Abstract
JT HE Mayflower and Salem conceptions of Puritanism have long been battling each other for dominance in the popular mind. To some, chiefly in New England and the North, freedom was born of the Magna Charta, suffered under James the First, and rose the third day on Plymouth Rock, from whence its dominion was to spread over a continent. To others, particularly in the South, Puritanism was born in bigotry, lived by hanging witches and Quakers, and rose from its tomb as rampant abolitionism, burning a swath through Georgia. According to the witchcraft tradition, all Puritans were fanatical bigots and Cotton Mather was their prophet-the departed soul of the skeleton which rattles to this day in the Puritan broom closet. He was the arch-priest of a steeple-hatted demonology, a sadist who enslaved and tortured Quakers, cackling as he touched the match to heretic pyres. This ghost has been conjured up from time to time and cynically cherished as an antidote to the sentimental grade-school pap about the Pilgrim haven for freedom in the wilderness, and it is still among us, despite the best efforts of historians to lay it in its tomb. One of the most successful conjurations occurred in i870, a time when Republicans were painting wings on their Puritan ancestors, while Democrats replied by sketching in horns and a tail. In April of this year, an article in James F. Shunk's obscure Easton, Pennsylvania, Argus started old Cotton on a broomstick ride which has lasted right down to the present day. Since this article has directly and indirectly contributed so much to the popular idea of Mather's character, it is here reprinted in full:
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