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The Blue-law State Phil Maymin On The Puritans, Connecticut's First White Inhabitants And How Fairfield Was The Home Of America's First Christmas Tree. By Phil Maymin December 20 2006 Should it be illegal to celebrate Christmas? It was when the Puritans ran New England. The Puritans emigrated to the New World not because they were more tolerant and wanted fewer restrictions, but because they were less tolerant and wanted more laws. Of the ones who arrived in Boston, the extremists among them found the Massachusetts Bay Colony still too lax. For example, since the Bible never mentioned trial by jury, they didn’t want it either. These extremists moved first to Hartford, then to New Haven, and finally settled down our own town of Fairfield. These early-American religious fanatics were responsible for the country’s first Blue Laws, passed right here in Connecticut. Those laws criminalized the observance of Christmas, card-playing, dancing, mince-meat pies, and, of course, fornication, which was punishable by enforced marriage. Adultery was punishable by death. Also outlawed were a variety of activities on the Sabbath, including running, walking in your own garden, traveling, making the bed and shaving. Mothers couldn’t kiss their own children on the Sabbath (and you thought it was hard enough not being able to buy a beer in Bridgeport on Sunday!). Pretty strict, those Puritans. Arguably far stricter than the Islamic fundamentalists we’re fighting today. Consider the following laws, all part of the original Blue Laws (they refer to the Colony of Connecticut as “the Dominion”): 1. Conspiracy against this Dominion shall be punished with death. 2. Whoever says there is power and jurisdiction above and over this Dominion, shall suffer death and loss of property. 3. Whoever attempts to change or overturn this Dominion, shall suffer death. 4. If any person turns Quaker, he shall be banished, and not suffered to return but upon pain of death. Many later immigrants to America, seeking religious freedom, found the Puritans to be far more tyrannical than what they’d fled from. They spread out over the New World and founded other, more tolerant, colonies. The Puritans gradually lost power and influence. It could be argued that the Salem witch trials were their last hurrah, as they conjured an enemy out of nothing in order to enhance the Puritan’s power. Sound familiar? It should. In recent years, Washington has passed law after law taking away our hard-fought liberties, from the Patriot Act to the unconstitutional invasion of Iraq, to the Military Commissions Act, to all the hundreds and thousands of little “mince-meat pie” types of regulations we live under. And it’s not just one party trying to hold on to power while the other champions freedom. Both ruling parties endorse these invasions on our liberties, and do so with open arms. The two-party system is no different from the Puritans. Under the Puritans, no one was allowed to vote unless they belonged to one of the few approved churches of the Dominion. Today we call those religions Democrat and Republican. Libertarians like myself are the modern-day heretics arguing for more freedom. The Puritans forbade heretics from holding elected office. Our two-party system makes it virtually impossible for a third-party candidate to get elected, even if he is the best choice. The Puritans did not allow heretics to even receive food or lodging from anyone. As the two major parties clamor for more and more campaign-finance regulations, third-party candidates often find themselves shut out of the fund-raising system. When the New World was young and Puritanical government small and local, there were plenty of nearby places to go to find freedom. But what do you do, where do you go, when the federal government is taking away your liberties? We should take a cue from the actions of Samuel Denslow, a farmer from Windsor Locks during the Revolutionary War era. He took custody of a prisoner of war named Henrick Roddmore, one of many Germany mercenaries (Hessians) hired by the British during the war. The Christmas tree started as a German tradition and Roddmore apparently convinced Denslow to try it out. For 14 years, Roddmore would erect a tree inside Denslow’s Connecticut home. It was the first Christmas tree in America. That’s our secret weapon and the source of our internal political conflict: The same state that saw some of the most extreme Puritanical tyranny also saw one of the first steps toward religious freedom. The longing to do right has always defined Connecticut. We want people to be moral here; we also yearn for freedom. e_SBlt phil@maymin.com Copyright © 2006, Fairfield County Weekly |