Puritan Contribution to New England Liberty 
By Bruce Shields

The question of how Puritan culture influenced American liberty is obscured for many people by an overlay of various flaws supposedly introduced into American culture by the Puritans -- a salacious focus on sex, a culture of intellectual repression and emotional inhibition.   Puritanism was first so defined more than 150 years ago by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s portrayal in The Scarlet Letter.   In his way, Hawthorne was repeating the English Cavalier party view of Puritans expressed for many American college students in such characters as Shakespeare’s Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" or in several of Ben Jonson’s plays such as "The Alchemist."  The 17th Century Royalist Party opposition to Puritans stemmed from the very highly polarized political situation during the reigns of King James I and Charles I.  When the Parliamentary Party prevailed at the beginning of the English Civil Wars, the Puritans got their revenge by closing the theaters down.   A highly negative view of Puritans was a clear "wedge issue" politically at the very beginning of New England. 

Once revived in America by Anglophile writers such as Hawthorne and Washington Irving, a very negative view of Puritan principles came to dominate the assessment of New England Puritanism in much American writing.  Puritans dour, gloomy and sexually repressed to the point of being kinky were depicted by Eugene O’Neil’s Desire Under the Elms. Grace Metalious in Peyton Place suggests that New Englanders were not only sexually repressed but also twistedly hypocritical about sex.  These themes have become proverbial in American English.  The second meaning of "puritan" in American Heritage Dictionary states, "One who lives by Protestant ethics... who considers pleasure or self-indulgence to be sinful."   Given that definition of Puritan, defining the Puritan contribution to liberty in New England would appear to be a hopeless task.

On the contrary, Barbara Ward represents a different strand of liberal thought which has considerable resonance.  In her Faith and Freedom (1954), Ms. Ward who first earned her reputation as a columnist for The Economist Magazine directly traces the idea of economic freedom to the Puritans.  "The first settlement at Plymouth of the tiny group of Calvinist exiles from England was a symbol of the new forces which would create the distinctive pattern of American society."  [p.120].  She avers that their doctrine that God conferred peculiar indivisible rights upon individuals uniquely enabled the development of all varieties of political freedom.

This is not the proper place for a theological discourse, but just a word of theology is in line.  The Puritans embraced wholeheartedly John Calvin’s theology of joy, whereby the "Chief End of Man" is to know God and enjoy Him forever.  Salvation allows one to experience forever the bliss and refreshment of God’s presence.   Another part of their doctrine was that God created all humans reasonable, but Sin makes us unreasonable.   These gifts of God are distributed exclusively by the will of God without reference to human agency.  God’s grace was a special gift which in no possible respect could be dominated by humans.   That perception leads ultimately to a very pure democracy, wherein those persons gifted by God can assume their natural leadership.  The Church as the Godly assembly of everyone who wished to live in Grace permits no functional distinction to be made between political and religious organization.   The oldest towns in New England erected but one single meeting house in each town, where worship and preaching was held, along with Town meeting.   God’s Grace demands that every person must be heard lest sinful Human class distinctions may suppress a voice encouraged by God.

The Puritan insistence on hearing everyone, measuring their opinions by reasonableness, in both civil and church affairs equally, probably sets them apart from other American English settlers more than any other characteristic.  Quakers in the Middle Colonies made sure that everyone be heard in a church setting, but urged a kind of withdrawal from civil government.  The Anglicans of Virginia favored small boards of wealthy patrons to govern both church and civic affairs. 

Just for historical accuracy, note that the Separatists or Puritans as such actually controlled only a tiny territory in Massachusetts at the base of Cape Cod.  The Independent Congregationalists who settled most of Massachusetts had many differing beliefs and customs from the Puritans, but for better or worse, the popular identification of all Massachusetts Congregationalist settlers as Puritans is probably not reversible.  The "Puritan" political survival as a distinct culture in America stems from pure luck -- or in their own terminology, by the gracious providence of God.   The first wave of settlement was punctuated by the execution of King Charles I by English Parliamentary forces.   With English colonies under the governance of friendly Cromwellians for nearly 20 years, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had time to develop a distinctively "Congregational" or "Independent" style both in church and civil governance.  Whereas in other colonies such as New York governance continued in familiar English patterns of patronage by the nobility, in New England direct democracy had some 30 years to develop strong traditions. 

Following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1666, King Charles II began to attempt to reduce New England to the common British pattern of aristocratic patronage.  Archbishop Laud (appointed by King Charles II) attempted to force Congregational Churches to accept supervision by bishops.  Sir Edmond Andros, working on behalf of Charles II’s brother James, found defects in the charters of all New England towns and attempted to shut down town meetings, meeting very effective Provincial resistance.  By the 1680’s both Massachusetts and Connecticut had developed what amounted to a Provincial legislature, called in Massachusetts the General Court.   The Massachusetts response to Andros was simply to decree that each town was legally owned by a "Board of Proprietors," who could consult with the Town Meeting to select several citizens to superintend the day to day business of the town -- origin of our Town Selectmen.   Litigation over the roles of the Proprietors, the Selectmen, and the role of the Duke of York (after the death of Charles II, he very briefly served as King James II) dragged on until the Glorious Revolution of 1688 made the whole litigation moot.  De facto, the Puritans won, and were able to perpetuate their distinctive form of governance.

In summary, the Puritans insisted that, because God created humans as unique individuals each endowed with reason, every person must be heard on public issues. That insistence on the unique personality of individuals is very directly to be viewed as the source of political liberty.   The New England insistence on functional equality infuriated people with more aristocratical views in other colonies, such as James Fenimore Cooper in New York, and thinkers of many other strands of American thought have been offended by the practical egalitarianism of New England’s Puritan tradition.  But to imagine American democracy without a base in Puritanism is hard.

Bruce Shields has retired from three professions; college English teacher, sawmiller and executive of the Vermont Forest Products Association, and operator of a farm supply store.  In retirement, he works his woodlot and maple sugar place, sits on the boards of several statewide organizations related to natural resources, and serves as Lister in the town of Eden, VT.