The dearest thought of an American patriot is the fact that, no matter
how deep and powerful the plots for aristocratic forms of government,
these ideas wither and die in embryo on the free soil of America.
The dreams of a Fairfax in Virginia, the Patroons in New York, a
Blennerhasset in the Ohio Valley, were never to be realized in the
free air of America. The principle of primogeniture found no favor
in the new land of hope and refuge. The Covenanters in Pennsylvania
and the valley of Virginia, the Puritans in New England, the Quakers
in Pennsylvania, the Catholics in Maryland, the Debtors in Georgia,
all left British soil with grievances which were to be righted in the
wilderness.
All of those who were favored with prosperity remained at home,
and they were largely the first-born sons, or entailed heirs. The
underlings cleared out to the wild-woods. How could the mother
country expect, therefore, conformity to her system of aristocratic
estates, if those who sought the Colonies left home smarting under
the inequality shown to the younger sons? The laws of Britain had,
through generations, elevated the first-born and pauperized the junior
offspring, till at last the American Revolution could with propriety
be named the uprising of the younger sons of Britain for equality. Can
Englishmen wonder, therefore, to-day, that Americans have no patience
with English aristocracy and royalty? Any statesman who would emulate
English social systems in America may be prepared for an avalanche.
However, there is one relic of old England’s musty law tomes with which
the younger sons may again have to measure swords, if not settled by
peaceful and constitutional means. That is a law analogous to the law
of entailed estates, which maintains inequality in like manner between
individuals. The growth has been gradual and unseen until recent years;
but at the same time producing rumblings in the hearts of the unfavored
persons. _Primogeniture_ maintained inequality between brothers and
sisters in the family; the other creates an inequality in finance and
commerce, _in perpetuo_, by means of an artificial person, endowed with
a legal immortality which destroys all individualism. That fiction of
vested rights is the stock corporation under the genius and authority
of the Common Law of England.
No matter how safe Americans may feel against the introduction of
aristocratic laws and forms of government, still, spasmodically and
industriously, attempts have been made to supplant the idea of equality
before the law, by legislation for the favored ones.
The mission of Roderick Barclugh to the new world was to crush out
the struggle for liberty by means of bribery and at the same time to
imitate those laws of England, which would bind the social conditions
of England upon the Colonists forever. Against the rebels, the outcome
of the War for Independence seemed such a foregone conclusion, that
already Roderick Barclugh was scheming to advance his own social
prestige which his zeal for the King of England promised. He expected
to be Viceroy of the Colonies, and to receive the title of Lord
Barclugh of Allegheny.
The matter had been so far decided and planned that the letter to
Arnold explicitly stated that the Parliament of the Colonies would have
an upper house of Lords of the Realm who were to receive their patents
of nobility from the King of England. The thought of independence
was ridiculed by the English; so what could more properly occupy the
thoughts of Barclugh than his exalted position when England should
subdue the rebels?
His mind was set upon creating one of the most extensive landed
estates to which noble blood could lay claim. He would receive one
of those royal grants of land out of the public domain in Western
Pennsylvania, equal to a principality. He would build such a castle
that its renown would live through ages. The tenantry would be bound
to the soil from generation to generation, paying their rents for
the privilege of bare existence upon the lands of a noble lord. The
miller’s son would be a miller, the blacksmith’s boy would be a
blacksmith, the ploughman’s boy would be a ploughman, toiling without
hope and without ambition; for the privilege of equality would be
denied them under the English social system.
The consuming thought of Barclugh in all these stirring panoramas
was the founding of a noble family that would emblazon the crest of
Barclugh high in the fields of statesmanship and war.
But how was such a problem to be accomplished? Should he wait until his
honors had fallen to him, and then go home and ally his name with one
of the great houses and names of English nobility? Or should he seek
among the best blood in the Colonies, a lady out of the representatives
of wealth, gentility, and intellect, because such an one would be
inured to the customs and privations of pioneers which a _grande
dame_ from ancestral halls could never endure? Either one course or
the other must be chosen. For land and heirs are necessary appendages
to successful nobles. Land without heirs is a misfortune; but heirs
without lands or wealth, among aristocrats, had better been unborn.
Roderick Barclugh was not in the habit of jumping at conclusions.
Thus in the selection of his bride he had weighed every influence
upon the future of his posterity and his estate. He had calculated
that his helpmate must be capable of maintaining, by means of her
accomplishments, grace of person, and intellect, his exalted social
eminence. She must be respected by the Colonial social leaders in
order that the administration of the vice-regal office should be
deservedly popular. Though to make doubly sure of his results, Barclugh
had determined to wed before his mission to America was divulged and
before his emoluments and honors were known. If he were to be accepted
in his proposals for marriage he would be desired for himself, and
not as Viceroy of the most powerful monarch on earth. Once settled
in his marital affairs he could open up to his bride the honors of
his position, and the power which would rest in her hands. Dreams
of William the Conqueror parcelling out estates and titles to his
favorites welled up in the mind of Barclugh.
“What woman would not enjoy such a position?” thought he. “Not a
vestige of the former principles of equality and democracy would be
tolerated; every semblance of the principles of the Declaration of
Independence would be crushed.”
But who was to be the fortunate or unfortunate object of all these
plans and conceptions of power and grandeur,--the one on whom would
devolve all the prestige of founding a new order of barons,--whose will
might be the arbiter and maker of titles for American families in the
new regime of nobility and aristocracy?