ARMS AND THE RIGHTS OF MAN
Such was roughly the position of the thirteen English colonies in North
America when in the year 1764, shortly after the conclusion of the Seven
Years' War, George Grenville, who had become the chief Minister of
George III. after the failure of Lord Bute, proposed to raise a revenue
from these colonies by the imposition of a Stamp Act.
The Stamp Act and the resistance it met mark so obviously the beginning
of the business which ended in the separation of the United States from
Great Britain that Grenville and the British Parliament have been
frequently blamed for the lightness of heart with which they entered
upon so momentous a course. But in fact it did not seem to them
momentous, nor is it easy to say why they should have thought it
momentous. It is certain that Grenville's political opponents, many of
whom were afterwards to figure as the champions of the colonists, at
first saw its momentousness as little as he. They offered to his
proposal only the most perfunctory sort of opposition, less than they
habitually offered to all his measures, good or bad.
And, in point of fact, there was little reason why a Whig of the type
and class that then governed England should be startled or shocked by a
proposal to extend the English system of stamping documents to the
English colonies. That Parliament had the legal right to tax the
colonies was not seriously questionable. Under the British Constitution
the power of King, Lords and Commons over the King's subjects was and is
absolute, and none denied that the colonists were the King's subjects.
They pleaded indeed that their charters did not expressly authorize such
taxation; but neither did they expressly exclude it, and on a strict
construction it would certainly seem that a power which would have
existed if there had been no charter remained when the charter was
silent.
It might further be urged that equity as well as law justified the
taxation of the colonies, for the expenditure which these taxes were
raised to meet was largely incurred in defending the colonies first
against the French and then against the Indians. The method of taxation
chosen was not new, neither had it been felt to be specially grievous.
Much revenue is raised in Great Britain and all European countries
to-day by that method, and there is probably no form of taxation at
which men grumble less. Its introduction into America had actually been
recommended on its merits by eminent Americans. It had been proposed by
the Governor of Pennsylvania as early as 1739. It had been approved at
one time by Benjamin Franklin himself. To-day it must seem to most of us
both less unjust and less oppressive than the Navigation Laws, which the
colonists bore without complaint.
As for the suggestion sometimes made that there was something
unprecedentedly outrageous about an English Parliament taxing people who
were unrepresented there, it is, in view of the constitution of that
Parliament, somewhat comic. If the Parliament of 1764 could only tax
those whom it represented, its field of taxation would be somewhat
narrow. Indeed, the talk about taxation without representation being
tyranny, however honestly it might be uttered by an American, could only
be conscious or unconscious hypocrisy in men like Burke, who were not
only passing their lives in governing and taxing people who were
unrepresented, but who were quite impenitently determined to resist any
attempt to get them represented even in the most imperfect fashion.
All this is true; and yet it is equally true that the proposed tax at
once excited across the Atlantic the most formidable discontent. Of this
discontent we may perhaps summarize the immediate causes as follows.
Firstly, no English minister or Parliament had, as a fact, ever before
attempted to tax the colonies. That important feature of the case
distinguished it from that of the Navigation Laws, which had
prescription on their side. Then, if the right to tax were once
admitted, no one could say how far it would be pushed. Under the
Navigation Laws the colonists knew just how far they were restricted,
and they knew that within the limits of such restrictions they could
still prosper. But if once the claim of the British Parliament to tax
were quietly accepted, it seemed likely enough that every British
Minister who had nowhere else to turn for a revenue would turn to the
unrepresented colonies, which would furnish supply after supply until
they were "bled white." That was a perfectly sound, practical
consideration, and it naturally appealed with especial force to
mercantile communities like that of Boston.
But if we assume that it was the only consideration involved, we shall
misunderstand all that followed, and be quite unprepared for the
sweeping victory of a purely doctrinal political creed which brought
about the huge domestic revolution of which the breaking of the ties
with England was but an aspect. The colonists did feel it unjust that
they should be taxed by an authority which was in no way responsible to
them; and they so felt it because, as has already been pointed out, they
enjoyed in the management of their everyday affairs a large measure of
practical democracy. Therein they differed from the English, who, being
habitually governed by an oligarchy, did not feel it extraordinary that
the same oligarchy should tax them. The Americans for the most part
governed themselves, and the oligarchy came in only as an alien and
unnatural thing levying taxes. Therefore it was resisted.
The resistance was at first largely instinctive. The formulation of the
democratic creed which should justify it was still to come. Yet already
there were voices, especially in Virginia, which adumbrated the
incomparable phrases of the greatest of Virginians. Already Richard
Bland had appealed to "the law of Nature and those rights of mankind
that flow from it." Already Patrick Henry had said, "Give me liberty or
give me death!"
