In Connecticut the two political parties prepared for conflict. The Republicans desired a new constitution and disestablishment. The old constitutional and religious debates were opened and fiercely fought out in pamphlet, press, sermon, and political oration. Noah Webster replied to the "Extent and Power of Political Delusion" by "A Rod for the Fool's Back." John Leland published his famous Hartford speech as "A Blow at the Root, a fashionable Fast-Day Sermon," and his "High Flying Churchman," as contributions in behalf of civil and religious liberty. Abraham Bishop took up the latter topic in his "Wallingford Address, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against Christianity and the Government of the United States," published in 1802, as well as in his "Extent and Power of Political Delusion" of 1800. A fair type of Mr. Bishop's style and treatment is shown in his "Connecticut Republicanism," a campaign document, wherein he sets forth his opinion of the union of Church and State. [o]
In his campaign document under the title "Connecticut Republicanism" Bishop declared:
Christianity has suffered more by the attempts to unite church and state than by all the deistical writings, yet the men who denounce them are pronounced atheists and no proof of their atheism is required but their opposition to Federal measures.... Church and state cannot be better served than by keeping them distinct and by placing them where they ought to be, above, instead of beneath the control of men who care no more for either of them than they can turn to their personal benefit. The self-styled friends of order have in all nations been the cause of all the convulsions and distresses which have agitated the world.... The clergyman preaches politics, the civilian prates of orthodoxy, and if any man refuse to join their coalition they endeavor to hunt him down to the tune "The Church is in danger."... In 1787 this visible intolerance had abated in New England; there was no written law in force that none but church-members should be free burgesses: yet the avowed charge of Christ's church was in our law-books, some nice points of theology were settled in our statutes and the common law of church and state was in full force.... The Trinitarian doctrine is established by laws, and the denial of it is placed in the rank of felony. Though we have ceased to transplant from town to town Quakers, New Lights, and Baptists; yet the dissenters from our prevailing denominations are even at this moment praying for a repeal of those laws which abridge the rights of conscience.