Note DO — LETTER XXIX.

I have already said, that when the Puritans landed in New England they wished above all things to found a religious society. They organised themselves by the laws of Moses. Political society did not exist in fact, although there was a nominal governor to represent the temporal authority, or was swallowed up in the church; the town was merged in the congregation. Thus in a short time, their government came to resemble that of the Jesuits in Paraguay, with only this difference, that each one here had his share in the tyranny. The Blue Laws of Connecticut are a monument of this state of things, in which the common acts of life were subjected to the most vexatious restrictions. The New Englanders were soon obliged to renounce their Mosaic system of government, and without perfectly separating politics from religion, they gave to each of the two powers an independent existence. They did not establish the political power firmly beyond the town; but the municipal constitution was solid and firm, sometimes even to excess, for the very reason that it started from the religious organisation.