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THE
AMERICANS
BY
HUGO MÜNSTERBERG
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
TRANSLATED BY
EDWIN B. HOLT, PH.D.
INSTRUCTOR AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
MCMIV
_Copyright, 1904, by_
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
_Published November, 1904, N_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
In the Preface to my “American Traits,” in which I defended German
ideals and criticised some American tendencies, I said, some years ago:
“It has been often questioned whether I am right in fighting merely
against American shortcomings from a German point of view, and in trying
to destroy prejudices on this side of the water; whether it is not, in a
still higher degree, my duty to attempt the same for the other side;—for
German prejudices concerning the United States are certainly not less
severe, and the points in which Germany might learn from American
culture not less numerous. The question is fair, and I shall soon put
before the German public a book on American life—a book which deals in a
detailed way with the political, economic, intellectual, and social
aspects of American culture. Its purpose is to interpret systematically
the democratic ideals of America.”
Here is the book; it fulfils the promise, and it might appear that no
further explanation is needed. And yet, in sending a book into the
world, I have never felt more strongly the need of prefatory
excuses—excuses not for writing the book, but for agreeing to its
translation into English.
To outline American life for readers beyond the sea is one thing; to
appear before an American audience and to tell them solemnly that there
is a Republican and a Democratic party, and that there are troubles
between capital and labour, is quite another thing. To inform my German
countrymen about America may be to fill a long-felt want; but, as a
German, to inform the Americans on matters which they knew before they
were born seems, indeed, worse than superfluous.
When I was urged, on so many sides, to bring my “Americans” before the
Americans, it was, therefore, clear to me from the outset that I ought
not to do it myself under any circumstances. If I had translated the
book myself, it would have become simply an English book, written in
English by the author; and yet its only possible right to existence must
lie in its reflected character, in its having been written for others,
in its coming back to the New World from the Old. My friend, Dr. Holt,
who has been for years my assistant in the Harvard Psychological
Laboratory, has assisted, therefore, in this social psychological
experiment, and translated the book from the German edition.
I have been still more influenced by another consideration. If the book
were chiefly a record of facts, it would be folly for a foreigner to
present it to the citizens; but the aim of the book is a quite different
one. To make a real scientific study of the facts, I should have felt
utterly incompetent; indeed, it may be doubted whether any one could
hope to master the material of the various fields: a division of labour
would then become necessary. The historian, the politician, the
economist, the jurist, the engineer, and many others would have to
co-operate in a scholarly investigation of American events; and I have
no right to any of these titles. I am merely a psychologist, and have
not set out to discover new material. The only aim of the book is to
study the American man and his inner tendencies; and, perhaps, a truer
name for my book would have been “The Philosophy of Americanism.” For
such a task the outsider may be, after all, not quite unsuited, since
the characteristic forces make themselves more easily felt by him than
by those who have breathed the atmosphere from their childhood. I am,
therefore, anxious to insist that the accent of the book lies on the
four chapters, “Spirit of Self-Direction”, “Spirit of Self-Realization,”
“Spirit of Self-Perfection,” and “Spirit of Self-Assertion”; while those
chapters on the economic and political problems are the least important
of the book, as they are meant merely by way of illustration. The
lasting forces and tendencies of American life are my topics, and not
the problems of the day. For this reason the book is translated as it
appeared six months ago in Germany, and the events and statistical
figures of the last few months have not been added; the Philosophy of
Americanism is independent of the happenings of yesterday. The only
changes in the translation are abbreviations; for instance, the
industrial tables, which every American can get easily from the
government reports, are abridged; and, above all, the chapters which
deal with the German-Americans are left out, as better remaining an
esoteric discussion for the Germans.
The purpose of finding the deeper impulses in American life necessarily
demands a certain ignoring of the shortcomings of the hour. If we aim to
work out and to make clear the essentials of the American mission in the
world, we cannot take the attitude of the reformer, whose attention
belongs, first of all, to the blunders and frailties of the hour; they
are to us less important by-products. The grumbler in public life sees
in such a view of the American, of course, merely a fancy picture of an
imaginary creature; he is not aware that every portrayal involves
abstraction, and that a study in Americanism means, indeed, a study of
the Americans as the best of them are, and as the others should wish to
be.
But the optimism of my book has still another source. Its outspoken
purpose has been to awaken a better understanding of Americans in the
German nation. Whoever fights against prejudices can serve the truth
merely in emphasizing the neglected good sides, and in somewhat
retouching in the picture the exaggerated shadows. But just here arises
my strong reluctance. The optimism and the style of a defender were
sincere, and necessary to the book when it addressed itself to the
Germans; is it necessary, is it, indeed, sincere, to place such a eulogy
of Americanism before the Americans? I know too well that, besides the
self-direction, self-realization, self-perfection, and self-assertion
there is, more vivid still, the spirit of self-satisfaction, whose story
I have forgotten to include in this volume. Have I the right to cater to
this spirit?
