community which he had created, eighty-five years later. His school was
the famous Charterhouse; his University, Cambridge; and he took orders
in the Church of England. But the protests of the Puritans came to his
ears before he was well installed; and he examined and meditated upon
them with all the quiet power of his serene and penetrating mind. It
was not long before he saw that truth lay with the dissenting party;
and, like Emerson long afterward, he at once left the communion in
which he had thought to spend his life. He came to Massachusetts in
1631, and, as we have seen, was not long in discovering that he was
more Puritan than the Puritans. When differences arose, he departed to
the Plymouth Colony, and there abode for several useful years.
But though the men of Boston and Salem feared him, they loved him and
recognized his ability; indeed, they never could rid themselves of an
uneasy sense that in all their quarrels it was he who had the best of
the argument; they were often reduced to pleading necessity or
expediency, when he replied with plain truth. He responded to an
invitation to return to Salem, in 1633, by a willing acceptance; but no
sooner had he arrived than a discussion began which continued until he
was for the second and final time banished in 1636. The main bone of
contention was the right of the church to interfere in state matters.
He opposed theocracy as profaning the holy peace of the temple with the
warring of civil parties. The Massachusetts magistrates were all church
members, which Williams declared to be as unreasonable as to make the
selection of a pilot or a physician depend upon his proficiency in
theology. He would not admit the warrant of magistrates to compel
attendance at public worship; it was a violation of natural right, and
an incitement to hypocrisy. "But the ship must have a pilot," objected
the magistrates, "And he holds her to her course without bringing his
crew to prayer in irons," was Williams's rejoinder. "We must protect
our people from corruption and punish heresy," said they. "Conscience
in the individual can never become public property; and you, as public
trustees, can own no spiritual powers," answered he. "May we not
restrain the church from apostasy?" they asked. He replied, "No: the
common peace and liberty depend upon the removal of the yoke of
soul-oppression."
The magistrates were perplexed, and doubtful what to do. Laud in
England was menacing them with episcopacy, and they, as a preparation
for resistance, decreed that all freemen must take an oath of
allegiance to Massachusetts instead of to the King. Williams, of
course, abhorred episcopacy as much as they did; but he would not
concede the right to impose a compulsory oath. A deputation of
ministers was sent to Salem to argue with him: he responded by
counseling them to admonish the magistrates of their injustice. He was
cited to appear before the state representatives to recant; he
appeared, but only to affirm that he was ready to accept banishment or
death sooner than be false to his convictions. Sentence of banishment
was thereupon passed against him, but he was allowed till the ensuing
spring to depart; meanwhile, however, the infection of his opinions
spreading in Salem, a warrant was sent to summon him to embark for
England; but he, anticipating this step, was already on his way through
the winter woods southward.
The pure wine of his doctrine was too potent for the iron-headed
Puritans. But it was their fears rather than their hearts that
dismissed him; those who best knew him praised him most unreservedly;
and even Cotton Mather admitted that he seemed "to have the root of the
matter in him."
Williams's journey through the pathless snows and frosts of an
exceptionally severe winter is one of the picturesque and impressive
episodes of the times. During more than three months he pursued his
lonely and perilous way; hollow trees were a welcome shelter; he lacked
fire, food and guides. But he had always pleaded in behalf of the
Indians; he had on one occasion denied the validity of a royal grant
unless it were countersigned by native proprietors; and during his
residence in Plymouth he had learned the Indian language. All this now
stood him in good stead. The man who was outcast from the society of
his white brethren, because his soul was purer and stronger than
theirs, was received and ministered unto by the savages; he knew their
ways, was familiar in their wigwams, championed their rights, wrestled
lovingly with their errors, mediated in their quarrels, and was
idolized by them as was no other of his race. Pokanoket, Massasoit and
Canonicus were his hosts and guardians during the winter and spring;
and in summer he descended the river in a birch-bark canoe to the site
of the present city of Providence, so named by him in recognition of
the Divine mercies; and there he pitched his tent beside the spring,
hoping to make the place "a shelter for persons distressed for
conscience."
His desire was amply fulfilled. The chiefs of the Narragansetts deeded
him a large tract of land; oppressed persons locked to him for comfort
and succor, and never in vain; a republic grew up based on liberty of
conscience, and the civil rule of the majority: the first in the world.