It was but a foreshadowing of the struggle to come. In 1766 the
Rockingham Whigs, having come into power upon the fall of Grenville,
after some hesitation repealed the Stamp Act, reaffirming at the same
time the abstract right of Parliament to tax the colonies. America was
for the time quieted. There followed in England a succession of weak
Ministries, all, of course, drawn from the same oligarchical class, and
all of much the same political temper, but all at issue with each other,
and all more or less permanently at issue with the King. As a mere
by-product of one of the multitudinous intrigues to which this situation
gave rise, Charles Townshend, a brilliant young Whig orator who had
become Chancellor of the Exchequer, revived in 1768 the project of
taxing the American colonies. This was now proposed in the form of a
series of duties levied on goods exported to those colonies--the one
most obnoxious to the colonists and most jealously maintained by the
Ministers being a duty on tea. The Opposition had now learnt from the
result of the Stamp Act debate that American taxation was an excellent
issue on which to challenge the Ministry, and the Tea Tax became at once
a "Party Question"--that is, a question upon which the rival oligarchs
divided themselves into opposing groups.
Meanwhile in America the new taxes were causing even more exasperation
than the Stamp Act had caused--probably because they were more menacing
in their form, if not much more severe in their effect. At any rate, it
is significant that in the new struggle we find the commercial colony of
Massachusetts very decidedly taking the lead. The taxed tea, on its
arrival in Boston harbour, was seized and flung into the sea. A wise
Government would have withdrawn when it was obvious that the enforcement
of the taxes would cost far more than the taxes themselves were worth,
the more so as they had already been so whittled down by concessions as
to be worth practically nothing, and it is likely enough that the
generally prudent and politic aristocrats who then directed the action
of England would have reverted to the Rockingham policy had not the King
made up his unfortunate German mind to the coercion and humiliation of
the discontented colonists. It is true that the British Crown had long
lost its power of independent action, and that George III. had failed in
his youthful attempts to recapture it. Against the oligarchy combined he
was helpless; but his preference for one group of oligarchs over another
was still an asset, and he let it clearly be understood that such
influence as he possessed would be exercised unreservedly in favour of
any group that would undertake to punish the American rebels. He found
in Lord North a Minister willing, though not without considerable
misgivings, to forward his policy and able to secure for it a majority
in Parliament. And from that moment the battle between the Home
Government and the colonists was joined.
The character and progress of that battle will best be grasped if we
mark down certain decisive incidents which determine its course. The
first of these was the celebrated "Boston Tea Party" referred to above.
It was the first act of overt resistance, and it was followed on the
English side by the first dispatch of an armed force--grossly inadequate
for its purpose--to America, and on the American by the rapid arming and
drilling of the local militias not yet avowedly against the Crown, but
obviously with the ultimate intention of resisting the royal authority
should it be pushed too far.
The next turning-point is the decision of the British Government early
in 1774 to revoke the Charter of Massachusetts. It is the chief event of
the period during which war is preparing, and it leads directly to all
that follows. For it raised a new controversy which could not be
resolved by the old legal arguments, good or bad. Hitherto the colonists
had relied upon their interpretation of existing charters, while the
Government contented itself with putting forward a different
interpretation. But the new action of that Government shifted the ground
of debate from the question of the interpretation of the charters to
that of the ultimate source of their authority. The Ministers said in
effect, "You pretend that this document concedes to you the right of
immunity from taxation. We deny it: but at any rate, it was a free gift
from the British Crown, and whatever rights you enjoy under it you enjoy
during His Majesty's pleasure. Since you insist on misinterpreting it,
we will withdraw it, as we are perfectly entitled to do, and we will
grant you a new charter about the terms of which no such doubts can
arise."
It was a very direct and very fundamental challenge, and it inevitably
produced two effects--the one immediate, the other somewhat deferred.
Its practical first-fruit was the Continental Congress. Its ultimate but
unmistakably logical consequence was the Declaration of Independence.
America was unified on the instant, for every colony felt the knife at
its throat. In September a Congress met, attended by the representatives
of eleven colonies. Peyton Randolph, presiding, struck the note of the
moment with a phrase: "I am not a Virginian, but an American." Under
Virginian leadership the Congress vigorously backed Massachusetts, and
in October a "Declaration of Colonial Right" had been issued by the
authority of all the colonies represented there.
The British Ministers seem to have been incomprehensibly blind to the
seriousness of the situation. Since they were pledged not to concede
what the colonists demanded, it was essential that they should at once
summon all the forces at their command to crush what was already an
incipient and most menacing rebellion. They did nothing of the sort.
