Journal of Student Research 2023

Journal of Student Research 68 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary fathers. 2 While to the untrained eye, President Coolidge’s speech may appear to be an obscure reference to a minor element in America’s journey toward independence, the ensuing evidence will show a very different historical reality. As historian Alice Baldwin noted in her analysis of the place of religion in the founding, “The Constitutional Convention and the written Constitution were the children of the pulpit.” 3 While increasingly obscured in modern thought, the efforts of several ministers in Colonial America certainly contributed to the evolution of colonial America that had been reliant upon the British Crown from adversaries during the French and Indian War to a nation that fought for, won, and cemented its independence from Great Britain. The linkage between the clergy and revolution is no better illustrated than by their derisive reference as the Black Robed Regiment, by none other than the British themselves. 4 Three ministers in particular, the Rev. John Wise, the Rev. George Whitfield, and the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, were instrumental in bringing about a change in thinking in the American colonies; these changes in colonial thought were stimulated by British government actions following the 1763 conclusion to the French and Indian War. Massachusetts in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Congregationalism, which stemmed from the Puritan tradition, was the official denomination of Massachusetts Colony. During Wise’s tenure, Edmund Andros arrived from England to be the governor of New England in its entirety. Upon assuming office, Andros attempted to eliminate the independent charters of multiple New England colonies (i.e., Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut), and create a single royal colony-The Dominion of New England. Wise became a leading figure in fighting Andros from his place at the pulpit, 5 preaching on topics that would become some of the most recognizable principles and ideas shortly before and during the American Revolutionary War. The American Revolution Era refrain, “No taxation without representation” was stimulated by the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765; however, this phrase did not make its introduction at this juncture in history. The sentiment of this right was seeded in the colonial conscience much earlier than was the Stamp Act. The historical record relates that Wise preached taxation without representation is tyranny.” 6 In addition, Wise is recorded to have preached and discussed other ideas such as, “Consent of the 2 “Address at the Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, Pennsylva nia,” The American Presidency Project, July 5, 1926. 3 Alice Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 1928), 134. 4 Peter Oliver, Peter Oliver’s Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion, ed. Douglas Adair and John Schutz (San Marino California: The Huntington Library, 1961), 29, 41-45. 5 4. John Langdon Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, vol 2 (Cambridge: Charles William Sever, 1881), 429-431. 6 David Otis Mears, Oberlin Lectures of 1829: The Pulpit and the Pews (Oberlin College: Edward G. Goodrich, 1892), 87. Reverend John Wise Jonathon Wise was a congregational minister in the small town of Ipswich