INDEPENDENCE AND THE NEW STATES
[1775]
The thought of independence in the minds of the colonists was of
surprisingly slow growth. The feeling of dependence on the
mother-country and of loyalty to the king was deep-rooted and died hard.
Even union, which was a pre-requisite to a successful struggle for
independence, came slowly. The old New England Confederation, in 1643-
84, between Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, for
defence against Indians, Dutch, and French, ended without ever having
manifested the slightest vigor. In the latter half of the seventeenth
century Virginia had alliances with some sister colonies for protection
against Indians; but there was no call for a general congress until the
French and Indian attack on Schenectady, in 1690, during King William's
War. Representatives from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and
Plymouth met that year at New York; letters came from Virginia,
Maryland, and Rhode Island. But no permanent union was proposed here,
nor at any of the similar meetings, seven at least, which occurred
between 1690 and 1750.
The Albany Convention, which met in 1754 to prepare for the French and
Indian War, adopted a plan for union presented by Franklin, providing
for a president-general appointed and supported by the Crown, and for a
grand council of delegates elected triennially by the colonies according
to population, and empowered, within limits, to lay taxes and make laws
for the common interest of English America. Franklin believed that the
adoption of this scheme would have postponed the Revolution a century.
But, as it gave so much power to the king, it was rejected by the people
in every colony.
Even after English oppression and the diligent agency of committees of
correspondence had brought union, and delegates from the colonies had
met again and again in Congress, the thought of breaking away from the
mother-land was strange to the minds of nearly all. The instructions to
the delegates to the first Congress, in September, 1774, gave no
suggestion of independence. On the contrary, colony after colony urged
its representatives to seek the restoration of "harmony and union" with
England. This Congress branded as "calumny" the charge that it wished
"independency." Washington wrote, from the Congress, that independence
was then not "desired by any thinking man in America."
[Illustration: Flag, a pine tree below "AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN".]
Pine Tree Flag of Massachusetts.
[Illustration: Flag, a rattlesnake above "DON'T TREAD ON ME".]
Rattlesnake Flag of South Carolina.
The feeling was much the same in 1775. Pennsylvania "strictly" commanded
her representatives to dissent from any "proposition that may lead to
separation." Maryland gave similar instructions in January, 1776.
Independence was neither the avowed nor the conscious object in
defending Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775. Washington's commission as
commander-in-chief, two days later, gave no hint of it. And the New
Hampshire legislature so late as December 25, 1775, in the very act of
framing a new state government, "totally disavowed" all such aim. In the
fall of 1775 Congress declared that it had "not raised armies with the
ambitious design of separation from Great Britain."
The swift change which, a little more than six months later, made the
Declaration of Independence possible and even popular, has never yet
been fully explained. In May, 1775, John Adams had been cautioned by the
Philadelphia Sons of Liberty not to utter the word independence. "It is
as unpopular," they said, in "Pennsylvania and all the Middle and
Southern States as the Stamp Act itself." Early in 1776 this same great
man wrote that there was hardly a newspaper in America but openly
advocated independence. In the spring of 1776 the conservative
Washington declared, "Reconciliation is impracticable. Nothing but
independence will save us." Statesmen began to see that longer delay was
dangerous, that permanent union turned upon independence, and that,
without a government of their own, people would by and by demand back
their old constitution, as the English did after Cromwell's death. "The
country is not only ripe for independence," said Witherspoon, of New
Jersey, debating in Congress, "but is in danger of becoming rotten for
lack of it."
Colony after colony now came rapidly into line. Massachusetts gave
instructions to her delegates in Congress, virtually favoring
independence, in January, 1776. Georgia did the same in February, South
Carolina in March. Express authority to "concur in independency" came
first from North Carolina, April 12th, and the following May 31st
Mecklenburg County in that State explicitly declared its independence of
England. On May 1st Massachusetts began to disuse the king's name in
public instruments. May 4th, Rhode Island renounced allegiance almost in
terms. On May 15th brave old Virginia ordered her delegates in Congress
to bite right into the sour apple and propose independence. Connecticut,
New Hampshire, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania took action in the
same direction during the following month.
