The election came on in the spring of 1818, and the Federal party in Connecticut found itself actually overthrown. It was a thing unheard of, not to be believed by good Christians. Lyman Beecher, in his Litchfield pulpit and family prayers, as one out of numerous cases, poured out the bitterness of his heart in declarations that everything was lost and the days of darkness had come.
Was not the soul of John Rogers marching on?
In fact, it proved to be the day of the new Constitution—the existing law of 1818—and under its more tolerant influence other churches rapidly arose; the Episcopalians, the Baptists, and the Methodists all feeling their indebtedness to the party of Toleration.
The _Times_, successful in the main object of its beginning, after witnessing this peaceful political revolution, continued, with several changes of proprietors. It was about sixty years ago that the paper became the property of Bowles and Francis, as its publishing firm; the Bowles being Samuel Bowles, the founder, many years later, of the _Springfield Republican_, whose son, the late Samuel Bowles, built up that well-known journal to a high degree of prosperity.
Mrs. Watson, of East Windsor Hill, daughter of Frederick D. Bolles, the founder of the _Hartford Times_, who courteously furnished us with the above quotations, also sent us a paper containing the following tribute to John M. Niles, early associated with her father in the publication of the _Times_.
Mr. Niles, then a young man, who perhaps had not dreamed at that time of becoming a Senator of the United States and of making speeches in the Senate Chamber, which, however dry in manner, were to be complimented by Mr. Calhoun as being the most interesting and instructive speeches he was accustomed to hear in the Senate—this then unknown young man was one of the editors. The _Times_ was established on the motto of “Toleration”—the severance of church from state—the exemption of men from paying taxes to a particular church if they did not agree with that church in their consciences. The reform aimed at the establishment of a more liberal rule in Connecticut; a rule which would let Baptists, Methodists, and other denominations rise and grow, as well as the one old dominant and domineering church that had so long reigned, and with which party federalism had become so incorporated as to be looked upon practically as part of its creed and substance. The cause advocated by the _Times_ triumphed; the constitution framed in 1818 established a new order of things. Both Mr. Bolles and Mr. Niles have passed out of the life of earth; but the work which was accomplished by the agitation of the “Toleration” question, sixty years ago, has remained in Connecticut and grown. The old intolerant influence also is not dead; its spirit remains, but its old power for intolerant rule has passed away.