They slightly strengthened the totally inadequate garrison which would
soon have to face a whole people in arms, and they issued a foolish
proclamation merely provocative and backed by no power that could
enforce it, forbidding the meeting of Continental Congresses in the
future. That was in January. In April the skirmishes of Lexington and
Concord had shown how hopelessly insufficient was their military force
to meet even local sporadic and unorganized revolts. In May the second
Continental Congress met, and in July appeared by its authority a
general call to arms addressed to the whole population of America.
Up to this point the colonists, if rebellious in their practical
attitude, had been strictly constitutional in their avowed aims. In the
"Declaration of Colonial Right" of 1774, and even in the appeal to arms
of 1775, all suggestion of breaking away from the Empire was repudiated.
But now that the sword was virtually drawn there were practical
considerations which made the most prudent of the rebels consider
whether it would not be wiser to take the final step, and frankly
repudiate the British Sovereignty altogether. For one thing, by the laws
of England, and indeed of all civilized nations, the man who took part
in an armed insurrection against the head of the State committed
treason, and the punishment for treason was death. Men who levied war on
the King's forces while still acknowledging him as their lawful ruler
were really inviting the Government to hang them as soon as it could
catch them. It might be more difficult for the British Government to
treat as criminals soldiers who were fighting under the orders of an
organized _de facto_ government, which at any rate declared itself to be
that of an independent nation. Again, foreign aid, which would not be
given for the purpose of reforming the internal administration of
British dominions, might well be forthcoming if it were a question of
dismembering those dominions. These considerations were just and carried
no little weight; yet it is doubtful if they would have been strong
enough to prevail against the sentiments and traditions which still
bound the colonies to the mother country had not the attack on the
charters forced the controversy back to first principles, and so opened
the door of history to the man who was to provide America with a creed
and to convert the controversy from a legal to something like a
religious quarrel.
Old Peyton Randolph, who had so largely guided the deliberations of the
first Continental Congress, was at the last moment prevented by
ill-health from attending the second. His place in the Virginian
Delegation was taken by Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson was not yet thirty when he took his seat in the Continental
Congress, but he was already a notable figure in his native State. He
belonged by birth to the slave-holding gentry of the South, though not
to the richest and most exclusive section of that class. Physically he
was long limbed and loose jointed, but muscular, with a strong ugly face
and red hair. He was adept at the physical exercises which the
Southerners cultivated most assiduously, a bold and tireless rider who
could spend days in the saddle without fatigue, and a crack shot even
among Virginians. In pursuit of the arts and especially of music he was
equally eager, and his restless intelligence was keenly intrigued by the
new wonders that physical science was beginning to reveal to men;
mocking allusions to his interest in the habits of horned frogs will be
found in American pasquinades of two generations. He had sat in the
Virginian House of Burgesses and had taken a prominent part in the
resistance of that body to the royal demands. As a speaker, however, he
was never highly successful, and a just knowledge of his own
limitations, combined perhaps with a temperamental dislike, generally
led him to rely on his pen rather than his tongue in public debate. For
as a writer he had a command of a pure, lucid and noble English
unequalled in his generation and equalled by Corbett alone.
But for history the most important thing about the man is his creed. It
was the creed of a man in the forefront of his age, an age when French
thinkers were busy drawing from the heritage of Latin civilizations
those fundamental principles of old Rome which custom and the
corruptions of time had overgrown. The gospel of the new age had already
been written: it had brought to the just mind of Jefferson a conviction
which he was to communicate to all his countrymen, and through them to
the new nation which the sword was creating. The Declaration of
Independence is the foundation stone of the American Republic, and the
Declaration of Independence in its essential part is but an incomparable
translation and compression of the _Contrat Social_. The aid which
France brought to America did not begin when a French fleet sailed into
Chesapeake Bay. It began when, perhaps years before the first whisper of
discontent, Thomas Jefferson sat down in his Virginian study to read the
latest work of the ingenious M. Rousseau.
For now the time was rife for such intellectual leadership as Jefferson,
armed by Rousseau, could supply. The challenge flung down by the British
Government in the matter of the Charter of Massachusetts was to be taken
up. The argument that whatever rights Americans might have they derived
from Royal Charters was to be answered by one who held that their
"inalienable rights" were derived from a primordial charter granted not
by King George but by his Maker.
The second Continental Congress, after many hesitations, determined at
length upon a complete severance with the mother country. A resolution
to that effect was carried on the motion of Lee, the great Virginian
gentleman, an ancestor of the noblest of Southern warriors. After much
adroit negotiations a unanimous vote was secured for it. A committee was
appointed to draft a formal announcement and defence of the step which
had been taken. Jefferson was chosen a member of the committee, and to
him was most wisely entrusted the drafting of the famous "Declaration."
