Knowlton Biography, Chapter 44
Forty-four: Free Enquirers of Greenfield
The certificate of membership shall be neatly printed in card form, bearing the following motto:–
“He that will not reason is a bigot,
he that cannot reason is a fool,
he that dares not reason is a slave;”–
Charles returned from the New York Infidel Convention committed to spreading the word in Franklin County. Although he had always stopped short of proselytizing in the past, the convention apparently convinced him that the time had come to give his friends an opportunity to publicly declare their views. And Charles had several friends in Ashfield, Deerfield, and Greenfield who were eager to start a freethought group with him.
Instead of the aggressive, “Infidel Society” approach taken by the New York convention, though, Charles and his friends emphasized the “Universal Mental Liberty” theme that had been suggested by Robert Owen. At their first meeting in Greenfield, Charles offered a resolution: “That it is a duty which the friends of Mental Liberty owe to each other, to proceed promptly to the organization of local societies, though small they may be, throughout the Union.” The freethinkers called their group the United Liberals of Franklin County.
The United Liberals intended to live and let live. To spare the feelings of people in “country towns and villages,” Charles suggested that local groups avoid meeting “on the first day of the week.” This didn’t mean, however, that religion was going to get off lightly. In his inaugural speech, addressed to the United Liberals and all “Friends of Mental Liberty,” Charles put it as clearly as he could:
Every thing, call it law, fashion, custom, king, priest, deacon, or what you will, every thing and every body which injures, molests, or restrains a man in his person, property, character, or in any other way, for expressing and promulgating his opinions…is wrong, and it cannot be made to appear right by any pretense or process of reasoning which sophistry can devise.
By mental liberty, Charles and his friends meant “a right to express and promulgate opinions, whatever they may be, so far as this may be done without violating the just and equal rights of others.” Some of their neighbors believed themselves to be tolerant, Charles said, because they agreed freethinkers had right to their own opinions, “if you'll only keep them to yourselves!” But even when they kept quiet, Charles said, freethinkers “have been browbeaten and trodden underfoot” in America. People like Knowlton had been prosecuted, imprisoned, boycotted, barred from public service and politics, and even prevented from testifying in courts. But “What would America have been,” Charles asked, “but for a Paine, a Washington, a Franklin, a Jefferson, an Adams, a Johnson, a Cooper, a Kneeland, an Owen,” and the scores of “understrappers” like himself who had fought for the rights of man?
“We have not, and we never can have, any infallible and universally acknowledged standard of truth whereby the various opinions of men may be tried,” Charles said. And because there was no test of absolute truth, he continued, “we must remain content, to let truth and falsehood grapple in fair and open encounter.” But what about “false and pernicious doctrines” that “endangered society?” Charles asked, echoing an argument that had often been used against him. It was no more than “old hackneyed pretense—often made by those who, being themselves snugly seated in the rocking-chair, desire no change—that the prevalence of certain principles will have an evil effect on society, and therefore society (a word too often used for self) has a right to resort to compulsatory measures for suppressing their promulgation.”
In the first place, Charles continued, if freethinkers’ ideas were really all that wrong-headed, punishing them would be like “scourging the poor lunatic to prevent his setting the river on fire.” And more important, those who punished minority ideas suggested “To every impartial and discerning mind, plainer than peals of thunder…that they internally fear, if indeed they do not believe, that the truth is not on their side.” But it’s not always their fault, Charles said. “There are many reasons why the majority may be in error,”
From their cradles they may have been trained in error—so thoroughly trained thus, that they have not even that degree of doubt which leads to enquiry. Indeed, they may have been taught to believe that it would be wrong in them to doubt, and is praiseworthy in them to refrain from enquiry…It may be that there is a class of men, generation after generation, who have an interest in inculcating opinions which are in fact erroneous, and to make it part of their business to spay and castrate, as it were, the infant minds throughout the land, before they arrive at the age of reason, that they may be tame and humble followers throughout their lives!
“The laws of belief are just as fixed and invariable as the laws of motion,” Charles concluded. “Man by nature believes; and he never doubts until there is sufficient reason or cause for doubting.” So the freethinkers had a social responsibility to show their neighbors there were sufficient reasons for doubting old dogmas. Luckily, time was on their side, Charles said. The tide had been turning against religion for generations, and many people were becoming “indifferent” to the claims of the orthodox church. And indifferent, Charles said, meant unbelieving. “Suppose a man rushes into my house in the middle of the night and tells me that my house is on fire, and yet I do not stir an inch. What is to be inferred from my conduct, but that I am asleep, or paralyzed, or do not believe him? And yet of how much more consequence to me than my house is my everlasting happiness or misery!” The great mass of people flocking to Universalism and other attempts to liberalize the church, Charles said, weren’t asleep or paralyzed—they were almost freethinkers. It would take only a short step for them to “Join, and proclaim to the world, that in mind as in body you will be free.”
“We have no cramping creeds,” Charles promised. “We care not for your politics, your parties, your predilections, or even your opinions. Our banner waves high above them all. All we ask of you is, a willingness to enquire freely into the truth of all important subjects, and to advocate the cause of MENTAL LIBERTY.” True to their words, the United Liberals agreed on a Constitution that invited anybody, male or female, in Franklin County to join the group. “Female members,” Charles promised in the bylaws, “shall enjoy the same rights and privileges as male members.” These rights included use of the Society’s library, and the opportunity to vote and to hold office. Of the Society’s thirteen charter members, two were women.