The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America

Chapter 3. The Episcopate, the British Union, and the Failure of Religious Settlement in Colonial British America

C h a p t e r  The Episcopate, the British Union, and the Failure of Religious Settlement in Colonial British America Ned Landsman The exceedingly long controversy over the project of bringing an Anglican bishop to colonial British America has never been an easy matter for American historians to explain. Originating in intermittent plans introduced during the seventeenth century, the Anglican effort to obtain a bishop recurred enough times a century later to form an almost continual point of contention . The most puzzling aspect of that effort is probably its persistence, in the face of general indifference if not outright hostility from much of the Anglican populace in North America, vocal opposition from rival churches, and a consistent lack of support from the British government at home. It culminated, moreover, in the concerted campaign by a group of middlecolony Anglican Churchmen to bring the project to fruition during the 1760s, amid a colonial resistance movement that was challenging existing forms of imperial authority and that showed no inclination to accept additional impositions. It seems, in retrospect, to have been a fool’s errand, put forward in the face of prevailing values of civil and religious liberty and the reality of a remarkably heterogeneous and religiously fragmented American society. To Whig historians the explanation for the persistence of the Anglican proposals was not hard to find: the pursuit of the bishop was an integral part of an insistent British imperialism, an effort to impose greater control on the 76 Practices of Tolerance and Intolerance colonies from the center whenever and wherever that could be accomplished. A settled Episcopate would both establish English control over an often independent colonial Anglican Church and help to stifle the wayward spirit of colonial dissent. Thus Carl Bridenbaugh, in the most aggressive formulation of that position, contended that Anglican efforts reflected a ‘‘lust for dominion ’’ and ‘‘aimed at nothing less than the complete reordering of American Society.’’1 One major difficulty with that line of argument, however, is the general lack of support those efforts received from imperial authorities. Indeed , the push for an Anglican bishop came predominantly from American clergy. Much of their effort was devoted not to combating the opposition in the colonies, but rather to consistently unsuccessful attempts to persuade the imperial government to act. The lack of support from home was partly a matter of policy—the fear that the effort would produce a larger outcry from American opponents than it was worth—at least from the perspective of secular authorities concerned with other issues. In 1750, Horatio Walpole noted as much, contending that the introduction of bishops would provoke dissatisfaction among dissenters, who were otherwise well affected toward the government.2 Moreover, American opponents had strong connections and important allies on the issue among interest groups in London, especially English dissenters, as well as with the Church of Scotland.3 Still, the Whig viewpoint fails to explain why those clergy in North America who supported the appointment of a bishop were as insistent about the cause as they were. It would be difficult to attribute their support to metropolitan imperialism. In fact, one of the criticisms against which promoters of the American bishop had to contend was the suggestion that the creation of such an official was designed to increase American independence from metropolitan control.4 Recent scholars have taken Anglican arguments more seriously. For those who favored a colonial bishop, it had little to do with imposing English or British authority upon independent-minded colonists. Rather, it was integral to Anglicanism itself. The Church of England was an apostolic church: the authority to appoint ministers, it was believed, was handed down from the Apostles in an unbroken succession. Those who lacked ordination from officials who received their own appointments in proper fashion could never be true ministers of Christ. That authority was vested in the Church and in England was inextricably interwoven with the state. Ministers appointed in any other way necessarily stood outside of that succession. Bishops were needed, moreover, to impose discipline and bolster clerical authority; even Failure of Religious Settlement 77 in those colonies in which the Church was established, the clergy had lost considerable influence to an increasingly assertive laity.5 By the end of the colonial period, advocates for a bishop were willing to trim the particulars of their request severely in an effort to...