3. Libertarianism in Rhode Island

Though lacking its old-time consistency and zeal, Rhode Island continued as one of the most individualistic of the American colonies. No church establishment marred its libertarian record, and many religious sects flourished peacefully side by side in the small colony. Indeed, to ensure the prevalence of the voluntary principle, Rhode Island passed a law in 1715 forbidding any churches from obtaining any of their revenue by compulsion. And as there was no establishment, neither was there a network of government schools, as in Massachusetts and Connecticut, to impose Calvinist theology upon the inhabitants. The Quakers and especially the Baptists progressed rapidly under this libertarian regime.

True to its tradition of freedom and free trade, Rhode Island paid even less attention than the other colonies to British trade restrictions. Nor did Rhode Islanders, with their Quaker traditions of antimilitarism, treat war as sacred; they continued happily to trade with their designated “enemies” even in time of war. The militia too was raised strictly voluntarily, without imposing the compulsion of conscription. Indeed, the towns themselves elected their militia officers, a highly democratic check on the military that was abandoned in 1713 under the urging of Governor Samuel Cranston. But town voting for militia officers was restored the following year, after violent controversy. However, this unique system was finally scrapped in 1718, when Rhode Island joined the other colonies in appointing militia officers by the General Assembly and the governor. In fact, by 1741, Rhode Island had taken a large step toward militarism by establishing a permanent Council of War, consisting of the governor, the Council, and the various high officers of the colony.

No colony was as decentralized as Rhode Island. Each town largely governed itself and often an individual town would simply neglect to tax its inhabitants for military or other expenses. As a result, taxes in Rhode Island were in fact minimal. Twice yearly general elections for numerous posts, coupled with an eager willingness to turn officials out, also kept a continuing check on arrogance or entrenched power in the hands of public officials. Government itself was so lax as to be charmingly irregular and freewheeling, and even liberals such as Lord Bellomont were shocked at the democracy, decentralization, failure to keep records, and generally minimal government abiding in Rhode Island.

Even this great home of religious liberty, however, began to falter in its ideals and principles. In the young town of Westerly, at the southwestern tip of Rhode Island, a group of Sabbatarians, who celebrated Saturday as the Sabbath, gained strength. Their neighbors began to denounce bitterly the Sabbatarian “profanation” of Sunday. In 1725 the General Assembly officially ordered Westerly to mend its ways and observe Sunday as the day of rest, “considering that, though the ordinances of man may not square with their private principles, yet they must be subject to them, for the Lord’s sake.” Thus far had a land founded by Anne Hutchinson and Samuell Gorton and Roger Williams fallen! And this was not all, for a law excluding Roman Catholics from the franchise and from holding public office also appeared on the books after the turn of the century.

As Rhode Island, in the early eighteenth century, began to slip toward uniformity with the other colonies in the area of religious liberty and in its attitudes toward the military, so too did it move toward the other colonies in imposing, in 1724, a freehold property qualification for voting; specifically, a freehold value of a hundred pounds sterling or an annual real estate income of two pounds.