But is it not best that the moods of criticism and optimism alternate?
The critical eagerness of the reformer which attacks the faults and
follies of the day is most necessary; but it turns into discouraging
pessimism if it is not supplemented by a profession of faith in the
lasting principles and deeper tendencies. The rôle of the critic I have
played, perhaps, more often and more vehemently than is the foreigner’s
right. My book on “American Traits” has been its sharpest expression.
Does that not give me, after all, a moral right to supplement the
warning cry by a joyful word on the high aims of true Americanism? My
duty is only to emphasize that I am myself fully aware of the strong
one-sidedness, and that this new book is not in the least meant to
retract the criticisms of my “American Traits.” The two books are meant
to be like the two pictures of a stereoscope, which must be seen both
together to get the full plastic effect of reality. It is certainly
important to remind the nation frequently that there are political
corruption and pedagogical blundering in the world; but sometimes it is
also worth while to say that Americanism is something noble and
inspiring, even for the outsiders, with whom naturally other impulses
are stronger—in fact, to make clear that this Americanism is a
consistent system of tendencies is ultimately, perhaps, only another way
of attaining the reformer’s end.
Only one word more—a word of thanks. I said the aim of the book was to
bring the facts of American life under the point of view of general
principles, but not to embody an original research in American history
and institutions. I have had thus to accept the facts ready-made, as the
best American authors present them; and I am thus their debtor
everywhere. Since the book is popular in its style, I have no foot-notes
and scholarly quotations, and so cannot enumerate the thousand American
sources from which I have taken my material. And I am not speaking here
merely of the great standard books and specialistic writings, but even
the daily and weekly papers, and especially the leading monthly
magazines, have helped to fill my note-books. My thanks are due to all
these silent helpers, and I am glad to share with them the welcome
which, in competent quarters, the German edition of the book has found.
HUGO MÜNSTERBERG
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.,
October 25, 1904
CONTENTS
I. POLITICAL LIFE
PAGE
1. THE SPIRIT OF SELF-DIRECTION 3
2. POLITICAL PARTIES 35
3. THE PRESIDENT 63
4. CONGRESS 85
5. JUSTICE 101
6. CITY AND STATE 115
7. PUBLIC OPINION 137
8. PROBLEMS OF POPULATION 155
9. INTERNAL POLITICAL PROBLEMS 185
10. EXTERNAL POLITICAL PROBLEMS 201
II. ECONOMIC LIFE
11. THE SPIRIT OF SELF-INITIATIVE 229
12. THE ECONOMIC RISE 255
13. THE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS 278
The Silver Question 279
The Tariff Question 289
The Trust Question 301
The Labour Question 318
III. INTELLECTUAL LIFE
14. THE SPIRIT OF SELF-PERFECTION 347
15. THE SCHOOLS AND POPULAR EDUCATION 365
16. THE UNIVERSITIES 393
17. SCIENCE 425
18. LITERATURE 449
19. ART 473
20. RELIGION 496
IV. SOCIAL LIFE
21. THE SPIRIT OF SELF-ASSERTION 531
22. THE SELF-ASSERTION OF WOMEN 558
23. ARISTOCRATIC TENDENCIES 590
PART ONE
POLITICAL LIFE
CHAPTER ONE
_The Spirit of Self-Direction_
Whosoever wishes to describe the political life of the American people
can accomplish this end from a number of starting points. Perhaps he
would begin most naturally with the Articles of the Constitution and
expound the document which has given to the American body-politic its
remarkable and permanent form; or he might ramble through history and
trace out from petty colonies the rise of a great world-power; or he
might make his way through that multitude of events which to-day arouse
the keenest public interest, the party strifes and presidential
elections, the burdens and amenities of city and state, the transactions
of the courts and of Congress. Yet all this would be but a superficial
delineation. Whoever wishes to understand the secret of that baffling
turmoil, the inner mechanism and motive behind all the politically
effective forces, must set out from only one point. He must appreciate
the yearning of the American heart after self-direction. Everything else
is to be understood from this.
In his social life the American is very ready to conform to the will of
another. With an inborn good-nature, and often too willingly, perhaps,
he lends himself to social situations which are otherwise inconvenient.