The introductory paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence contain
the whole substance of the faith upon which the new Commonwealth was to
be built. Without a full comprehension of their contents the subsequent
history of America would be unintelligible. It will therefore be well to
quote them here verbatim, and I do so the more readily because, apart
from their historic importance, it is a pity that more Englishmen are
not acquainted with this masterpiece of English prose.
_When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another
and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal
station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a
decent respect for the opinion of Mankind requires that they shall
declare the cause that impels the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that
to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any
form of government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to reinstate a new government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness._
The Declaration goes on to specify the causes of grievances which the
colonists conceive themselves to have against the royal government, and
concludes as follows:--
_We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in
General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World
for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name and by the authority
of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that
these United Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and Independent
States._
The first principles set out in the Declaration must be rightly grasped
if American history is understood, for indeed the story of America is
merely the story of the working out of those principles. Briefly the
theses are two: first, that men are of right equal, and secondly, that
the moral basis of the relations between governors and governed is
contractual. Both doctrines have in this age had to stand the fire of
criticisms almost too puerile to be noticed. It is gravely pointed out
that men are of different heights and weights, that they vary in
muscular power and mental cultivation--as if either Rousseau or
Jefferson was likely to have failed to notice this occult fact!
Similarly the doctrine of the contractual basis of society is met by a
demand for the production of a signed, sealed, and delivered contract,
or at least for evidence that such a contract was ever made. But
Rousseau says--with a good sense and modesty which dealers in
"prehistoric" history would do well to copy--that he does not know how
government in fact arose. Nor does anyone else. What he maintains is
that the moral sanction of government is contractual, or, as Jefferson
puts it, that government "derives its just powers from the consent of
the governed."
The doctrine of human equality is in a sense mystical. It is not
apparent to the senses, nor can it be logically demonstrated as an
inference from anything of which the senses can take cognizance. It can
only be stated accurately, and left to make its appeal to men's minds.
It may be stated theologically by saying, as the Christian theology
says, that all men are equal before God. Or it may be stated in the form
which Jefferson uses--that all men are equal in their "inalienable
rights." But it must be accepted as a first principle or not at all. The
nearest approach to a method of proving it is to take the alternative
proposition and deduce its logical conclusion. Would those who would
maintain that the "wisest and best" have rights superior to those of
their neighbours, welcome a law which would enable any person
demonstrably wiser or more virtuous than themselves to put them to
death? I think that most of them have enough modesty (and humour) to
shrink, as Huxley did, from such a proposition. But the alternative is
the acceptance of Jefferson's doctrine that the fundamental rights of
men are independent of adventitious differences, whether material or
moral, and depend simply upon their manhood.
The other proposition, the contractual basis of human society and its
logical consequences, the supremacy of the general will, can be argued
in the same fashion. It is best defended by asking, like the Jesuit
Suarez, the simple question: "If sovereignty is not in the People, where
is it?" It is useless to answer that it is in the "wisest and best." Who
are the wisest and best? For practical purposes the phrases must mean
either those whom their neighbours think wisest and best--in which case
the ultimate test of democracy is conceded--or those who think
themselves wisest and best: which latter is what in the mouths of such
advocates it usually does mean. Thus those to whom the Divine Right of
the conceited makes no appeal are forced back on the Jeffersonian
formula. Let it be noted that that formula does not mean that the people
are always right or that a people cannot collectively do deliberate
injustice or commit sins--indeed, inferentially it implies that
possibility--but it means that there is on earth no temporal authority
superior to the general will of a community.
It is, however, no part of the function of this book to argue upon the
propositions contained in the Declaration of Independence. It is merely
necessary to chronicle the historical fact that Jefferson, as mouthpiece
of the Continental Congress, put forward these propositions as
self-evident, and that all America, looking at them, accepted them as
such. On that acceptance, the intensity and ardent conviction of which
showed itself, as will presently be seen, in a hundred ways, the
American Commonwealth is built. In the modern haze of doubt and amid the
denial of all necessary things, there have been found plenty of
sophists, even in America, to dispute these great truisms. But if the
American nation as a whole ever ceases to believe in them, it will not
merely decay, as all nations decay when they lose touch with eternal
truths; it will drop suddenly dead.
We must now turn back a little in time in order to make clear the
military situation as it stood when Jefferson's "Declaration" turned the
war into a war of doctrines.
