Volume IV Part 29 (1/2)
[624] _Ib._ 59.
[625] _Ib._ 54-55.
[626] Dartmouth and the English Trustees opposed incorporation and the Bishops of the Church of England violently resisted Wheelock's whole project. (_Ib._ 90.)
[627] Farrar: _Report of the Case of the Trustees of Dartmouth College against William H. Woodward_, 11, 16; also see Charter of Dartmouth College, Chase, 639-49. (Although the official copy of the charter appears in Chase's history, the author cites Farrar in the report of the case; the charter also is cited from his book.)
[628] Chase, 556.
[629] See Wheelock's will, _ib._ 562.
[630] Young Wheelock was very active in the Revolution. He was a member of the New Hamps.h.i.+re a.s.sembly in 1775, a Captain in the army in 1776, a Major the following year, and then Lieutenant-Colonel, serving on the staff of General Horatio Gates until called from military service by the death of his father in 1779. (See Smith: _History of Dartmouth College_, 76.)
[631] Chase, 564.
[632] Rachel Murch ”To y^e Session of y^e Church of Christ in Hanover,”
April 26, 1783, s.h.i.+rley: _Dartmouth College Causes and the Supreme Court of the Untied States_, 67.
[633] s.h.i.+rley, 66-70.
[634] _Ib._ 70-75. Only three of the scores of Congregationalist ministers in New Hamps.h.i.+re were Republicans. (_Ib._ 70.)
[635] _Ib._ 82.
[636] s.h.i.+rley, 81, 84-85.
[637] _Sketches of the History of Dartmouth College and Moors' Charity School._
[638] _A Candid, a.n.a.lytical Review of the Sketches of the History of Dartmouth College._
[639] _Vindication of the Official Conduct of the Trustees_, etc., and _A True and Concise Narrative of the Origin and Progress of the Church Difficulties_, by Benoni Dewey, James Wheelock, and Benjamin J. Gilbert.
[640] _Answer to the ”Vindication_,” etc., by Josiah Dunham.
[641] Lord: _History of Dartmouth College_, 73-77.
[642] Lord, 78.
[643] In 1811 the salary of Chief Justices of the Court of Common Pleas for four of the counties was fixed at $200 a year; and that of the other Justices of those courts at $180. ”The Chief Justice of said court in Grafton County, $180, and the other Justices in that court $160.” (Act of June 21, _Laws of New Hamps.h.i.+re, 1811_, 33.)
[644] Acts of June 24 and Nov. 5, _Laws of New Hamps.h.i.+re, 1813_, 6-19; Barstow: _History of New Hamps.h.i.+re_, 363-64; Morison: _Life of Jeremiah Smith_, 265-67. This law was, however, most excellent. It established a Supreme Court and systematized the entire judicial system.
[645] This was the second time Plumer had been elected Governor. He was first chosen to that office in 1812. Plumer had abandoned the failing and unpatriotic cause of Federalism in 1808 (Plumer, 365), and had since become an ardent follower of Jefferson.
[646] The number of votes cast at this election was the largest ever polled in the history of the State up to that time. (_Ib._ 432.)
[647] See Act of June 27, _Laws of New Hamps.h.i.+re, 1816_, 45-48. This repealed the Federalist Judiciary Acts of 1813 and revived laws repealed by those acts. (See Barstow, 383, and Plumer, 437-38.)
The burning question of equality of religious taxation was not taken up by this Legislature. The bill was introduced in the State Senate by the Reverend Daniel Young, a Methodist preacher, but it received only three votes. Apparently the reform energy of the Republicans was, for that session, exhausted by the Judiciary and College Acts. The ”Toleration Act” was not pa.s.sed until three years later. (McClintock: _History of New Hamps.h.i.+re_, 507-29; also Barstow, 422.) This law is omitted from the published acts, although it is indexed.
[648] In his Message to the Legislature recommending reform laws for Dartmouth College, Governor Plumer denounced the provision of the charter relating to the Trustees as ”hostile to the spirit and genius of a free government.” (Barstow, 396.) This message Plumer sent to Jefferson, who replied that the idea ”that inst.i.tutions, established for the use of the nation, cannot be touched nor modified, even to make them answer their end ... is most absurd.... Yet our lawyers and priests generally inculcate this doctrine; and suppose that preceding generations ... had a right to impose laws on us, unalterable by ourselves; ... in fine, that the earth belongs to the dead, and not to the living.” (Jefferson to Plumer, July 21, 1816, Plumer, 440-41.)