Thus his guest, for instance, is apt to feel like a master in his house,
so completely is his own will subordinated to that of the guest. But, on
the other hand, in the sphere of public life, the individual, or a more
or less restricted group of individuals, feels that it must guide its
own activities to the last detail if these are to have for it any value
or significance whatsoever. He will allow no alien motive to be
substituted—neither the self-renunciation of fidelity or gratitude, nor
the æsthetic self-forgetfulness of hero-worship, nor even the
recognition that a material advantage would accrue or some desirable end
be more readily achieved if the control and responsibility were to be
vested in some one else. This self-direction is neither arbitrary nor
perverse; least of all does it indicate a love of ease or aversion to
toil. In Russia, as a well-known American once said, serfdom could be
wiped out by a stroke of the Czar’s pen, and millions of Russians would
be freed from slavery with no loss of life or property. “We Americans
had to offer up a half-million lives and many millions’ worth of
property in order to free our slaves. And yet nothing else was to be
thought of. We had to overcome that evil by our own initiative, and by
our own exertions reach our goal. And just because we are Americans and
not Russians no power on earth could have relieved us of our
responsibility.”
When in any people the desire of self-direction dominates all other
motives, the form of government of that people is necessarily
republican. But it does not conversely follow that every republic is
grounded in this spirit of self-direction. Hence it is that the republic
of the United States is so entirely different from all other republics,
since in no other people is the craving for self-determination so
completely the informing force. The republics of Middle and South
America, or of France, have sprung from an entirely different political
spirit; while those newer republics, which in fundamental intention are
perhaps more similar, as for instance Switzerland, are still not
comparable because of their diminutive size. The French republic is
founded on rationalism. The philosophy of the eighteenth century, with
its destructive criticism of the existing order, furnished the
doctrines, and from that seed of knowledge there grew and still are
growing the practical ideals of France. But the political life of the
United States sprang not from reasoned motives but from ideals; it is
not the result of insight but of will; it has not a logical but a moral
foundation. And while in France the principles embodied in the
constitution are derived from theory, the somewhat doubtful doctrines
enunciated in the Declaration of Independence are merely a corollary to
that system of moral ideals which is indissolubly combined with the
American character.
It is not here to be questioned whether this character is purely the
cause and not also the effect of the American system; but so much is
sure, that the system of political relations which has sprung from these
ethical ideals constitutes the actual body-politic of America. Such is
the America which receives the immigrant and so thoroughly transforms
him that the demand for self-determination becomes the profoundest
passion of his soul. Such is the America toward which he feels a proud
and earnest patriotism. For the soil on which his kingdom has been
reared he knows but scanty sentiment or love; indeed, the early progress
of America was always an extension of the frontier, an unremitting
pushing forth over new domain. The American may be linked by personal
ties to a particular plot of land, but his national patriotism is
independent of the soil. It is also independent of the people. A nation
which in every decade has assimilated millions of aliens, and whose
historic past everywhere leads back to strange peoples, cannot with its
racial variegation inspire a profound feeling of indissoluble unity. And
yet that feeling is present here as it is perhaps in no European
country. American patriotism is directed neither to soil nor citizen,
but to a system of ideas respecting society which is compacted by the
desire for self-direction. And to be an American means to be a partizan
of this system. Neither race nor tradition, nor yet the actual past
binds him to his countryman, but rather the future which together they
are building. It is a community of purpose, and it is more effective
than any tradition, because it pervades the whole man. Participation in
a common task holds the people together, a task with no definite and
tangible end nor yet any special victory or triumph to look forward to,
but rather a task which is fulfilled at each moment, which has its
meaning not in any result but in the doing, its accomplishment not in
any event which may befall, but only in the rightness of the motive. To
be an American means to co-operate in perpetuating the spirit of
self-direction throughout the body-politic; and whosoever does not feel
this duty and actively respond to it, although perhaps a naturalized
citizen of the land, remains an alien forever.
If the newcomer is readily assimilated in such a society, commonly, yet
it must not be overlooked that those who come from across the seas are
not selected at random. Those who are strong of will are the ones who
seek out new spheres of activity. Just those whose satisfaction in life
has been stunted by a petty and oppressive environment have always
cherished a longing for the New World. That conflict which every one
must wage in his own bosom before he can finally tear himself away from
home, has schooled the emigrant for the spirit of his new home; and only
those who have been impelled by the desire for self-direction have had
the strength to break the ties with their own past. Thus it is that
those of Germanic extraction adapt themselves so much more quickly and
thoroughly to the political spirit of America than those of Romanic
blood. The Latin peoples are much more the victims of suggestion. Being
more excitable, they are more imitative, and therefore as individuals
less stable. The Frenchman, Italian, or Spaniard is often a sympathetic
member of the social life of the country, but in its political life he
introduces a certain false note; his republicanism is not the American
republicanism. As a moral ideal he has little or no concern with the
doctrine of self-direction.