The summer of 1775 saw the first engagement which could well be
dignified with the name of a battle. A small English force had been sent
to Boston with the object of coercing the recalcitrant colony of
Massachusetts. It was absolutely insufficient, as the event showed, even
for that purpose, and before it had landed it was apparent that its real
task would be nothing less than the conquest of America. The
Massachusetts rebels wisely determined to avoid a combat with the guns
of the British fleet; they abandoned the city and entrenched themselves
in a strong position in the neighbourhood known as Bunker's Hill. The
British troops marched out of Boston to dislodge them. This they
eventually succeeded in doing; and those who regard war as a game like
billiards to be settled by scoring points may claim Bunker's Hill as a
British victory. But it produced all the consequences of a defeat. The
rebel army was not destroyed; it was even less weakened than the force
opposed to it. It retired in good order to a position somewhat further
back, and the British force had no option but to return to Boston with
its essential work undone. For some time England continued to hold
Boston, but the State of Massachusetts remained in American hands. At
last, in the absence of any hope of any effective action, the small
English garrison withdrew, leaving the original prize of war to the
rebels.
On the eve of this indecisive contest the American Congress met to
consider the selection of a commander-in-chief for the revolutionary
armies. Their choice fell on General George Washington, a Virginian
soldier who, as has been remarked, had served with some distinction in
the French wars.
The choice was a most fortunate one. America and England have agreed to
praise Washington's character so highly that at the hands of the young
and irreverent he is in some danger of the fate of Aristides. For the
benefit of those who tend to weary of the Cherry Tree and the Little
Hatchet, it may be well to say that Washington was a very typical
Southern gentleman in his foibles as well as in his virtues. Though his
temper was in large matters under strict control, it was occasionally
formidable and vented itself in a free and cheerful profanity. He loved
good wine, and like most eighteenth-century gentlemen, was not sparing
in its use. He had a Southerner's admiration for the other sex--an
admiration which, if gossip may be credited, was not always strictly
confined within monogamic limits. He had also, in large measure, the
high dignity and courtesy of his class, and an enlarged liberality of
temper which usually goes with such good breeding. There is no story of
him more really characteristic than that of his ceremoniously returning
the salute of an aged Negro and saying to a friend who was disposed to
deride his actions: "Would you have me let a poor ignorant coloured man
say that he had better manners than I?" For the rest the traditional
eulogy of his public character is not undeserved. It may justly be said
of him, as it can be said of few of the great men who have moulded the
destinies of nations, that history can put its fingers on no act of his
and say: "Here this man was preferring his own interest to his
country's."
As a military commander Washington ranks high. He had not, indeed, the
genius of a Marlborough or a Napoleon. Rather he owed his success to a
thorough grasp of his profession combined with just that remarkably
level and unbiassed judgment which distinguished his conduct of civil
affairs. He understood very clearly the conditions of the war in which
he was to engage. He knew that Great Britain, as soon as she really woke
up to the seriousness of her peril, would send out a formidable force of
well-disciplined professional soldiers, and that at the hands of such a
force no mere levy of enthusiastic volunteers could expect anything but
defeat. The breathing space which the incredible supineness of the
British Government allowed him enabled him to form something like a real
army. Throughout the campaigns that followed his primary object was not
to win victories, but to keep that army in being. So long as it existed,
he knew that it could be continually reinforced by the enthusiasm of the
colonials, and that the recruits so obtained could be consolidated into
and imbued with the spirit of a disciplined body. The moment it ceased
to exist Great Britain would have to deal simply with rebellious
populations, and Washington was soldier enough to know that an army can
always in time break up and keep down a mere population, however eager
and courageous.
And now England at last did what, if she were determined to enforce her
will upon the colonists, she ought to have done at least five years
before. She sent out an army on a scale at least reasonably adequate to
the business for which it was designed. It consisted partly of excellent
British troops and partly of those mercenaries whom the smaller German
princes let out for hire to those who chose to employ them. It was
commanded by Lord Howe. The objective of the new invasion--for the
procrastination of the British Government had allowed the war to assume
that character--was the city of New York.
New York harbour possesses, as anyone who enters it can see, excellent
natural defences. Manhattan Island, upon which the city is built, lies
at the mouth of the Hudson between two arms of that river. At the
estuary are a number of small islets well suited for the emplacement of
powerful guns. The southern bank runs northward into a sharp promontory,
at the end of which now stands the most formidable of American
fortresses. The northern approach is covered by Long Island. The British
command decided on the reduction of Long Island as a preliminary to an
assault upon the city. The island is long and narrow, and a ridge of
high ground runs down it like a backbone. This ridge Washington's army
sought to hold against the attack of the British forces. It was the
first real battle of the war, and it resulted in a defeat so
overwhelming that it might well have decided the fate of America had not
Washington, as soon as he saw how the day was going, bent all his
energies to the tough task of saving his army. It narrowly escaped
complete destruction, but ultimately a great part succeeded, though with
great loss and not a little demoralization, in reaching Brooklyn in
safety.