Orthodoxy and heresy were on the same footing before him; he trusted
truth to conquer error without aid of force. Though he ultimately
withdrew from all churches, he founded the first Baptist church in the
new world; he twice visited England, and obtained a charter for his
colony in 1644. Williams from first to last sat on the Opposition Bench
of life; and we say of him that he was hardly used by those who should
most have honored him. Yet it is probable that he would have found less
opportunity to do good at either an earlier or a later time. Critics so
keen and unrelenting as he never find favor with the ruling powers; he
would have been at least as "impossible" in the Nineteenth Century as
he was in the Seventeenth; and we would have had no Rhode Island to
give him. We can derive more benefit from his arraignment of society
two hundred and fifty years ago than we should were he to call us to
account to-day, because no resentment mingles with our intellectual
appreciation: our withers seem to be unwrung. The crucifixions of a
former age are always denounced by those who, if the martyr fell into
their hands, would be the first to nail him to the cross.
But the Puritanism of Williams, and that of those who banished him,
were as two branches proceeding from a single stem; their differences,
which were the type of those that created two parties in the community,
were the inevitable result of the opposition between the practical and
the theoretic temperaments. This opposition is organic; it is
irreconcilable, but nevertheless wholesome; both sides possess versions
of the same truth, and the perfect state arises from the contribution
made by both to the common good--not from their amalgamation, or from a
compromise between them, Williams's community was successful, but it
was successful, on the lines he laid down, only during its minority; as
its population increased, civil order was assured by a tacit abatement
of the right of individual independence, and by the insensible
subordination of particular to general interests. In Massachusetts, on
the other hand, which from the first inclined to the practical
view--which recognized the dangers surrounding an organization weak in
physical resources, but strong in spiritual conviction, and which, by
reason of the radical nature of those convictions, was specially liable
to interference from the settled power of orthodoxy:--in Massachusetts
there was a diplomatic tendency in the work of building up the
commonwealth. The integrity of Williams's logic was conceded, but to
follow it out to its legitimate conclusions was deemed inconsistent
with the welfare and continuance of the popular institutions. The
condemnation of dissenters from dissent sounded unjust; but it was the
alternative to the more far-reaching injustice of suffering the
structure which had been erected with such pains and sacrifice to fall
to pieces just when it was attaining form and character. The time for
universal toleration might come later, when the vigor and solidity of
the nucleus could no longer be vitiated by fanciful and transient
vagaries. The right of private judgment carried no guarantee comparable
with that which attached to the sober and tested convictions of the
harmonious body of responsible citizens.
When, therefore, the young Henry Vane, coming to Boston with the
prestige of aristocratic birth and the reputation of liberal opinions,
was elected Governor in 1635, and presently laid down the principle
that "Ishmael shall dwell in the presence of his brethren," he at once
met with opposition; and he and Anne Hutchinson, and other visionaries
and enthusiasts, were made to feel that Boston was no place for them.
Yet at the same time there was a conflict between the body of the
freemen and the magistrates as to the limits and embodiments of the
governing power; the magistrates contended that there were manifest
practical advantages in life appointments to office, and in the
undisturbed domination of men of approved good life and intellectual
ability; the people replied that all that might be true, but they would
still insist upon electing and dismissing whom they pleased. Thus was
inadvertently demonstrated the invincible security of democratic
principles; the masses are always willing to agree that the best shall
rule, but insist that they, the multitude, and not any Star Chamber, no
matter how impeccable, shall decide who the best are. Herein alone is
safety. The masses, of course, are not actuated by motives higher than
those of the select few; but their impartiality cannot but be greater,
because, assuming that each voter has in view his personal welfare,
their ballots must insure the welfare of the majority. And if the
welfare of the majority be God's will, then the truth of the old Latin
maxim, Vox Populi vox Dei, is vindicated without any recourse to
mysticism. The only genuine Aristocracy, or Rule of the Best, must in
other words be the creation not of their own will and judgment, but of
those of the subjects of their administration.
The political experiments and vicissitudes of these early times are of
vastly greater historical importance than are such external episodes,
as, for example, the Pequot war in 1637. A whole tribe was
exterminated, and thereby, and still more by the heroic action of
Williams in preventing, by his personal intercession, an alliance
between the Pequots and the Narragansetts, the white colonies were
preserved. But beyond this, the affair has no bearing upon the
development of the American idea. During these first decades, the most
profound questions of national statesmanship were discussed in the
assemblies of the Massachusetts Puritans, with an acumen and wisdom
which have never been surpassed. The equity and solidity of most of
their conclusions are extraordinary; the intellectual ability of the
councilors being purged and exalted by their ardent religious faith.
