DOCUMENTS /. The Society of Dissenters founded at New York in lySg. Historians have long recognized more or less fully the impor- tance of the controversies which, about the middle of the eighteenth century, prevailed between Anglicans and Dissenters in the colonies over the question of a colonial episcopate and other related subjects. The special conditions attending these discussions in New York have also been explained. It has been noticed that the discussion over the founding of King's College constituted one phase of the subject. The fact that, when the Revolution began, the Presby- terians of New York City had long but vainly been seeking a char- ter of incorporation for themselves as a religious society, has also been brought out. They denied the validity of the interpretation put by the officials on the act of 1693, to the effect that it estab- lished the Church of England in the four southern counties of the province. They also denied that the English Church was dc jure established in all the colonies, and therefore that Dissenters were subject to all the regulations prescribed in the Act of Toleration. Presbyterians also sought to obtain for themselves the position of advantage secured for the sect in Scotland by the Act of Union. In April, 1 769, and repeatedly thereafter, efforts were made to pass acts relieving Dissenters from the payment of taxes for the support of the clergy of a church to which they did not belong. But these efforts all failed because of the opposition of the Council ; it would make no concession to the demand. That, along with the Presbyterian clergymen of the city, William Livingston, John Morin Scott and Alexander McDougall were prominently connected with the movement, is also well known. The activity of Livingston as a pamphleteer and contributor to the newspapers in the Presbyterian interest, has been clearly described by his biographer and others. But hitherto writers have failed to understand how definite was the form taken by the Presbyterian movement, and what wide-reaching plans these bodies cherished for securing united action on the part of Dissenters generally through- out the colonies against British and Anglican claims. Had these plans been carried into execution, a religious character would have been given to the Revolution. (498)
