“The topic urged itself,” said David Perkins, the organization’s founder and director told those sitting in the pews. “In a period of turmoil and anguish over our politics, we decided to pass over the familiar issues and go back to fundamentals, to beginnings, to the wellsprings of democracy.”

ASHFIELD – It was an example of what Plymouth could, perhaps should, do to revisit and revitalize civic institutions.

It happened in Ashfield, one of the hill towns of western Massachusetts, where, you might be surprised to know, revolutionary thoughts are stirring once again.

The population of Ashfield today hovers just under 2,000. And while its scattered homes are now the residences of artisans, craftspeople and retired academics, the majority are still the descendants of those who went there first, for their own piece of land and a measure of independence.

They were, originally, mostly farmers, turning over the soil to grow, at one time, acres and acres of peppermint, and turning over the soul of the new world as well and seeing the first considerations of democracy sprout.

It was in Ashfield in 1770 that the problem of religious liberty sprang up when members of the state religion – then Congregationalists – with the state’s legal assistance took the land of Baptists for back taxes (they refused to pay for a Congregationalist church).

Eventually it was the King of England who overturned that act and it was Ashfield’s Baptist minister who told the Sons of Liberty that they did not deserve their name; they only wanted “liberty from oppression that they might have liberty to oppress!”

It was, in part, the experience of those Baptists in Ashfield that led to the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”

It was in Ashfield as well, 247 years later, where “Civitas: A Celebration of Democracy” took place earlier this month.

Billed as “an exploration of early American ideals, religious faith, and the meaning of citizenship in a time of crisis” Civitas featured three nationally noted scholars speaking on aspects of 18th and 19th century democracy; the early sources of democratic faith; evangelicalism, past, present, and future; and on New England's special progressive tradition.

“The topic urged itself,” said David Perkins, the founder and director of the Hilltown Chautauqua (a revival of a 19th-century American institution that speaks to our need for substance, community, and a larger, deeper, more tolerant conversation in the 21st century; http://hilltownchautauqua.org/), to those sitting in the pews. “In a period of turmoil and anguish over our politics, we decided to pass over the familiar issues and go back to fundamentals, to beginnings, to the wellsprings of democracy.”

The event officially began with a moment of silence in which those gathered in the tiny church were asked to consider what the phrase “the blessings of liberty” meant to them.

One definition of “Civitas” Perkins then explained, was a kind of “public virtue, or civic virtue,” and a commitment to the common good, to a higher social ideal, even a higher sense of social happiness.

“When I read (accounts of the 18th century) I am always delighted at a kind of joyous sense of citizenship and participation in the process,” Perkins said. “The word public has almost a sacred, delightful, new meaning for the people of that period.”

John Adams wrote to Mercy Warren, Perkins said, in April 1776, “public virtue is the only foundation of Republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, for public interest. Honor, power and glory established in the minds of the people or there can be no republican government nor any real liberty.”

“This public passion must be superior to all private passions,” Adams said, and New England had more of this passion than all of the rest of the country.

So what happened, Perkins asked, and what advice would Adams and others have today for our republican institutions when that passion for public service appears to have disappeared?

“So my hope is that over today,” Perkins said, speaking of the lectures and music and discussions that were scheduled to take place that day, “that we might get some encouragement and inspiration, and insight for how to move forward ourselves in our public life, by revisiting the 18th century and asking them what they can tell us?”

Plymouth could go back even further, to the 17th century, and ask those same questions.

For more information on Civitas contact the Hilltown Chautauqua at info@hilltownchautauqua.org.

Follow Frank Mand on Twitter @frankmandOCM.