The Americans still held New York, the right bank of the Hudson; but
their flank was dangerously threatened, and Washington, true to his
policy, preferred the damaging loss of New York to the risk of his army.
He retired inland, again offered battle, was again defeated and forced
back into Pennsylvania. So decided did the superiority of the British
army prove to be that eventually Philadelphia itself, then the capital
of the Confederacy, had to be abandoned.
Meanwhile another British army under the command of General Burgoyne
held Canada. That province had shown no disposition to join in the
revolt; an early attempt on the part of the rebels to invade it had been
successfully repelled. Besides English and German troops, Burgoyne had
the aid of several tribes of Indian auxiliaries, whose aid the British
Government had been at some pains to secure--a policy denounced by
Chatham in a powerful and much-quoted speech. Burgoyne was a clever and
imaginative though not a successful soldier. He conceived and suggested
to his Government a plan of campaign which was sound in strategic
principle, which might well have succeeded, and which, if it had
succeeded, would have dealt a heavy and perhaps a decisive blow to
American hopes. How far its failure is to be attributed to his own
faulty execution, how far to the blunders of the Home Government, and
how far to accidents which the best general cannot always avoid, is
still disputed. But that failure was certainly the turning-point of the
war.
Burgoyne's project was this: He proposed to advance from Canada and push
across the belt of high land which forms the northern portion of what is
now New York State, until he struck the upper Hudson. Howe was at the
same time to advance northward up the Hudson, join hands with him and
cut the rebellion in two.
It was a good plan. The cutting off and crushing of one isolated
district after another is just the fashion in which widespread
insurrectionary movements have most generally been suppressed by
military force. The Government accepted it, but, owing as it would seem
to the laziness or levity of the English Minister involved, instructions
never reached Howe until it was too late for him to give effective
support to his colleague. All, however, might have prospered had
Burgoyne been able to move more rapidly. His first stroke promised well.
The important fort of Ticonderoga was surprised and easily captured,
and the road was open for his soldiers into the highlands. But that
advance proved disastrously slow. Weeks passed before he approached the
Hudson. His supplies were running short, and when he reached Saratoga,
instead of joining hands with Howe he found himself confronted by
strongly posted American forces, greatly outnumbering his own
ill-sustained and exhausted army. Seeing no sign of the relief which he
had expected to the south--though as a fact Howe had by this time learnt
of the expedition and was hastening to his assistance--on October 6,
1777, he and his army surrendered to the American commander, General
Gates.
The effect of Burgoyne's surrender was great in America; to those whose
hopes had been dashed by the disaster of Long Island, the surrender of
New York and Washington's enforced retreat it brought not only a revival
of hope but a definite confidence in ultimate success. But that effect
was even greater in Europe. Its immediate fruit was Lord North's famous
"olive branch" of 1778; the decision of the British Government to accept
defeat on the original issue of the war, and to agree to a surrender of
the claim to tax the colonists on condition of their return to their
allegiance. Such a proposition made three years earlier would certainly
have produced immediate peace. Perhaps it might have produced peace even
as it was--though it is unlikely, for the declaration had filled men's
souls with a new hunger for pure democracy--if the Americans had
occupied the same isolated position which was theirs when the war began.
But it was not in London alone that Saratoga had produced its effect.
While it decided the wavering councils of the British Ministry in favour
of concessions, it also decided the wavering councils of the French
Crown in favour of intervention.
As early as 1776 a mission had been sent to Versailles to solicit on
behalf of the colonists the aid of France. Its principal member was
Benjamin Franklin, the one revolutionary leader of the first rank who
came from the Northern colonies. He had all the shrewdness and humour of
the Yankee with an enlarged intelligence and a wide knowledge of men
which made him an almost ideal negotiator in such a cause. Yet for some
time his mission hung fire. France had not forgotten her expulsion from
the North American continent twenty years before. She could not but
desire the success of the colonists and the weakening or dismemberment
of the British Empire. Moreover, French public opinion--and its power
under the Monarchy, though insufficient, was far greater than is now
generally understood--full of the new ideals which were to produce the
Revolution, was warmly in sympathy with the rebellion. But, on the other
hand, an open breach with England involved serious risks. France was
only just recovering from the effects of a great war in which she had on
the whole been worsted, and very decidedly worsted, in the colonial
field. The revolt of the English colonies might seem a tempting
opportunity for revenge; but suppose that the colonial resistance
collapsed before effective aid could arrive? Suppose the colonists
merely used the threat of French intervention to extort terms from
England and then made common cause against the foreigner? These obvious
considerations made the French statesmen hesitate. Aid was indeed given
to the colonial rebels, especially in the very valuable form of arms and
munitions, but it was given secretly and unofficially, with the satirist
Beaumarchais, clever, daring, unscrupulous and ready to push his damaged
fortunes in any fashion, as unaccredited go-between. But in the matter
of open alliance with the rebels against the British Government France
temporized, nor could the utmost efforts of Franklin and his colleagues
extort a decision.