The American political system, therefore, by no means represents an
ideal of universal significance; it is the expression of a certain
character, the necessary way of living for that distinct type of man
which an historically traceable process of selection has brought
together. And this way of living reacts in its turn to strengthen the
fundamental type. Other nations, in whom other temperamental factors no
less significant or potent or admirable are the fundamental traits, must
find the solution of their political problems in other directions. No
gain would accrue to them from any mere imitation, since it would tend
to nothing but the crippling and estranging of the native genius of
their people.
The cultivated American of to-day feels this instinctively. Among the
masses, to be sure, the old theme is still sometimes broached of the
world-wide supremacy of American ideals: and a part of the necessary
paraphernalia of popular assemblages will naturally consist in a
reaffirmation that the duty of America is to extend its political system
into every quarter of the globe; other nations will thus be rated
according to their ripeness for this system, and the history of the
world appear one long and happy education of the human race up to the
plane of American conceptions. But this tendency is inevitable and not
to be despised. It must more nearly concern the American than the
citizen of other states to propagate his ideals, since here everything
depends on each individual co-operating with all his might, and this
co-operation must succeed best when it is impelled by an uncritical and
blindly devoted faith. And such a faith arouses, too, a zealous
missionary spirit, which wants to carry this inspired state-craft unto
all political heathen. But the foreigner is apt to overestimate these
sentiments. The cultivated American is well aware that the various
political institutions of other nations are not to be gauged simply as
good or bad, and that the American system would be as impossible for
Germany as the German system for America.
Those days are indeed remote when philosophy tried to discover one
intrinsically best form of government. It is true that in the conflicts
of diverse nations the old opposition of realistic and idealistic, of
democratic and aristocratic social forces is repeated over and over. But
new problems are always coming up. The ancient opposition is
neutralized, and the problem finds its practical solution in that the
opposing forces deploy their skirmish lines in other territory. The
political ideas which led to the French Revolution had been outlived by
the middle of the nineteenth century. A compromise had been effected.
The whole stress of the conflict had transferred itself to social
problems, and no one earnestly discussed any more whether republic or
monarchy was the better form of government. The intellectual make-up of
a people and its history must decide what shall be the outward form of
its political institutions. And it is to-day tacitly admitted that there
are light and shade on either side.
The darker side of democracy, indeed, as of every system which is
founded on complete individualism, can be hidden from no one; nor would
any one be so foolish, even though he loved and admired America, as to
deny that weaknesses and dangers, and evils both secret and public, do
there abound. Those who base their judgments less on knowledge of
democratic forces than on obvious and somewhat sentimental social
prejudices are apt to look for the dangers in the wrong direction. A
German naturally thinks of mob-rule, harangues of the demagogue, and
every form of lawlessness and violence. But true democracy does not
allow of such things. A people that allows itself to turn into a mob and
to be guided by irresponsible leaders, is not capable of directing
itself. Self-direction demands the education of the nation. And nowhere
else in the world is the mere demagogue so powerless, and nowhere does
the populace observe more exemplary order and self-discipline.
The essential weakness of such a democracy is rather the importance it
assigns to the average man with his petty opinions, which are sometimes
right and sometimes wrong, his total lack of comprehension for all that
is great and exceptional, his self-satisfied dilettanteism and his
complacency before the accredited and trite in thought. This is far less
true of a republic like the French, with its genius for scepticism, a
republic nourished in æsthetic traditions and founded on the ruins of an
empire. The intellectual conditions are there quite different. But in an
ethical democracy, where self-direction is a serious issue, domination
by the average intelligence is inevitable; and those who are truly great
are the ones who find no scope for their powers. Those who appear great
are merely men who are exploiting to the utmost the tendencies of the
day. There are no great distinctions or premiums for truly high
achievements which do not immediately concern the average man, and
therefore the best energies of the nation are not spurred on to their
keenest activity. All ambition is directed necessarily toward such
achievements as the common man can understand and compete for—athletic
virtuosity and wealth. Therefore the spirit of sport and of
money-getting concerns the people more nearly than art or science, and
even in politics the domination of the majority easily crowds from the
arena those whose qualifications do not appeal to its mediocre taste.
And by as much as mature and capable minds withdraw from political life,
by so much are the well-intentioned masses more easily led astray by
sharp and self-interested politicians and politics made to cater to mean
instincts. In short, the danger is not from any wild lawlessness, but
from a crass philistinism. The seditious demagogue who appeals to
passion is less dangerous than the sly political wire-puller who
exploits the indolence and indifference of the people; and evil intent
is less to be feared than dilettanteism and the intellectual limitations
of the general public.
