part in this blending of races. This is an affair to which the
conditions of life in a new country, on the frontiers of civilization,
are peculiarly favourable. Love flourishes when there are no locksmiths.
In a community of exiles the inclinations of the young men towards the
young women easily overstep the barriers of language and descent. Quite
naturally the English and Scotch were united with the Dutch and French
in the holy state of matrimony, and the mothers had as much to do as the
fathers with the character-building of the children.
But apart from this natural process of combination there were other
influences at work bringing the colonists into unity. There was the
pressure of a common necessity--the necessity of taking care of
themselves, of making their own living in a hard, new world. There was
the pressure of a common danger--the danger from the fierce and
treacherous savages who surrounded them and continually threatened them
with pillage and slaughter. There was the pressure of a common
discipline--the discipline of building up an organized industry, a
civilized community in the wilderness.
Yet I doubt whether even these potent forces of compression, of fusion,
of metamorphosis, would have made one people of the colonists quite so
quickly, quite so thoroughly, if it had not been for certain affinities
of spirit, certain ideals and purposes which influenced them all, and
which made the blending easier and more complete.
Most of the colonists of the seventeenth century, you will observe, were
people who in one way or another had suffered for their religious
convictions, whether they were Puritans or Catholics, Episcopalians or
Presbyterians, Quakers or Anabaptists.
The almost invariable effect of suffering for religion is to deepen its
power and to intensify the desire for liberty to practise it.
It is true that other motives, the love of adventure, the desire to
attain prosperity in the affairs of this world, and in some cases the
wish to escape from the consequences of misconduct or misfortune in the
old country, played a part in the settlement of America. Nothing could
be more absurd than the complacent assumption that all the ancestors
from whom the "Colonial Dames" or the "Sons of the Revolution" delight
to trace their descent were persons of distinguished character and
fervent piety.
But the most characteristic element of the early emigration was
religious, and that not by convention and conformity, but by conscience
and conviction. There was less difference among the various colonies in
this respect than is generally imagined. The New Englanders, who have
written most of the American histories, have been in the way of claiming
the lion's share of the religious influence for the Puritans. But while
Massachusetts was a religious colony with commercial tendencies, New
Amsterdam was a commercial colony with religious principles.
The Virginia parson prayed by the book, and the Pennsylvania Quaker made
silence the most important part of his ritual, but alike on the banks of
the James and on the shores of the Delaware the ultimate significance
and value of life were interpreted in terms of religion.
Now one immediate effect of such a ground-tone of existence is to
increase susceptibility and devotion to ideals. The habit of referring
constantly to religious sanctions is one that carries with it a tendency
to intensify the whole motive power of life in relation to its inward
conceptions of what is right and desirable. Men growing up in such an
atmosphere may easily become fanatical, but they are not likely to be
feeble.
Moreover, the American colonists, by the very conditions of natural
selection which brought them together, must have included more than the
usual proportion of strong wills, resolute and independent characters,
people who knew what they wanted to do and were willing to accept
needful risks and hardships in order to do it. The same thing, at least
to some extent, holds good of the later immigration into the United
States.
Most of the immigrants must have been rich in personal energy, clear in
their conviction of what was best for them to do. Otherwise they would
have lacked the force to break old ties, to brave the sea, to face the
loneliness and uncertainty of life in a strange land. Discontent with
their former condition acted upon them not as a depressant but as a
tonic. The hope of something unseen, untried, was a stimulus to which
their wills reacted. Whatever misgivings or reluctances they may have
had, upon the whole they were more attracted than repelled by the
prospect of shaping a new life for themselves, according to their own
desire, in a land of liberty, opportunity, and difficulty.
We come thus to the first and most potent factor in the soul of the
American people, _the spirit of self-reliance_. This was the dominant
and formative factor of their early history. It was the inward power
which animated and sustained them in their first struggles and efforts.
It was deepened by religious conviction and intensified by practical
experience. It took shape in political institutions, declarations,
constitutions. It rejected foreign guidance and control, and fought
against all external domination. It assumed the right of
self-determination, and took for granted the power of self-development.
In the ignorant and noisy it was aggressive, independent, cocksure, and
boastful. In the thoughtful and prudent it was grave, firm, resolute,
and inflexible. It has persisted through all the changes and growth of
two centuries, and it remains to-day the most vital and irreducible
quality in the soul of America,--_the spirit of self-reliance_.
