The Logic of Rebellion

by poputonian

Fear of an ecclesiastical conspiracy against American liberties, latent among nonconformists through all of colonial history, thus erupted into public controversy at the very same time that the first impact of new British policy in civil affairs was being felt. And though it was, in an obvious sense, a limited fear (for large parts of the population identified themselves with the Anglican Church and were not easily convinced that liberty was being threatened by a plot of the Churchmen) it nevertheless had a profound indirect effect everywhere, for it drew into public discussion — evoked in specific form — the general conviction of eighteenth-century Englishmen that the conjoining of “temporal and spiritual tyranny” was, in John Adams’ words, an event totally “calamitous to human liberty” yet an event that in the mere nature of things perpetually threatened. For, as David Hume had explained, “in all ages of the world priests have been enemies to liberty … Liberty of thinking and of expressing our thoughts is always fatal to priestly power … and by an infallible connection which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed … but in free government. Hence … all princes that have aimed at despotic power [Bush, Rove] have known of what importance it was to gain the established clergy, as the clergy, on their part, have show a great facility in entering into the views of such princes.”
Excerpted from The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967) by Bernard Bailyn; winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History and a Pulitzer in History; p. 97, chapter titled The Logic of Rebellion.

“new … policy in civil affairs’ … “gain the established clergy” … “despots”