[1776]
[Illustration: Flag; thirteen stripes, with the English cross and
diagonal cross in the upper left corner.]
Union Flag. The first recognized Continental Standard, raised for the
first time January 2,1776.
The king's brutal attitude had much to do with this sudden change. The
colonists had nursed the belief that the king was misled by his
ministers. A last petition, couched in respectful terms, was drawn up by
Congress in the summer of 1775, and sent to England. Out of respect to
the feelings of good John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania, who still clung to
England, this address was tempered with a submissiveness which offended
many members. On its being read, Dickinson remarked that but one word in
it displeased him, the word "Congress;" to which Colonel Ben Harrison,
of Virginia, retorted that but one word in it pleased him, and that
"Congress" was precisely the word.
The appeal was idle. The king's only answer was a violent proclamation
denouncing the Americans as rebels. It was learned at the same time that
he was preparing to place Indians, negroes, and German mercenaries in
arms against them. The truth was forced upon the most reluctant, that
the root of England's obduracy was in the king personally, and that
further supplications were useless. The surprising success of the
colonial arms, the shedding of blood at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker
Hill--all which, remember, antedated the Declaration--the increase and
the ravages of the royal army and navy in America, were all efficient in
urging the colonists to break utterly and forever from the
mother-country.
[1772]
The behavior of the Gaspe officers in Narragansett Bay, their illegal
seizures, plundering expeditions on shore, and wanton manners in
stopping and searching boats, illustrate the spirit of the king's
hirelings in America at this time. At last the Rhode Islanders could
endure it no longer. Early on the morning of June 9, 1772, Captain
Abraham Whipple, with a few boatloads of trusty aides, dropped down the
river from Providence to what is now called Gaspe Point, six or seven
miles below the city, where the offending craft had run aground the
previous evening in giving chase to the Newport-Providence packet-boat,
and after a spirited fight mastered the Gaspe's company, put them on
shore, and burned the ship. There would be much propriety in dating the
Revolution from this daring act.
[1774]
Nor was this the only case of Rhode Island's forwardness in the
struggle. December 5, 1774, her General Assembly ordered Colonel
Nightingale to remove to Providence all the cannon and ammunition of
Fort George, except three guns, and this was done before the end of the
next day. More than forty cannon, with much powder and shot, were thus
husbanded for service to come. News of this was carried to New
Hampshire, and resulted in the capture of Fort William and Mary at New
Castle, December 14, 1774, which some have referred to as the opening
act of the Revolution. This deed was accomplished by fourteen men from
Durham, who entered the fort at night when the officers were at a ball
in Portsmouth. The powder which they captured is said to have done duty
at Bunker Hill.
[1776]
Most potent of all as a cause of the resolution to separate was Thomas
Paine's pamphlet, "Common Sense," published in January, 1776, and
circulated widely throughout the colonies. Its lucid style, its homely
way of putting things, and its appeals to Scripture must have given it
at any rate a strong hold upon the masses of the people. It was doubly
and trebly triumphant from the fact that it voiced, in clear, bold
terms, a long-growing popular conviction of the propriety of
independence, stronger than men had dared to admit even to themselves.
[Illustration: Portrait.]
Thomas Paine.
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, rose in Congress, and,
in obedience to the command of his State, moved a resolution "that the
united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent
States." John Adams seconded the motion. It led to great debate, which
evinced that New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South
Carolina were not yet quite ready for so radical a step. Postponement
was therefore had till July 1st, a committee meantime being appointed to
draft a declaration.
On July 2d, after further long debate, participated in by John Adams,
Dickinson, Wilson, and many other of the ablest men in Congress, not
all, even now, favorable to the measure, the famous Declaration of
Independence was adopted by vote of all the colonies but New York, whose
representatives abstained from voting for lack of sufficiently definite
instructions. We celebrate July 4th because on that day the document was
authenticated by the signatures of the President and Secretary of
Congress, and published, Not until August 2d had all the representatives
affixed their names. Ellery stood at the secretary's side as the various
delegates signed, and declares that he saw only dauntless resolution in
every eye. "Now we must hang together," said Franklin, "or we shall hang
separately."