You may hear it in its popular and somewhat vulgar form--not without a
characteristic touch of humour--in the Yankee's answer to the intimation
of an Englishman that if the United States did not behave themselves
well, Great Britain would come over and whip them. "What!" said the
Yankee, "ag'in?" You may hear it in deeper, saner, wiser tones, in
Lincoln's noble asseveration on the battle-field of Gettysburg, that
"government of the people, by the people, for the people _shall not_
perish from the earth." But however or whenever you hear it, the thing
which it utters is the same,--the inward conviction of a people that
they have the right and the ability, and consequently the duty, to
regulate their own life, to direct their own property, and to pursue
their own happiness according to the light which they possess.
It is obvious that one may give different names to this spirit,
according to the circumstances in which it is manifested and observed.
It may be called the spirit of independence when it is shown in
opposition to forces of external control. Professor Barrett Wendell,
speaking from this chair four years ago, said that the first ideal to
take form in the American consciousness was "the ideal of Liberty." But
his well-balanced mind compelled him immediately to limit and define
this ideal as a desire for "the political freedom of America from all
control, from all coercion, from all interference by any power foreign
to our own American selves." And what is this but self-reliance?
Professor Münsterberg, in his admirable book, _The Americans_, calls it
"the spirit of self-direction." He traces its influence in the
development of American institutions and the structure of American life.
He says: "Whoever wishes to understand the secret of that baffling
turmoil, the inner mechanism and motive behind all the politically
effective forces, must set out from only one point. He must appreciate
the yearning of the American heart after self-direction. Everything else
is to be understood from this."
But this yearning after self-_direction_, it seems to me, is not
peculiar to Americans. All men have more or less of it by nature. All
men yearn to be their own masters, to shape their own life, to direct
their own course. The difference among men lies in the clearness and the
vigour with which they conceive their own right and power and duty so to
do.
Back of the temper of independence, back of the passion for liberty,
back of the yearning after self-direction, stands the spirit of
self-reliance, from which alone they derive force and permanence. It was
this spirit that made America, and it is this spirit that preserves the
republic. Emerson has expressed it in a sentence: "We will walk on our
own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds."
It is undoubtedly true that the largest influence in the development of
this spirit came from the Puritans and Pilgrims of the New England
colonies, bred under the bracing and strengthening power of that creed
which bears the name of a great Frenchman, John Calvin, and trained in
that tremendous sense of personal responsibility which so often carries
with it an intense feeling of personal value and force. Yet, after all,
if we look at the matter closely, we shall see that there was no very
great difference among the colonists of various stocks and regions in
regard to their confidence in themselves and their feeling that they
both could and should direct their own affairs.
The Virginians, languishing and fretting under the first arbitrary rule
of the London corporation which controlled them with military severity,
obtained a "Great Charter of Privileges, Orders, and Laws" in 1618. This
gave to the little body of settlers, about a thousand in number, the
right of electing their own legislative assembly, and thus laid the
foundation of representative government in the New World. A little
later, in 1623, fearing that the former despotism might be renewed, the
Virginia Assembly sent a message to the king, saying, "Rather than be
reduced to live under the like government, we desire his Majesty that
commissioners be sent over to hang us."
In 1624 the Virginia Company was dissolved, and the colony passed under
a royal charter, but they still preserved and cherished the rights of
self-rule in all local affairs, and developed an extraordinary temper of
jealousy and resistance towards the real or imagined encroachments of
the governors who were sent out by the king. In 1676 the Virginians
practically rebelled against the authority of Great Britain because they
conceived that they were being reduced to a condition of dependence and
servitude. They felt confident that they were able to make their own
laws and to choose their own leaders. They were distinctly not conscious
of any inferiority to their brethren in England, and with their somewhat
aristocratic tendencies they developed a set of men like Lee and Henry
and Washington and Bland and Jefferson and Harrison, who had more real
power than any of the royal governors.
In New Amsterdam, where the most liberal policy in regard to the
reception of immigrants prevailed, but where for a long time there was
little or no semblance of popular government, the inhabitants rebelled
in 1649 against the tyranny of the agents of the Dutch West India
Company which ruled them from across the sea,--ruled them fairly well,
upon the whole, but still denied free play to their spirit of
self-reliance. The conflicts between the bibulous and dubious Director
van Twiller and his neighbours, between the fiery and arbitrary William
Kieft and his Eight Men, between the valiant, obstinate, hot-tempered,
and dictatorial Peter Stuyvesant and his Nine Men, have been humorously
narrated by Washington Irving in his _Knickerbocker_. But underneath the
burlesque chronicle of bickerings and wranglings, complaints and
protests, it is easy to see the stirrings of the sturdy spirit which
confides in self and desires to have control of its own affairs.
