SOWING THE WIND AND REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
I. MOUNT VERNON AT FIRST IN A ZONE OF CALM
In all this storm, Washington remained engrossed in his extensive
business affairs. It can not be inferred that this meant any
indifference on his part. It must be remembered that by nature he was
of a retiring disposition and never put himself forward as a leader in
any agitation. He was one who believed in regularity and discipline.
He could not destroy except as a process of building. His fighting
spirit was always in accomplishing a definite design for foreseen
ends. It is thus always seen that the man who is an agitator and a
leader of agitation, however heroic and noble he may be in the cause
of right, is never the calm, judicial mind necessary to construct
material and form forces into a constitutional government. The mind of
man seems first to require a forerunner. There was the determined,
uncompromising John the Baptist for the gentle and peace-loving
Christ, and there were numerous colonial Patrick Henrys for
Washington, even as there were Lovejoys, Garrisons and John Browns for
Lincoln. Thus it appears, without irreverence, that agitation is as
essential to education as legislation is to government.
Washington’s large interests in trade with England, and his many
Old-England friends and connections, would have turned any man, who
would serve his own personal profit, into partisanship for Great
Britain. There is no doubt that the inducements to favor the mother
country were large, and the promise of loss for doing otherwise was
very heavy and convincing. But he had seen much of English arrogance
and tyranny. He had also seen much of American freedom and human
rights. There was probably never any debate in his mind as to which
meant the most to him in personal duty or as an American. He had a
deeper view of humanity than business interests. But his hour had not
yet struck. The time had not yet come when the colonies needed
Washington.
Something of great significance took place in 1766. Benjamin Franklin
was called before the House of Commons and questioned concerning the
Stamp Act.
“What,” they asked him, according to the Parliamentary Register of
that year, “was the temper of America towards Great Britain, before
the year 1763?”
“The best in the world,” was his reply. “They submitted willingly to
the government of the crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience to
the acts of Parliament. They were governed at the expense of only a
little pen, ink and paper. They were led by a thread. They had not
only respect, but an affection for Great Britain, for its laws, its
customs, and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that
greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Great Britain were always
treated with particular regard; to be an Old-England man was, of
itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among
us.”
“And what is that temper now?”
“Oh! it is very much altered.”
“If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the
consequences?”
“A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear
to this country, and of all the commerce that depends upon that
respect and affection.”
“Do you think the people of America would submit to pay the stamp duty
if it was moderated?”
“No, never,” Franklin replied, “unless compelled by force of arms.”
II. GIVING THE APPEARANCE AND KEEPING THE SUBSTANCE
On March 18, 1766, the obnoxious Stamp Act was repealed, but the
repeal contained a clause that took all the merit out of the repeal,
by maintaining the principle that the King, with the consent of
Parliament, had the authority and power to “bind the colonies, and the
people of America, in all cases whatsoever.”
If the colonies consented to this repeal with its clause, they would
be affirming the very thing they were opposing in the Stamp Act. Such
“sharp practice” could not win. It was not the stamps they were
opposing alone, nor the imposing of taxes. They repudiated the idea
and the motive of the right to tax them without their consent, one of
the ways of which was to make them buy stamps to legalize any of their
business transactions. This explicitly proves that the Revolutionary
War was not “an economic war,” as some theorists endeavor to prove,
but a war of principle, liberty and justice, as it claimed to be.
The King was now asserting a right over the colonies which he did not
have anywhere in his own country. This was his will, his “divine
right,” as it were. If he tried to establish and enforce that will and
the colonies endeavored to establish and enforce their will against
that will, then it would be, as had so often happened before in
English history, a war of the King against the People. So it is often
described in history as “the King’s war” against the colonies. To such
an extent did the people refuse to fight it that the Hanoverian King
had to hire Hessian mercenaries.
We have long since learned that it was not the people of England
against the people of America, but the war of a foreign-minded King to
retain a personal mastery over a branch of the English people, a right
lost forever among English-speaking people through the successful
revolt of the American Colonies in the name of American liberty.
