The close personal relationship of the leaders, [l] the scorn of the radicals, the abhorrence of the conservatives for the principles, opinions, and even, in some cases, habits of life of their opponents, entered into the strife and vituperation of the political campaigns from 1800 to 1806. Personalities were unsparing, passion rose high, and speeches were bitter. This was particularly the case in New Haven, where Abraham Bishop's impudent boldness of attack and denunciation was exaggerated by his father's position. Samuel Bishop, the father, was a man of seventy-seven, and old in the service of both Church and State. He was senior deacon in the North Church, or what was at that time known as the Church of the United White Haven and Fair Haven Societies. He was also a justice of the peace, town clerk, and mayor of the city. The last office was held, according to the charter, during the pleasure of the legislature. Samuel Bishop was also chief judge of the court of common pleas for New Haven County, and sole judge of probate, annual offices which the General Assembly had re-conferred upon him in 1800 and in 1801. His son was a graduate of Yale (1778). He was a lawyer of somewhat indifferent practice, and from 1791 to 1798 clerk of the county court under his father, while from 1798 he had been clerk of the superior court. Before settling down to practice at the bar he had lived abroad, and had been caught in the whirl of French thought and democratic ideas. He had returned home bearing words of recommendation to Washington's secretary of state from Jefferson's European friends. A personal meeting with that party leader had added to Bishop's enthusiasm. For some years he had lived in Boston, and tried his hand at literature. He had returned to New Haven in 1791, and had thrown himself into politics. He purposely exaggerated his opinions. He was careless of his unorthodox expressions even to the verge of blasphemy. Though himself a believer in God, he was perhaps what one would probably have termed a little later a Unitarian. His enemies exaggerated his exaggerations,--and Unitarianism was a crime according to the Connecticut statutes. [m]
In his speeches and essays Abraham Bishop struck out boldly, with earnestness, logic, shrewd wit, and irony, and, as has been said, at times with dangerous irreverence,--often with down-right impudence when that would serve his purpose. An illustration of his extreme use of it was in 1800, about the time of the organization of the Republican party throughout the state.