In 1649 the Vertoogh or Remonstrance of the Seven Men representing the
burghers of Manhattan, Brewckelen, Amersfoort, and Pavonia was sent to
the States General of the Netherlands. It demanded first that their High
Mightinesses should turn out the West India Company and take direct
control of New Netherland; second, that a proper municipal government
should be granted to New Amsterdam; and third, that the boundaries of
the province should be settled by treaty with friendly powers. This
document also called attention, by way of example, to the freedom of
their neighbours in New England, "where neither patrouns, nor lords, nor
princes are known, but only the people." The West India Company was
powerful enough to resist these demands for a time, but in 1653 New
Amsterdam was incorporated as a city.
Ten years later it passed under English sovereignty, and the history of
New York began. One of its first events was the protest of certain towns
on Long Island against a tax which was laid upon them in order to pay
for the repair of the fort in New York. They appealed to the principle
of "no taxation without representation," which they claimed had been
declared alike by England and by the Dutch republic. For nearly twenty
years, however, this appeal and others like it were disregarded, until
at last the spirit of self-reliance became irresistible. A petition was
sent to the Duke of York declaring that the lack of a representative
assembly was "an intolerable grievance." The Duke, it is said, was out
of patience with his uneasy province, which brought him in no revenue
except complaints and protests. "I have a mind to sell it," said he, "to
any one who will give me a fair price." "What," cried his friend William
Penn, "sell New York! Don't think of such a thing. Just give it
self-government, and there will be no more trouble." The Duke listened
to the Quaker, and in 1683 the first Assembly of New York was elected.
The charters which were granted by the Stuart kings to the American
colonies were for the most part of an amazingly liberal character. No
doubt the royal willingness to see restless and intractable subjects
leave England had something to do with this liberality. But the
immediate effect of it was to encourage the spirit of self-reliance. In
some of the colonies, as in Connecticut and Rhode Island, the people
elected their own governors as well as made their own laws. When
Governor Fletcher of New York found the people of Connecticut unwilling
to comply with his demands in 1693, he wrote back to England angrily:
"The laws of England have no effect in this colony. They set up for a
free state."
Even in those colonies where the governors and the judges were appointed
by the crown, the people were quick to suspect and bitter to resent any
invasion of their liberties or contradiction of their will as expressed
through the popular assemblies; and these assemblies prudently retained,
as a check upon executive authority, the right of voting, and paying, or
not paying, the salaries of the governor and other officers.
The policy of Great Britain in regard to the American dependencies,
while it vacillated somewhat, was, in the main, to leave them quite
independent. Various motives may have played a part at different times
in this policy. Indifference and a feeling of contempt may have had
something to do with it. English liberalism and republican sympathy may
have had something to do with it. A shrewd willingness to let them
prosper by their own efforts, in their own way, in order that they might
make a better market for English manufactures, may have had something to
do with it. Thus Lord Morley tells us: "Walpole was content with seeing
that no trouble came from America. He left it to the Duke of Newcastle,
and the Duke left it so much to itself that he had a closet full of
despatches from American governors, which had lain unopened for years."
But whatever may have been the causes of this policy, its effect was to
intensify and spread the spirit of self-reliance among the people of
America. A group of communities grew up along the western shore of the
Atlantic which formed the habit of defending themselves, of developing
their own resources, of regulating their own affairs. It has been well
said that they were colonies only in the Greek sense: communities which
went forth from the mother-country like children from a home, to
establish a self-sustaining and equal life. They were not colonies in
the Roman sense, suburbs of the empire, garrisoned and ruled from the
sole centre of authority.
They felt, all of them, that they understood their own needs, their own
opportunities, their own duties, their own dangers and hopes, better
than any one else could understand them. "Those who feel," said
Franklin, when he appeared before the committee of Parliament in London,
"can best judge." They issued money, they made laws and constitutions,
they raised troops, they built roads, they established schools and
colleges, they levied taxes, they developed commerce,--and this last
they did to a considerable extent in violation or evasion of the English
laws of navigation.
They acknowledged, indeed they fervently protested, for a long time,
their allegiance to Great Britain and their loyalty to the crown; but
they conceived their allegiance as one of equality, and their loyalty
as a voluntary sentiment largely influenced by gratitude for the
protection which the king gave them in the rights of internal
self-government.