The honor of writing the Declaration belongs to Thomas Jefferson, of
Virginia, who was to play so prominent a part in the early political
history of the United States. At this time he was thirty-three years
old. He was by profession a lawyer, of elegant tastes, well read in
literature, deeply versed in political history and philosophy. He was
chosen to draft the instrument chiefly because of the great ability of
other state papers from his pen. It is said that he consulted no books
during the composition, but wrote from the overflowing fulness of his
mind.
It is an interesting inquiry how far the language of the document was
determined by utterances of a like kind already put forth by towns and
counties. There had been many of these, and much discussion has occurred
upon the question which of them was first. Perhaps the honor belongs to
the town of Sheffield, Mass., which so early as January 12, 1773,
proclaimed the grievances and the rights of the colonies, among these
the right of self-government. Mendon, in the same State, in the same
year passed resolutions containing three fundamental propositions of the
great Declaration itself: that all men have an equal right to life and
liberty, that this right is inalienable, and that government must
originate in the free consent of the people. It is worthy of note that
the only important change made by Congress in what Jefferson had
prepared was the striking out, in deference to South Carolina and
Georgia, of a clause reflecting on slavery.
Copies of the immortal paper were carried post-haste up and down the
land, and Congress's bold deed was everywhere hailed with enthusiastic
demonstrations of joy. The stand for independence wrought powerfully for
good, both at home and abroad. At home it assisted vacillating minds to
a decision, as well as bound all the colonies more firmly together by
committing them irreconcilably to an aggressive policy. Abroad it tended
to lift the colonies out of the position of rebels and to gain them
recognition among the nations of the earth.
Let us now inquire into the political character of these bodies of
people which this Declaration by their delegates had erected into "free
and independent States."
Five colonies had adopted constitutions, revolutionary of course, before
the decisive manifesto. There was urgent need for such action. The few
remaining fragments of royal governments were powerless and decadent.
Anarchy was threatening everywhere. Some of the royal governors had
fled. In South Carolina the judges refused to act. In other places, as
western Massachusetts, they had been forcibly prevented from acting. In
most of the colonies only small parts of the old assemblies could be
gotten together.
New Hampshire led off with a new constitution in January, 1776. South
Carolina followed in March. By the close of the year nearly all the
colonies had established governments of their own. New York and Georgia
did not formally adopt new constitutions until the next year. In
Massachusetts a popular assembly assumed legislative and executive
powers from July, 1775, till 1780, when a new constitution went into
force. Connecticut and Rhode Island, as we have seen already, continued
to use their royal charters--the former till 1818, the latter till 1842.
Nowhere was the general framework of government greatly changed by
independence. The governors were of course now elected by the people,
and they suffered some diminution of power. Legislatures were composed
of two houses, both elective, no hereditary legislators being
recognized. All the States still had Sunday laws; most of them had
religious tests. In South Carolina only members of a church could vote.
In New Jersey an office-holder must profess belief in the faith of some
Protestant sect. Pennsylvania required members of the legislature to
avow faith in God, a future state, and the inspiration of the
Scriptures. The new Massachusetts constitution provided that laws
against plays, extravagance in dress, diet, etc., should be passed.
Property qualifications continued to limit suffrage. Virginia and
Georgia changed their land laws, abolishing entails and primogeniture.
The sole momentous novelty was that everyone of the new constitutions
proceeded upon the theory of popular sovereignty. The new governments
derived their authority solely and directly from the people. And this
authority, too, was not surrendered to the government, but simply--and
this only in part--intrusted to it as the temporary agent of the
sovereign people, who remained throughout the exclusive source of
political power.
The new instruments of government were necessarily faulty and imperfect.
All have since been amended, and several entirely remodelled. But they
rescued the colonies from impending anarchy and carried them safely
through the throes of the Revolution.