Saratoga extorted it. On the one hand it removed a principal cause of
hesitation. After such a success it was unlikely that the colonists
would tamely surrender. On the other it made it necessary to take
immediate action. Lord North's attitude showed clearly that the British
Government was ready to make terms with the colonists. It was clearly in
the interests of France that those terms should be refused. She must
venture something to make sure of such a refusal. With little hesitation
the advisers of the French Crown determined to take the plunge. They
acknowledged the revolted colonies as independent States, and entered
into a defensive alliance with these States against Great Britain. That
recognition and alliance immediately determined the issue of the war.
What would have happened if it had been withheld cannot be certainly
determined. It seems not unlikely that the war would have ended as the
South African War ended, in large surrenders of the substance of
Imperial power in return for a theoretic acknowledgment of its
authority. But all this is speculative. The practical fact is that
England found herself, in the middle of a laborious, and so far on the
whole unsuccessful, effort to crush the rebellion of her colonies,
confronted by a war with France, which, through the close alliance then
existing between the two Bourbon monarchies, soon became a war with both
France and Spain. This change converted the task of subjugation from a
difficult but practicable one, given sufficient time and determination,
to one fundamentally impossible.
Yet, so far as the actual military situation was concerned, there were
no darker days for the Americans than those which intervened between the
promise of French help and its fulfilment. Lord Cornwallis had appeared
in the South and had taken possession of Charleston, the chief port of
South Carolina. In that State the inhabitants were less unanimous than
elsewhere. The "Tories," as the local adherents of the English Crown
were called, had already attempted a rebellion against the rebellion,
but had been forced to yield to the Republican majority backed by the
army of Washington. The presence of Cornwallis revived their courage.
They boasted in Tarleton, able, enterprising and imperious, an excellent
commander for the direction of irregular warfare, whose name and that of
the squadron of horse which he raised and organized became to the rebels
what the names of Claverhouse and his dragoons were to the Covenanters.
Cornwallis and Tarleton between them completely reduced the Carolinas,
save for the strip of mountainous country to the north, wherein many of
those families that Tarleton had "burnt out" found refuge, and proceeded
to overrun Georgia. Only two successes encouraged the rebels. At the
Battle of the Cowpens Tarleton having, with the recklessness which was
the defeat of his qualities as a leader, advanced too far into the
hostile country, was met and completely defeated by Washington. The
defeat produced little immediate result, but it was the one definite
military success which the American general achieved before the advent
of the French, and it helped to keep up the spirit of the insurgents.
Perhaps even greater in its moral effect was the other victory, which
from the military point of view was even more insignificant. In Sumter
and Davie the rebels found two cavalry leaders fully as daring and
capable as Tarleton himself. They formed from among the refugees who had
sought the shelter of the Carolinian hills a troop of horse with which
they made a sudden raid upon the conquered province and broke the local
Tories at the Battle of the Hanging Rock. It was a small affair so far
as numbers went, and Davie's troopers were a handful of irregulars drawn
as best might be from the hard-riding, sharp-shooting population of the
South. Many of them were mere striplings; indeed, among them was a boy
of thirteen, an incorrigible young rebel who had run away from school to
take part in the fighting. In the course of this narration it will be
necessary to refer to that boy again more than once. His name was Andrew
Jackson.
While there was so little in the events of the Southern campaign to
bring comfort to the rebels, in the North their cause suffered a moral
blow which was felt at the moment to be almost as grave as any military
disaster. Here the principal American force was commanded by one of the
ablest soldiers the Rebellion had produced, a man who might well have
disputed the pre-eminent fame of Washington if he had not chosen rather
to challenge--and with no contemptible measures of success--that of
Iscariot. Benedict Arnold was, like Washington, a professional soldier
whose talent had been recognized before the war. He had early embraced
the revolutionary cause, and had borne a brilliant part in the campaign
which ended in the surrender of Burgoyne. There seemed before him every
prospect of a glorious career. The motives which led him to the most
inexpiable of human crimes were perhaps mixed, though all of them were
poisonous. He was in savage need of money to support the extravagance of
his private tastes: the Confederacy had none to give, while the Crown
had plenty. But it seems also that his ravenous vanity had been wounded,
first by the fact that the glory of Burgoyne's defeat had gone to Gates
and not to him, and afterwards by a censure, temperate and tactful
enough and accompanied by a liberal eulogy of his general conduct, which
Washington had felt obliged to pass on certain of his later military
proceedings. At any rate, the "ingratitude" of his country was the
reason he publicly alleged for his treason; and those interested in the
psychology of infamy may give it such weight as it may seem to deserve.