The "Body of Liberties," written out in 1641 by Nathaniel Ward, handles
the entire subject of popular government in a masterly manner. It was a
Counsel of Perfection molded, by understanding of the prevailing
conditions, into practical form. The basis of its provisions was the
primitive one which is traced back to the time when the Anglo-Saxon
tribes met to choose their chiefs or to decide on war or other matters
of general concern. It was the basis suggested by nature; for, as the
chief historian of these times has remarked, freedom is spontaneous,
but the artificial distinctions of rank are the growth of centuries.
Lands, according to this instrument, were free and alienable; the
freemen of a corporation held them, but claimed no right of
distribution. There should be no monopolies: no wife-beating: no
slavery "Except voluntary": ministers as well as magistrates should be
chosen by popular vote. Authority was given to approved customs; the
various towns or settlements constituting the commonwealth were each a
living political organism. No combination of churches should control
any one church:--such were some of the provisions. The colonies were
availing themselves of the unique opportunity afforded by their
emancipation, in the wilderness, from the tyranny and obstruction of
old-world traditions and licensed abuses.
By the increasing body of their brethren in England, meanwhile, New
England was looked upon as a sort of New Jerusalem, and letters from
the leaders were passed from hand to hand like messages from saints. Up
to the time when Charles and Laud were checked by Parliament, the tide
of emigration set so strongly toward the American shores that measures
were taken by the King to arrest it; by 1638, there were in New England
more than twenty-one thousand colonists. The rise of the power of
Parliament stopped the influx; but the succeeding twenty years of peace
gave the much-needed chance for quiet and well-considered growth and
development. The singular prudence and foresight of Winthrop and others
in authority, during this interregnum, was showed by their declining to
accept certain apparent advantages proffered them in love and good
faith by their English friends. A new patent was offered them in place
of their royal charter; but the colonists perceived that the reign of
Parliament was destined to be temporary, and wisely refused. Other
suggestions, likely to lead to future entanglements, were rejected;
among them, a proposition from Cromwell that they should all come over
and occupy Ireland. This is as curious as that other alleged incident
of Cromwell and Hampden having been stopped by Laud when they had
embarked for New England, and being forced to remain in the country
which soon after owed to them its freedom from kingly and episcopal
tyranny.
Material prosperity began to show itself in the new country, now that
the first metaphysical problems were in the way of settlement. In Salem
they were building ships, cotton was manufactured in Boston; the export
trade in furs and other commodities was brisk and profitable. The
English Parliament passed a law exempting them from taxes. After so
much adversity, fortune was sending them a gleam of sunshine, and they
were making their hay. But something of the arrogance of prosperity
must also be accredited to them; the Puritans were never more bigoted
and intolerant than now. The persecution of the Quakers is a blot on
their fame, only surpassed by the witchcraft cruelties of the
concluding years of the century. Mary Dyar, and the men Robinson,
Stephenson and Leddra were executed for no greater crime than obtruding
their unwelcome opinions, and outraging the propriety of the community.
The fate of Christison hung for a while in the balance; he was not less
guilty than the others, and he defied his judges; he told them that
where they murdered one, ten others would arise in his place; the same
words that had been heard many a time in England, when the Puritans
themselves were on their trial. Nevertheless the judges passed the
sentence of death; but the people were disturbed by such bloody
proceedings, and Christison was finally set free. It must not be
forgotten that the Quakers of this period were very different from
those who afterward populated the City of Brotherly Love under Penn.
They were fanatics of the most extravagant and incorrigible sort;
loud-mouthed, frantic and disorderly; and instead of observing modesty
in their garb, their women not seldom ran naked through the streets of
horrified Boston, in broad daylight. They thirsted for persecution as
ordinary persons do for wealth or fame, and would not be satisfied till
they had provoked punishment. The granite wall of Puritanism seemed to
exist especially for them to dash themselves against it. Such persons
can hardly be deemed sane; and it is of not the slightest importance
what particular creed they profess. They are opposed to authority and
order because they are authority and order; in our day, we group such
folk under the name, Anarchists; but, instead of hanging them as the
Puritans did, we let them froth and threaten, according to the policy
of Roger Williams, until the lack of echoes leads them to hold their
peace.