This self-reliant spirit extended from the colonies into the townships
and counties of which they were composed. Each little settlement, each
flourishing village and small city, had its own local interests, and
felt the wish and the ability to manage them. And in these communities
every man was apt to be conscious of his own importance, his own value,
his own ability and right to contribute to the discussion and settlement
of local problems.
The conditions of life, also, had developed certain qualities in the
colonists which persisted and led to a general temper of personal
independence and self-confidence. The men who had cleared the forests,
fought off the Indians, made homes in the wilderness, were inclined to
think themselves _capable de tout_. They valued their freedom to prove
this as their most precious asset.
"I have some little property in America," said Franklin. "I will freely
spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend the right of giving or
refusing the other shilling; and, after all, if I cannot defend that
right, I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless
woods of America, which are sure to furnish freedom and subsistence to
any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." It is rather startling
to think of Franklin as gaining his living as a hunter or a fisherman;
but no doubt he could have done it.
The wonderful prosperity and the amazing growth of the colonies fostered
this spirit of self-reliance. Their wealth was increasing more rapidly,
in proportion, than the wealth of England. Their population grew from an
original stock of perhaps a hundred thousand immigrants to two million
in 1776, a twenty-fold advance; while in the same period of time England
had only grown from five millions to eight millions, less than twofold.
The conflicts with the French power in Canada also had a powerful
influence in consolidating the colonies and teaching them their
strength. The first Congress in which they were all invited to take part
was called in New York in 1690 to coöperate in war measures against
Canada. Three long, costly, and bloody French-Indian wars, in which the
colonists felt they bore the brunt of the burden and the fighting, drew
them closer together, made them conscious of their common interests and
of their resources.
But their victory in the last of these wars had also another effect. It
opened the way for a change of policy on the part of Great Britain
towards her American colonies,--a change which involved their
reorganization, their subordination to the authority of the British
Parliament, and the "weaving" of them, as ex-Governor Pownall put it,
into "a grand marine dominion consisting of our possessions in the
Atlantic and in America united into one empire, into one centre where
the seat of government is." This was undoubtedly imperialism. And it was
because the Americans felt this that the spirit of self-reliance rose
against the new policy and stubbornly resisted every step, even the
smallest, which seemed to them to lead in the direction of subjugation
and dependency.
Followed ten years of acrimonious and violent controversy and eight
years of war,--about what? The Stamp Act? the Paint, Paper, and Glass
Act? the Tax on Tea? the Boston Port Bill?
No; but at bottom about the right and intention of the colonies to
continue to direct themselves. You cannot possibly understand the
American Revolution unless you understand this. And without an
understanding of the causes and the nature of the Revolution, you cannot
comprehend the United States of to-day.
Take, for example, the division of opinion among the colonists
themselves,--a division far more serious and far more nearly equal in
numbers than is commonly supposed. It was not true, as the popular
histories of the Revolution used to assume, that all the brave, the
wise, the virtuous, and the honest were on one side, and all the
cowardly, the selfish, the base, and the insincere were on the other.
There was probably as much sincerity and virtue among the loyalists as
among the patriots. There was certainly as much intelligence and
education among the patriots as among the loyalists. The difference was
this. The loyalists were, for the most part, families and individuals
who had been connected, socially and industrially, with the royal source
of power and order, through the governors and other officials who came
from England or were appointed there. Naturally they felt that the
protection, guidance, and support of England were indispensable to the
colonies. The patriots were, for the most part, families and individuals
whose intimate relations had been with the colonial assemblies, with the
popular efforts for self-development and self-rule, with the movements
which tended to strengthen their confidence in their own powers.
Naturally they felt that freedom of action, deliverance from external
control, and the fullest opportunity of self-guidance were indispensable
to the colonies.
The names chosen by the two parties--"loyalist" and "patriot"--were both
honourable, and seem at first sight almost synonymous. But there is a
delicate shade of difference in their inward significance. The loyalist
is one who sincerely owns allegiance to a sovereign power, which _may_
be external to him, but to which he feels bound to be loyal. The patriot
is one who has found his own country, _of which he is a part_, and for
which he is willing to live and die. It was because the patriotic party
appealed primarily to the spirit of self-reliance that they carried the
majority of the American people with them, and won the victory, not only
in the internal conflict, but also in the war of independence.