The King through Parliament hastened to verify his right to tax the
Colonies by various taxes against single articles. This was especially
resented at Boston where the taxes were most oppressive. The General
Court of Massachusetts became a hot-bed of agitation against those
taxes. The excitement of every day increased. Violent collisions were
of frequent occurrence between the authorities and the people. At
last, it became public that two regiments were held at Halifax ready
to be sent to Boston to quell the remonstrances there. The colonists
looked upon these signs of coercion as nothing less than despotism.
The two regiments soon arrived with seven war vessels. The commander
reported that he was sure these “spirited measures” would soon quell
all disturbances and restore order.
But the colonists now had a greater grievance. They held town meetings
and resolved that the King had no right to send troops into the
colonies without their consent. They claimed that the charters of all
the colonies were now broken by this act of the King in sending troops
into their midst without their consent. It was many times worse than
taxation without representation. It was a violation of their
allegiance to Great Britain.
The Boston selectmen refused to have anything to do with the soldiers.
The council would not recognize that they had any rights in the town.
Accordingly, the commander quartered them in the State-House and in
Faneuil Hall. The public was enraged at the cannon planted around
these buildings and against the sentinels that challenged the rights
of free citizens to come and go. Besides, their religious ideas were
equally outraged by the fife and drum on Sunday, with the oaths and
loud commands of officers, where heretofore all had been peace and
quiet.
Virginia was far away from these stirring scenes and news went slowly.
However, Washington recognized the grave significance of it all. A
letter written April 5, 1769, by him to his friend George Mason,
shows what he thought.
“At a time,” he wrote, “when our lordly masters in Great Britain will
be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American
freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to
avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty which we have derived from
our ancestors.”
He continued by discussing what was the best way to do this necessary
thing. He advised that the use of arms should be the last resource and
resort. His moral view is expressed farther on in the letter where he
says, as he discusses the effect on the colonists in the war cutting
off their trade, “There will be a difficulty attending it everywhere
from clashing interests, and selfish, designing men, ever attentive to
their own gain, and watchful of every turn that can assist their
lucrative views.”
This shows us that very far from all of the revolutionary people could
be called heroes of principle and entitled to be regarded as the
founders of American freedom. Democracy had the usual percentage of
sordid parasites, as well as its many noble martyrs and heroic
champions.
Still farther on in the same letter, he says, “I can see but one class
of people, the merchants excepted, who will not, or ought not, to wish
well to the scheme,--namely, they who live genteely and hospitably on
clear estates. Such as these, were they not to consider the valuable
object in view, and the good of others, might think it hard to be
curtailed in their living and enjoyments.”
Now it must be taken into consideration that Washington not only
belonged to the genteel freeholders to which he refers, but he was
also one of the largest merchants who would lose heavily in any
stoppage of trade with Great Britain. But we have clearly seen through
all his military and public service, that principle, and not gain or
comfort, was the vital motive of his conduct and his life.
III. “SOFT WORDS BUTTER NO PARSNIPS”
For several reasons, the Southern colonies fared much better than the
Northern colonies, and were, therefore, not stirred to such feelings
of violent opposition. The spirit of the Puritans, their severe
economy, rigid form of piety, and their hatred of Kings, animated the
Northern people in private and in public. Their ancestors had been
refugees from the tyranny of English Kings, and there was not that
respect for England which would cause them to be patient under bad
treatment. Besides that, they had seen most of the arrogance and
insolence of the English officers during the French and Indian wars,
and had suffered longest from the presence of war. The officers of the
King came to the Northern colonies with the idea that nothing would
serve the purpose but severity and coertion. On the contrary, the
people of the Southern colonies were believed at the King’s court to
be vain and luxurious. They were represented as being easily pleased
by showy parade. Accordingly, a court favorite, Lord Botetourt, was
chosen to win the admiration of Virginia. The descendants of the
Puritans were to be overawed into subjection by military force, the
Cavaliers of Virginia were to be overawed into compliance by
aristocratic splendor.