But, on the other hand, it is also certain that when it comes to a
critical comparison between the weaknesses and theoretical dangers of
democracy and aristocracy, the American is at no loss to serve up a
handsome list of shortcomings to the other side. He has observed and,
perhaps overestimating, he detests the spirit of caste, the existence of
those restrictions which wrongfully hamper one individual and as
undeservedly advantage another. Again, the American hates bureaucracy
and he hates militarism. The idea of highest authority being vested in a
man for any other reason than that of his individual qualifications goes
against all his convictions; and his moral feeling knows no more
detestable breed of man than the incompetent aspirant who is servile
with his superiors and brutal to his inferiors. It is typically
un-American. And if, in contrast to this, one tries to do justice to the
proved advantages of monarchy, of aristocracy and the spirit of caste,
to justify the ruler who stands above the strife of parties, and to
defend that system of symbols by which the sentiment of the past is
perpetuated in a people, and the protection which is instituted for all
the more ideal undertakings which surpass the comprehension of the
masses, or if one urges the value of that high efficiency which can
arise only from compact political organization—then the American citizen
swells with contempt. What does he care for all that if he loses the
inestimable and infinite advantage which lies in the fact that in his
state every individual takes an active hand, assumes responsibility, and
fights for his own ideals? What outward brilliancy of achievement would
compensate him for that moral value of co-operation, initiative,
self-discipline, and responsibility, which the poorest and meanest
citizen enjoys? It may be that an enlightened and well-meaning monarch
sees to it that the least peasant can sit down to his chicken of a
Sunday; but God raised up the United States as an example to all
nations, that it shall be the privilege of every man to feel himself
responsible for his town, county, state, and country, and even for all
mankind, and by his own free initiative to work to better them. The
strife of parties would better be, than that a single man should be dead
to the welfare of his country; and it is good riddance to aristocracy
and plenty, if a single man is to be prevented from emulating freely the
highest that he knows or anywise detained from his utmost
accomplishment.
All such speculative estimates of different constitutional forms lead to
no result unless they take into account the facts of history. Every side
has its good and evil. And all such discussions are the less productive
in that superiorities of constitution, although soundly argued, may or
may not in any given country be fully made use of, while on the other
hand defects of constitution are very often obviated. Indeed, to take an
example from present tendencies in America, nothing is more
characteristic than the aristocratic by-currents through which so many
dangers of democracy are avoided. Officially, of course, a republic must
remain a democracy, otherwise it mines its own foundations, and yet we
shall see that American social and political life have developed by no
means along parallel lines but rather stand out often in sharp contrast.
The same is true of Germany. Official Germany is aristocratic and
monarchic through and through, and no one would wish it other; but the
intimate life of Germany becomes every day more democratic, and thus the
natural weaknesses of an aristocracy are checked by irresistible social
counter-tendencies. It may have been the growing wealth of Germany which
raised the plane of life of the middle classes; or the industrial
advance which loaned greater importance to manufacturer and merchant,
and took some social gloss from the office-holding class; it may have
been the colonial expansion which broadened the horizon and upset a
stagnant equilibrium of stale opinion; or, again, the renewed efforts of
those who felt cramped and oppressed, the labourers, and, above all, the
women; it does not matter how it arose—a wave of progress is sweeping
over that country, and a political aristocracy is being infused with
new, democratic blood.
Now in America, as will often appear later, the days are over in which
all aristocratic tendencies were strictly held back. The influence of
intellectual leaders is increasing, art, science, and the ideals of the
upper classes are continually pushing to the front, and even social
lines and stratifications are beginning more and more to be felt. The
soul of the people is agitated by imperialistic and military sentiments,
and whereas in former times it was bent on freeing the slaves it now
discovers “the white man’s burden” to lie in the subjugation of inferior
races. The restrictions to immigration are constantly being increased.
Now of course all this does not a whit prejudice the formal political
democracy of the land; it is simply a quiet, aristocratic complement to
the inner workings of the constitution.
