The history of the United States of North America is, in some respects,
one of the most instructive that we can turn to; because we are
accurately acquainted with the origin of this social community, and are
also enabled to trace its history in all its important facts, from the
first establishment of the several colonies up to the present condition
of the Union. Of all historical records none can be put in comparison
with legislative enactments, as showing the condition of the people at
any given period, and the degree of mental culture diffused among them.
In the American States, even under their former colonial government,
there were few men of any importance in the provinces who did not
participate in some of the functions of government; and we may therefore
consider the laws enacted at that period as indicative of the opinions
held by the most influential classes.
We happen to have before us an old collection of Virginia laws,
entitled, ‘A complete collection of the Laws of Virginia, at a Grand
Assembly held at James City, 23d March, 1662;’ a few extracts from which
may not be uninteresting.
There appears to be in this volume only one law about education, which
prescribes the founding of a college “for the advance of learning,
education of youth, supply of the ministry, and promotion of piety.” The
law states how the money is to be raised; but as to its application
nothing more is said, except that a piece of land is to be got, and,
“with as much speed as may be convenient, housing is to be erected
thereon for entertainment of students and scholars.” The _housing_
department seems to have been the uppermost thing in the legislature’s
thoughts; the providing of good teachers was a secondary consideration.
There are several enactments about “rewards for killing wolves,” which
at that time infested even the lower parts of Virginia. At the present
day, owing to the increase of population, the wolf and other wild
animals, though occasionally heard of, are but rarely seen even in the
mountains, and seldom do any damage. The reward “for every wolf
destroyed by pit, trap, or otherwise, is 200 pounds of tobacco.”
Tobacco was the most common standard of value in Virginia at that time,
as we see from this and numerous other instances, where fines, &c. are
estimated at so many pounds of tobacco. Thus it is stated in enactment
35, that “the court shall not take cognizance of any cause under the
value of 200 pounds of tobacco, or twenty shillings sterling, which a
private justice may and is hereby authorized and empowered to hear and
determine.”
The following recipe for good order is contained in an enactment,
entitled ‘Pillories to be erected at each Court:’--“In every county the
court shall cause to be set up a pillory, a pair of stocks, and a
whipping-post near the court-house, and a ducking-stool;--and the court
not causing the said pillory, whipping-post, stocks, and ducking-stool
to be erected, shall be fined 5000 pounds of tobacco to the use of the
public.”
In those days the following provision was made for extending the
elective franchise, which appears founded on a rational principle:
“Every county that will lay out 100 acres of land, and people it with
100 tytheable (taxable) persons, that place shall enjoy the like
privilege” of sending a burgess. The burgesses, together with their
attendants, were free from arrest, from the time of election till ten
days after dissolution of the assembly; this privilege, however, was
somewhat modified by several clauses. Every burgess was allowed during
the sitting of the assembly “150 lbs. of tobacco and cask per day,
besides the necessary charge of going to the assembly and returning.”
This practice of paying legislators, which, in America, originated under
the Colonial system, is still continued in the United States. It did not
entirely cease in England until the reign of Charles II. Andrew Marvell,
one of the burgesses of Hull, was the last member of the House of
Commons who appears to have accepted the wages which all were entitled
to receive.
Among commercial restrictions we find an enactment prohibiting the
planting of tobacco after the 10th of July, which was done for “the
improvement of our only commodity tobacco, which can no ways be effected
but by lessening the quantity and amending the quality.” That the former
effect might possibly be produced by the enactment, without securing the
latter, seems pretty certain. Another object that the government had in
view was to compel the people to become silk-growers against their will.
“Be it therefore enacted,” says the legislature, “that every proprietor
of land within the colony of Virginia shall, for every hundred acres of
land holden in fee, plant upon the said land ten mulberry-trees at
twelve foot distance from each other, and secure them by weeding and a
sufficient fence from cattle and horses.” Tobacco fines, as usual, were
enacted in case the planting and weeding were not duly performed; and
further, “there shall be allowed in the public levy to any one for every
pound of wound silk he shall make, fifty pounds of tobacco, to be raised
in the public levy, and paid in the county or counties where they dwell
that make it.” This act was passed in 1662, and probably continued in
force for a long time; but Virginia did not therefore become a
silk-growing country, nor has it yet, though many parts are well adapted
to raise this commodity. People, we presume, have hitherto found other
things more profitable than silk.
The following enactment has a most barbarous character about it, not
unmixed with something extremely ludicrous as to the idea of the
legislature trying to prevent women from talking: “Whereas many babbling
women slander and scandalize their neighbours, for which their poor
husbands are often involved in chargeable and vexatious suits, and cast
in great damages:--Be it therefore enacted, that in actions of slander,
occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman
shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be so enormous as to be
adjudged at greater damages than 500 pounds of tobacco, then the woman
to suffer a ducking for each 500 pounds of tobacco adjudged against the
husband, if he refuse to pay the tobacco.”
This old statute book of Virginia is full of enactments such as we have
quoted; some exceedingly mischievous, and others very ludicrous. It
would, however, be unfair to say that there are not also some good
regulations in it. Were a history of our own or any other country to be
written, founded on the legislative enactments and illustrated, whenever
it was possible, by individual cases on record, we should then begin to
have some idea of what history is. Instead of the splendours or the
follies of a few who occupy the attention of the historian, we should be
able to form a more complete picture of the condition of the whole
community, and a more exact estimate of the progress which has been made
in social knowledge.
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