Lord Botetourt was supplied with a dazzling equipment. He arrived in
Virginia with glittering pomp and circumstance. On the opening of the
Virginia legislature, he arranged a brilliant procession, in which he
was conspicuous in gorgeous uniform, riding in a state-coach drawn by
six milk-white horses. He opened the session of the Virginia
legislature as if it were a royal parliament and he were the King.
Then the ostentatious parade returned him to the governor’s mansion.
But to the amazement of Lord Botetourt, this grand display did not
work. The House of Burgesses drafted some drastic demands to be sent
to the British King. At noon of the day after these resolutions were
passed, the governor in dismay went in haste to the Capitol, and
appeared before the assembly.
“Mr. Speaker, and gentlemen of the House of Burgesses,” he cried, “I
have heard of your resolves, and auger ill of their effects. You have
made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are dissolved accordingly.”
But his brain-storm had only the effect to cause them to be called to
order by their Speaker, Paton Randolph, in another house. Washington
brought forward the draft of an association pledged not to buy
anything from Great Britain on which there was a tax. This could not
be enacted into a law, because they were no longer a legislative body,
but, as a voluntary pledge, it was just as effective.
But, wonderful to relate, Lord Botetourt appeared to have a better
ordered intelligence than most of the governors sent over from
England. He saw at once the folly of his first ideas about the
Southern colonies, and he set about at once to pacify them in more
reasonable ways. He put away his royal show, actually addressed
himself to the grievances of the people, became a strong opponent to
the taxes, did what he could to have them repealed, and assured the
Virginians that this would be speedily done. The people soon had full
confidence in him, and the scenes of excitement so common in the
Northern colonies were unknown in Virginia.
But there was one thing after another of repression and retaliation in
the Northern colonies. Such was the opposition in the colonies and the
unpopularity of it all among the ruling classes in England, that the
King’s Manager, the Duke of Grafton, resigned and a favorite of the
King, Lord North, took his place, as chief councillor in England. Now,
the King gave up the fight for the taxes, but he still held to his
right to tax the people as something that was none of their business.
The tax was taken off of everything except tea. This one tax was kept
up, though a very light one, merely as the King said, “to maintain the
parliamentary right of taxation.” Even the duty was taken off of tea,
so that it was sold in America ninepence cheaper a pound than it could
be bought in England.
“Now,” said the King, “if the colonists object to this, it proves that
they are determined to rebel against our government.”
He could not conceive of such a thing as a principle against which
they were opposed, and many a mind since his has been as blind to
principle and as full-eyed toward the question of profit and loss. It
is this indescribable thing that usually divides people on public
affairs. It likewise defends the Makers of America against the
historical interpretation that their revolution was for any such
sordid origins as “economic necessity.”
There was strong opposition in parliament, not only against all such
taxation but also against asserting the right of such taxation. Lord
North, however, reflecting the will of King George, said, “The
properest time to exert our right of taxation is when the right is
refused.”
So it is with all set wills. The colonists thought the same thing from
an opposite point of view. It was an irresistible body meeting an
immovable body. Something had to break.
Lord North declared that “a total repeal can not be thought of, till
America is prostrate at our feet.” That is, the master determines not
to hear the complaint of the slave until the slave’s will is broken at
his owner’s feet. The wilderness-made minds with their self-made
freedom were not built that way. The King’s mind-evil could not be met
by resistence, but, as it emerged into colonial wrongs, the only way
to defeat them and save the freedom of moral law was through
revolutionary war. The evil mind using coertion to enforce its
slave-making wrongs went out of the mental regions of non-resistence
into the physical regions of wrongs where nothing but force can save.
Lord North’s promise could have nothing to do with the case. The
colonists had no idea of taking such a position as being prostrate at
the feet of the King. They had felt the freedom that is born of the
wilderness and that freedom was life. It was American and it remains
the hope of the world.