![[3730896] Memoirs of the Rev. Ammi Rogers, A.M. a Clergyman of the Episcopal Church…Persecuted in the State of Connecticut, on account of Religion and Politics, for almost twenty years : and finally, Falsely Accused and Imprisoned in Norwich Jail, for two years, on the charge of Crimea said to have been committed in the town of Griswold, in the County…. Ammi Rogers.](https://rareamericana.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/3730896.jpg?auto=webp&v=1726847295)
Memoirs of the Rev. Ammi Rogers, A.M. a Clergyman of the Episcopal Church…Persecuted in the State of Connecticut, on account of Religion and Politics, for almost twenty years : and finally, Falsely Accused and Imprisoned in Norwich Jail, for two years, on the charge of Crimea said to have been committed in the town of Griswold, in the County…
“Equal justice is due to all men…”
An Episcopal minister in Connecticut, Ammi Rogers (1770–1852) found himself at the center of scandal, accused of an adulterous affair and imprisoned for two years. In his Memoirs, he frames the charges as politically and religiously motivated persecution, decrying what he saw as the unchecked power of church and state alliances. His impassioned defense, filled with legal argumentation and personal grievances, asserts his innocence while condemning the forces that sought to ruin him:
“When a citizen, by groundless prejudice, by false representations and by palpable perjuries, has been made a victim to ecclesiastical denunciations and civil prosecutions; when the privileges arising from civil liberty and religious! freedom have been wrested from him, he still has one privilege left, the privilege of complaining. A statement of his case, and an appeal to the public, is the dernier resort of an injured man; such an appeal supported by satisfactory evidence, secures a sentence in favour of the oppressed. To disregard such a sentence would not be just, and even if it. were just, it would not be possible. There has been, for years past, much animadversion on the union of Church and State. I have practically felt the operation of this two fold chord which is now happily broken in Connecticut, and which has almost prostrated me in the destruction of it. But I still survive, and amidst the heavy artillery of a departed Bishop, and the artful machinations and cruel batteries of a Connecticut State’s Attorney, l have been sustained by a consciousness of my innocence [...]I live to make this my last effort through the press, which, Heaven be praised, is still untrammeled, to evince my innocence and my integrity. Equal justice is due to all men, and the lovers of truth are so far the lovers of God.”
A striking example of personal narrative as political protest, revealing the tensions between ecclesiastical authority, individual rights, and legal power in early America.
Description: Memoirs of the Rev. Ammi Rogers, A.M. a Clergyman of the Episcopal Church…Persecuted in the State of Connecticut, on account of Religion and Politics, for almost twenty years : and finally, Falsely Accused and Imprisoned in Norwich Jail, for two years, on the charge of Crimea said to have been committed in the town of Griswold, in the County…
Middlebury, [Vermont]: Printed by J.W. Copeland, 1830. 12mo. 268pp. Third Edition; With additions, omissions and alterations. Publisher’s quarter sheep and marbled boards; gilt rules on spine; tinted edges. Small losses at head and tail of spine; joints starting at tail; foxing; very good.
[3730896]Davis, p235. Eberstadt dryly noted: “How times do change.”
Price: $75.00