Harry Toulmin (Unitarian Minister) - Resettlement in Kentucky

Resettlement in Kentucky

Spurred by the persecution endured by his followers and himself, in 1792 Toulmin published an anonymous pamphlet entitled "Thoughts on Emigration", containing his thoughts on members of the Dissenter movement relocating to another country. The following year, his congregants raised enough money to send him to the United States to explore the possibility of relocating there. Dr. Priestly gave him letters of introduction to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to present on his arrival. During his two-month voyage from England to Norfolk, Virginia, Toulmin kept a diary, which was later published under the title The Western Country in 1793; Reports on Kentucky and Virginia.

Following his arrival in the United States, Toulmin wrote letters back to England, giving potential immigrants information they would need to know for their journey; these letters were published in the local Monthly Magazine. The following year, he published A Description of Kentucky, a pamphlet encouraging emigration from Europe to Kentucky.

After seeing Toulmin's letters of recommendation from Jefferson and Madison, the board of trustees of Transylvania Seminary (now Transylvania University) in Lexington, Kentucky, elected him president of the seminary in February 1794. He was the first president of the seminary who was not a Presbyterian, and his election was effected when the Baptist and more liberal members of the board united against the more conservative Presbyterian members. His Unitarian views offended many of the conservative board members, and at their insistence, the Kentucky General Assembly passed legislation requiring a unanimous vote of the board of regents to re-elect the seminary's president. Toulmin resigned in protest in April 1796.

Shortly after Toulmin's resignation, James Garrard, a Baptist minister who had supported Toulmin as a trustee of Transylvania, was elected governor of Kentucky. At first, Garrard elected to re-appoint sitting Secretary of State James Brown, but when Brown retired in October 1796, Garrard appointed Toulmin as his replacement. He served in this capacity from 1796 to 1804, spanning both of Garrard's consecutive terms as governor. As a result of Garrard's relationship with Toulmin, he began to accept some tenants of Unitarianism, specifically the doctrines of Socinianism. By 1802, Garrard and his associate Augustine Eastin had not only adopted these beliefs, but had indoctrinated their Baptist congregations with them as well. The Elkhorn Baptist Association condemned Garrard and Eastin's beliefs as heretical and tried to persuade the two men to abandon them. When that effort failed, the Association ceased correspondence and association with both men. This event ended Garrard's ministry and his association with the Baptist church.

As Secretary of State, Toulmin was signatory to the Kentucky Resolutions, the legislature's official protest of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which he regarded as an "unwarranted government intrusion into free thought, free association, and free speech". In 1801, he published The Magistrate’s Assistant, a guide to the state's magisterial laws. He also promoted public awareness of governmental activity by compiling and publishing the proceedings of the General Assembly as The Public Acts of the General Assembly. Government officials chose Toulmin and state Attorney General James Blair to revise the state's code of laws. The results of their work – a three-volume tome entitled Review of the Criminal Law of Kentucky – was published in 1806.

Near the end of Governor Garrard's term, he appointed Toulmin registrar of the state land office. Toulmin was the first of six candidates that the state senate rejected in a bitter showdown between Garrard and the legislature. The seventh candidate, John Adair was finally confirmed by the senate.