The presence, and even the bare possibility, here, of such by-currents,
brings out more clearly how hopeless the theoretical estimation of any
isolated form of statehood is, if it neglects the factors introduced by
the actual life of the people. The American democracy is not an
abstractly superior system of which a European can approve only by
becoming himself a republican and condemning, incidentally, his own form
of government: it is rather, merely, the necessary form of government
for the types of men and the conditions which are found here. And any
educated American of to-day fully realizes this. No theoretical
hair-splitting will solve the problem as to what is best for one or
another country; for that true historical insight is needed. And even
when the histories of two peoples are so utterly dissimilar as are those
of America and Germany, it by no means follows, as the social
by-currents just mentioned show, that the real spirit of the peoples
must be unlike. Democratic America, with its unofficial aristocratic
leanings, has, in fact, a surprising kinship to monarchical Germany,
with its inner workings of a true democracy. The two peoples are growing
into strong resemblance, although their respective constitutions
flourish and take deeper root.
The beginnings of American history showed unmistakably and imperatively
that the government of the American people must be, in the words of
Lincoln, “a government of the people, by the people, and for the
people.” No one dreamed when the Constitution of the United States was
framed, some hundred and seventeen years ago, that this democratic
instrument would ever be called on to bind together a mighty nation
extending from Maine to California. And, indeed, such a territorial
expansion would undoubtedly have stretched and burst the unifying bonds
of this Constitution, if the distance between Boston and San Francisco
had not meanwhile become practically shorter than the road from Boston
to Washington was in those early days. But that this Constitution could
so adapt itself to the undreamt broadening of conditions, that it could
continue to be the mainstay of a people that was indefinitely extending
itself by exchange and purchase, conquest and treaty, and that in no
crisis has an individual or party succeeded in any tampering with the
rights of the people; all this shows convincingly that the American form
of state was not arbitrarily hit on, but that it was the outcome of an
historical development.
* * * * *
The spirit of this commonwealth was not first conceived in the year
1787. It was strong and ripe long before the delegates from the Thirteen
States assembled under Washington’s leadership in Independence Hall at
Philadelphia. The history of the English colonists to the Atlantic coast
shows from the very first what weight they attached to the duties and
rights of the individual, and foretells as well the inevitable result,
their unloosing from the mother country and final declaration of their
independence.
We may consider the different lines of development which began early in
the seventeenth century, after the feeble attempts at colonization from
England, France and Spain in the latter half of the sixteenth century
had miscarried and left socially no traces. French settlements
flourished as early as 1605, chiefly however in Nova Scotia and other
parts of Canada, and in 1609 settlements of Dutch, whose colony on the
Hudson River, the present New York, soon passed over into English hands.
The development of the Spanish colonies on the Gulf of Mexico went on
outside the territory of these young United States; and so the story of
the meagre years of America is comprised in the history of the English
colonies alone.
These colonies began diversely but came to resemble one another more and
more as time went on. There can be no greater contrast than between the
pioneer life of stout-willed men, who have left their native soil in
order to live in undisturbed enjoyment of their Puritan faith, seeking
to found their little communities on simple forms of self-government,
and on the other hand the occupation of a rich trading company under
royal charter, or the inauguration of a colony of the crown. But these
differences could not be preserved. The tiny independent communities, as
they grew in consideration, felt the need of some protecting power and
therefore they looked once more to England; while, on the other hand,
the more powerful, chartered colonies tended to loose themselves from
the mother country, feeling, as they soon did, that their interests
could not be well administered from across a broad ocean. In spite of
the protecting arm of England, they felt it to be a condition of their
sound growth that they should manage their domestic affairs for
themselves. Thus it happened that all the colonies alike were externally
dependent on England, while internally they were independent and were
being schooled in citizenship.
The desire for self-government as a factor in the transformations which
went on can very easily be traced; but it would be harder to say how far
utilitarian and how far moral factors entered in. Virginia took the
first step. Its first settlement of 1606 was completely subject to the
king, who granted homesteads but no political rights to the colonists.
It was a lifeless undertaking until 1609, when its political status was
changed. The administration of the colony was entrusted to those who
were interested in its material success. It became a great business
undertaking which had everything in its favour. At the head was a London
company, which for a nominal sum had been allowed to purchase a strip of
land having four hundred miles of seacoast and extending inland
indefinitely. This land contained inestimable natural resources, but
needed labour to exploit them. The company then offered to grant homes
on very favourable terms to settlers, receiving in return either cash or
labour; and these inducements, together with the economic pressure felt
by the lower classes at home, brought about a rapid growth of the
colony. Now since this colony was organized like a military despotism,
whose ruler, however, was no less than three thousand miles away, the
interests of the company had to be represented by officials delegated to
live in the colony. The interests of these officials were of course
never those of the colonists, and presently, moreover, unscrupulous
officials commenced to misuse their power; so that as a result, while
the colony flourished, the company was on the brink of failure. The only
way out of this difficulty was to concede something to the colonists
themselves, and harmonize their interests with those of the company by
granting them the free direction of their own affairs. It was arranged
that every village or small city should be a political unit and as such
should send two delegates to a convention which sat to deliberate all
matters of common concern. This body met for the first time in 1619; and
in a short time it happened, as was to be expected, that the local
government felt itself to be stronger than the mercantile company back
in London. Disputes arose, and before five years the company had ceased
to exist, and Virginia became a royal province. But the fact remained
that in the year 1619 for the first time a deliberative body
representing the people had met on American soil. The first step toward
freedom had been taken. And with subtle irony fate decreed that in this
same year of grace a Dutch ship should land the first cargo of African
negroes in the same colony, as slaves.
