But there were others beside Wheelwright who had sinned, and some pretext
had to be devised by which to reach them. The names of most of his friends
were upon the petition that had been drawn up after his trial. It is true
it was a proceeding with which the existing legislature was not concerned,
since it had been presented to one of its predecessors; it is also true
that probably never, before or since, have men who have protested they
have not drawn the sword rashly, but have come as humble suppliants to
offer their cheeks to the smiters, been held to be public enemies. Such
scruples, however, never hampered the theocracy. Their justice was
trammelled neither by judges, by juries, nor by laws; the petition was
declared to be a seditious libel, and the petitioners were given their
choice of disavowing their act and making humble submission, or exile.
Aspinwall was at once disfranchised and banished. [Footnote: _Mass.
Rec._ i. 207.] Coddington, Coggeshall, and nine more were given leave
to depart within three months, or abide the action of the court; others
were disfranchised; and fifty-eight of the less prominent of the party
were disarmed in Boston alone. [Footnote: _Idem_, i. 223.]
Thus were the early liberals crushed in Massachusetts; the bold were
exiled, the timid were terrified; as a political organization they moved
no more till the theocracy was tottering to its fall; and for forty years
the power of the clergy was absolute in the land.
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