with like officers, in all their various degrees of dignity, with a like large revenue for their grand support, and with the allowance of no other privilege to dissenters but that of a bare toleration."
For our present purpose, this remarkable pamphlet controversy need not be further dwelt upon. But the fact that it was accompanied by an acrimonious newspaper war, in which such men as William Livingston, John Dickinson, and William Smith, provost of the College of Philadelphia, took part, seems to prove that "the episcopal question, in its political aspect, had become important in the minds of the people." The contest had its influence on the further development of the revolutionary parties. In the northern colonies, the Puritans, who believed in forcible resistance to the obnoxious measures of the British government, drew apart from the Episcopalians, who generally favored a policy of "non-resistance and passive obedience." In "view of these facts," Cross is convinced, "it is at least a tenable hypothesis that the bitterness of the controversy brought out so sharply the latent hostility between Episcopalian and Puritan, that many churchmen who might otherwise have taken the side of their country were, by the force of their injured religious convictions, driven over to the royalist ranks."
To what extent, then, may the agitation for an American episcopate be regarded as a cause of the Revolution? In answering this question, it is highly important to consider that Virginia, where the church of England was established, was opposed to the introduction of bishops. The only serious attempt by some of the clergy to bring that to pass was severely rebuked by the house of burgesses, because it would cause "much disturbance, great anxiety, and apprehension ... among his Majesty's faithful American subjects." Thus, the Virginian house placed itself beside that of Massachusetts, which three years before (1768), in a letter drafted by Samuel Adams, had ordered its agent in London to "strenuously oppose" the "establishment of a Protestant episcopate in America." Furthermore, at no time after the reign of Anne was the agitation for episcopizing the colonies favored by the imperial government.
As a cause of the Revolution, therefore, it cannot be ranked with the acts of trade, the exercise of the royal prerogative, or the revenue laws. Yet it was an important factor in moulding revolutionary opinion and differentiating revolutionary parties. One may safely accept the judgment of the scholar who has most thoroughly examined the problem, that "the strained relations which heralded the War of Independence strengthened the opposition to episcopacy, rather than that religious differences were a prime moving cause of political alienation": that religious controversies "contributed, in combination with other causes, to embitter the mind of the patriots, and thus to accelerate the impending crisis.