That other form of political development, which started in the voluntary
compact of men who owned no other allegiance, was first exemplified in
the covenant of those hundred and two Puritans who landed from the
Mayflower at Plymouth, in the year 1620, having forsaken England in
order to enjoy religious freedom in the New World. A storm forced them
to land on Cape Cod, where they remained and amid the severest hardships
built up their little colony, which, as no other, has been a perpetual
spring of moral force. Even to-day the best men of the land derive their
strength from the moral courage and earnestness of life of the Pilgrims.
Before they landed they signed a compact, in which they declared that
they had made this voyage “for ye glory of God and advancement of ye
Christian faith, and honour of our King and countrie,” and that now in
the sight of God they would “combine ... togeather into a civil body
politik for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of ye
end aforesaid, and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute and frame such
just and equal lawes, ordinances, actes, constitutions and offices from
time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for ye
generall good of ye colonie.”
The executive was a governor and his assistants, elected annually from
the people: while the power to make laws remained with the body of male
communicants of the church. And so it remained for eighteen years, until
the growth of the colony made it hard for all church-members to meet
together, so that a simple system of popular representation by election
had to be introduced. This colony united later with a flourishing
trading settlement, which centred about Salem; and these together formed
the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which in 1640 numbered already twenty
thousand souls.
The covenant which was drawn up on board the Mayflower is to be
accounted the first voluntary federation of independent Americans for
the purposes of orderly government. The first written constitution was
drawn up in the colony of Connecticut, a colony which repeated
essentially the successful experiments of New Plymouth, and which
consisted of agricultural settlements and small posts for trading with
the Indians situated at Windsor and Hartford and other places along the
Connecticut Valley. Led by common interests, they adopted in 1638 a
formal constitution.
There was still a third important type of colonial government, which was
at first thoroughly aristocratic and English, and nevertheless became
quickly Americanized. It was the custom of the King to grant to
distinguished men, under provision of a small tribute, almost
monarchical rights over large tracts of land. The first such man was
Lord Baltimore, who received in 1632 a title to the domain of Maryland,
on the Chesapeake Bay. He enjoyed the most complete princely
prerogatives, and pledged to the crown in return about a fifth part of
the gold and silver mined in his province. In 1664 Charles the Second
gave to his brother, the Duke of York, a large territory, which was soon
broken up, and which included what are now known as the States of
Vermont, New Jersey, and Delaware. The great provinces of Georgia and
Carolina—now North and South Carolina—were awarded by the same King to
one of his admirals, Sir William Penn, for certain services. Penn died,
and his son, who found himself in need of the sixteen thousand pounds
which his father had loaned to the King, gratified that monarch by
accepting in their stead a stretch of coast lands extending between the
fortieth and forty-third degrees of latitude.
In this way extensive districts were turned over to the caprice of a few
noblemen; but immediately the spirit of self-direction took everywhere
root, and a social-political enthusiasm proceeded to shape the land
according to new ideals. Carolina took counsel of the philosopher,
Locke, in carrying out her experiment. Maryland, which was immediately
prospered with two hundred men of property and rank, chiefly of Roman
Catholic faith, started out with a general popular assembly, and soon
went over to the representative system. And Penn’s constructive
handiwork, the Quaker State of Pennsylvania, was intended from the first
to be “a consecrated experiment.” Penn himself explained that he should
take care so to arrange the politics of his colony that neither he
himself nor his successors should have an opportunity to do wrong.
Penn’s enthusiasm awoke response from the continent: he himself founded
the “city of brotherly love,” Philadelphia; and Franz Daniel Pastorius
brought over his colony of Mennonites, the first German settlers, who
took up their abode at Germantown.
Thus it was that the spirit of self-reliant and self-assertive
independence took root in the most various soils. But that which led the
colonies to unite was not their common sentiments and ambitions, but it
was their common enemies. In spite of the similarity of their positions
there was no lack of sharp contrasts. And perhaps the most striking of
these was the opposition between the southern colonies, with their
languid climate, where the planters left all the work to slaves, and the
middle and northern provinces, where the citizens found in work the
inspiration of their lives. The foes which bound together these diverse
elements were the Indians, the French, the Spanish, and lastly their
parent race, the English.