For history the important fact is that Arnold at this point in the
campaign secretly offered his services to the English, and the offer was
accepted.
Arnold escaped to the British camp and was safe. The unfortunate
gentleman on whom patriotic duty laid the unhappy task of trafficking
with the traitor was less fortunate. Major André had been imprudent
enough to pay a visit to a spot behind the American lines, and, at
Arnold's suggestion, to do so in plain clothes. He was taken, tried, and
hanged as a spy. Though espionage was not his intention, the Americans
cannot fairly be blamed for deciding that he should die. He had
undoubtedly committed an act which was the act of a spy in the eyes of
military law. It is pretty certain that a hint was given that the
authorities would gladly exchange him for Arnold, and it is very
probable that the unslaked thirst for just vengeance against Arnold was
partly responsible for the refusal of the American commanders to show
mercy. André's courage and dignity made a profound impression on them,
and there was a strong disposition to comply with his request that he
should at least be shot instead of hanged. But to that concession a
valid and indeed irresistible objection was urged. Whatever the
Americans did was certain to be scanned with critical and suspicious
eyes. Little could be said in the face of the facts if they treated
André as a spy and inflicted on him the normal fate of a spy. But if
they showed that they scrupled to hang him as a spy, it would be easy to
say that they had shot a prisoner of war.
Arnold was given a command in the South, and the rage of the population
of that region was intensified into something like torment when they saw
their lands occupied and their fields devastated no longer by a stranger
from overseas who was but fulfilling his military duty, but by a
cynical and triumphant traitor. Virginia was invaded and a bold stroke
almost resulted in the capture of the author of the Declaration of
Independence himself, who had been elected Governor of that State. In
the course of these raids many abominable things were done which it is
unnecessary to chronicle here. The regular English troops, on the whole,
behaved reasonably well, but Tarleton's native "Tories" were inflamed by
a fanaticism far fiercer than theirs, while atrocity was of course
normal to the warfare of the barbarous mercenaries of England, whether
Indian or German. It is equally a matter of course that such excesses
provoked frequent reprisals from the irregular colonial levies.
But aid was at last at hand. Already Lafayette, a young French noble of
liberal leanings, had appeared in Washington's camp at the head of a
band of volunteers, and the accession, small as it was, led to a
distinct revival of the fortunes of the revolution in the South. It was,
however, but a beginning. England, under pressure of the war with France
and Spain, lost that absolute supremacy at sea which has ever been and
ever will be necessary to her conduct of a successful war. A formidable
French armament was able to cross the Atlantic. A French fleet
threatened the coasts. Cornwallis, not knowing at which point the blow
would fall, was compelled to withdraw his forces from the country they
had overrun, and to concentrate them in a strong position in the
peninsula of Yorktown. Here he was threatened on both sides by
Washington and Rochambeau, while the armada of De Grasse menaced him
from the sea. The war took on the character of a siege. His resources
were speedily exhausted, and on September 19, 1781, he surrendered.
It was really the end of the war so far as America was concerned, though
the struggle between England and France continued for a time with
varying fortunes in other theatres, and the Americans, though approached
with tempting offers, wisely as well as righteously refused to make a
separate peace at the expense of their Allies. But the end could no
longer be in doubt. The surrender of Burgoyne had forced North to make
concessions; the surrender of Cornwallis made his resignation
inevitable. A new Ministry was formed under Rockingham pledged to make
peace. Franklin again went to Paris as representative of the
Confederation and showed himself a diplomatist of the first rank. To the
firmness with which he maintained the Alliance against the most skilful
attempts to dissolve it must largely be attributed the successful
conclusion of a general peace on terms favourable to the Allies and
especially favourable to America. Britain recognized the independence of
her thirteen revolted colonies, and peace was restored.
I have said that England recognized her thirteen revolted colonies. She
did not recognize the American Republic, for as yet there was none to
recognize. The war had been conducted on the American side nominally by
the Continental Congress, an admittedly _ad hoc_ authority not
pretending to permanency; really by Washington and his army which, with
the new flag symbolically emblazoned with thirteen stars and thirteen
stripes, was the one rallying point of unity. That also was now to be
dissolved. The States had willed to be free, and they were free. Would
they, in their freedom, will effectively to be a nation? That was a
question which not the wisest observer could answer at the time, and
which was not perhaps fully answered until well within the memory of men
still living. Its solution will necessarily form the main subject of
this book.