Although slavery, or perpetual servitude, was forbidden by the statute,
there were many slaves in New England, Indians and whites as well as
negroes. The first importation of the latter was in 1619, by the Dutch,
it is said. No slave could be kept in bondage more than ten years; it
was stipulated that they were to be brought from Africa, or elsewhere,
only with their own consent; and when, in 1638, it appeared that a
cargo of them had been forcibly introduced, they were sent back to
Africa. Prisoners of war were condemned to servitude; and, altogether,
the feeling on the subject of human bondage appears to have been both
less and more fastidious than it afterward became. There was no such
indifference as was shown in the Southern slave trade two centuries
later, nor was there any of the humanitarian fanaticism exhibited by
the extreme Abolitionists of the years before the Civil War. It may
turn out that the attitude of the Puritans had more common-sense in it
than had either of the others.
The great event of 1643 was the natural outcome of the growth and
expansion of the previous time. It was the federation of the four
colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut.
Connecticut had been settled in 1680, but it was not till six years
afterward that a party headed by the renowned Thomas Hooker, the "Son
of Thunder," and one of the most judicious men of that age, journeyed
from Boston with the deliberate purpose of creating another
commonwealth in the desert. Connecticut did not offer assurances of a
peaceful settlement; the Indians were numerous there, and not
well-disposed; and in the south, the Dutch of New Amsterdam were
complaining of an infringement of boundaries. These ominous conditions
came to a head in the Pequot war; after which peace reigned for many
years. A constitution of the most liberal kind was created by the
settlers, some of the articles of which led to a correspondence between
Hooker and Winthrop as to the comparative merits of magisterial and
popular governments. Unlearned men, however religious, if elected to
office, must needs call in the assistance of the learned ministers,
who, thus burdened with matters not rightly within their function,
might err in counseling thereon. Of the people, the best part was
always the least, and of that best, the wiser is the lesser.--This was
Winthrop's position. Hooker replied that to allow discretion to the
judge was the way to tyranny. Seek the law at its mouth; it is free
from passion, and should rule the rulers themselves; let the judge do
according to the sentence of the law. In high matters, business should
be done by a general council, chosen by all, as was the practice of the
Jewish and other well-ordered states.--This is an example of the
political discussions of that day in New England; both parties to it
concerned solely to come at the truth, and free from any selfish aim or
pride. The soundness of Hooker's view may be deduced from the fact that
the constitution of Connecticut (which differed in no essential respect
from those of the other colonies) has survived almost unchanged to the
present day. Statesmanship, during two and a half centuries, has
multiplied details and improved the nicety of adjustments; but it has
not discerned any principles which had not been seen with perfect
distinctness by the clear and venerable eyes of the Puritan fathers.
Eaton, another man of similar caliber, was the leading spirit in the
New Haven settlement, assisted by the Reverend Mr. Davenport; many of
the colonists were Second-Adventists, and they called the Bible their
Statute-Book. The date of their establishment was 1638. The incoherent
population of Rhode Island caused it to be excluded from the
federation; but Williams, journeying to London, obtained a patent from
the exiled but now powerful Vane, and took as the motto of his
government, "Amor Vincet Omnia." New Hampshire, which had been united
to Massachusetts in 1641, could have no separate part in the new
arrangement; and Maine, an indeterminate region, sparsely inhabited by
people who had come to seek not God, but fish in the western world, was
not considered. The articles of federation of the four Calvinist
colonies aimed to provide mutual protection against the Indians,
against possible encroachment from England, against Dutch and French
colonists: they declared a league not only for defense and offense, but
for the promotion of spiritual truth and liberty. Nothing was altered
in the constitutions of any of the contracting parties; and an
equitable system of apportioning expenses was devised. Each partner
sent two delegates to the common council; all affairs proper to the
federation were determined by a three-fourths vote; a law for the
delivery of fugitive slaves was agreed to; and the commissioners of the
other jurisdictions were empowered to coerce any member of the
federation which should break this contract. The title of The United
Colonies of New England was bestowed upon the alliance. The articles
were the work of a committee of the leading men in the country, such as
Winthrop, Winslow, Haynes and Eaton; and the confederacy lasted forty
years, being dissolved in 1684.