The Indian had been lord of the land until he was driven back by the
colonists to remoter hunting territory. The more warlike tribes tried
repeatedly to wipe out the white intruder, and constantly menaced the
isolated settlements, which were by no means a match for them. Soon
after the first serious conflict in 1636, the Pequot war, Rhode Island,
which was a small colony of scattered settlements, made overtures toward
a protective alliance with her stronger neighbours. In this she was
successful, and together with Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, and
Connecticut, formed the United Colonies of New England. This union was
of little practical importance except as a first lesson to the colonies
to avoid petty jealousies and to consider a closer mutual alliance as a
possibility which would by no means impair the freedom and independence
of the uniting parties.
The wars with the French colonies had more serious consequences. The
French, who were the natural enemies of all English settlements, had
originally planted colonies only in the far north, in Quebec in 1608.
But during those decades in which the English wayfarers were making
homes for themselves along the Atlantic coast, the French were migrating
down from the north through the valley of the Saint Lawrence and along
the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. Then they pressed on down this
stream to its mouth and laid title to the tremendous tracts which it
drains, in the name of the French crown. This country they called after
King Louis XIV, Louisiana. They had not come as colonists, but solely
with an eye to gain, hoping to exploit these untouched resources in
behalf of the Canadian fur traffic; and close on the heels of the trader
came the Catholic priest. Thus the territory that flanked the English
colonies to inland fell into French hands, whereas the land-grants of
the English crown so read that only the Pacific Ocean should be the
western boundary. A collision was therefore inevitable, although indeed
mountains and virgin forests separated the coastland settlements from
the inland regions of the Mississippi where the French had planted and
fortified their trading posts.
When, in 1689, war broke out in Europe between England and France, a
fierce struggle began between their representatives in the New World.
But it was not now as it had been in the Indian war, where only a couple
of colonies were involved. All the colonies along the coast were
threatened by a common enemy. A congress of delegates convened at New
York in April of 1690, in which for the first time all the colonies were
invited to take part. Three long wars followed. The greatest advantage
on the French side was that from the first they had been on good terms
with the Indians, whose aid they were now able to enlist. But the French
were numerically weak, and received but little assistance from their
mother country. When in 1766 the last great war broke out the English
colonies had a population of a million and a quarter, while the French
had only a tenth as many. Chiefly and finally, the English colonists
were actual settlers, hardened and matured through carrying the
responsibilities of their young state, and fighting for hearth and home;
the French were either traders or soldiers. The principle of free
government was destined on this continent to triumph. Washington, then a
young man, led the fight; the English Secretary of State, William Pitt,
did everything in his power to aid; and the victory was complete. By the
treaty of 1763 all French possessions east of the Mississippi were given
to England, with the exception of New Orleans, which, together with the
French possessions west of the Mississippi, went to Spain. Spain
meanwhile ceded Florida to England. Thus the entire continent was
divided between England and Spain.
But the Seven Years War had not merely altered the map of America; it
had been an instructive lesson to the colonists. They had learned that
their fortunes were one; that their own generals and soldiers were not
inferior to any which England could send over; and lastly, they had come
to see that England looked at the affairs of the colonies strictly from
the point of view of her own gain. Herewith was opened up a new prospect
for the future: the French no longer threatened and everything this side
of the Mississippi stood open to them and promised huge resources. What
need had they to depend further on the English throne? The spirit of
self-direction could now consistently come forward and dictate the last
move.
It is true that the colonists were still faithful English subjects, and
in spite of their independent ambitions they took it for granted that
England would always direct their foreign policy, would have the right
to veto such laws as they passed, and that the English governors would
always be recognized as official authorities. But now the English
Parliament planned certain taxations that were the occasion of serious
dispute. The Thirteen Colonies, which in the meantime had grown to be a
population of two million, had by their considerable war expenditures
shown to the debt-encumbered Britons the thriving condition of colonial
trade. And the latter were soon ready with a plan to lay a part of the
public taxation on the Americans. It was not in itself unfair to demand
of the colonies some contribution to the public treasury, since many of
the expenditures were distinctly for their benefit; and yet it must have
seemed extraordinary to these men who had been forced from childhood to
shift for themselves, and who believed the doctrine of self-government
to be incontrovertible. They objected to paying taxes to a Parliament in
which they had no representation; and the phrase, “no taxation without
representation,” became the motto of the hour.