THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION
I SHOULD be glad to have some of you take a steamboat ride up the broad
Hudson River, past the city of New York, and onward in the track of the
"Half Moon," Henry Hudson's ship. If you did so, you would come in time
to the point where this ship stopped and turned back. Here, where Hudson
and his Dutch sailors saw only a great spread of forest trees,
stretching far back from the river bank, our modern travelers would see
the large and handsome city of Albany, the capital of the State of New
York.
This is one of the hundreds of fine cities which have grown up in our
country since Henry Hudson's time. A hundred and fifty years ago it was
a small place, not much larger than many of our villages. But even then
it was of importance, for in it was taken the first step towards our
great Union of States. I shall have to tell you what this step was, for
you will certainly want to know.
Well, at the time I speak of there was no such thing as an American
Union. There were thirteen colonies, reaching from New Hampshire down
to Georgia. But each of these was like a little nation of its own; each
had its own government, made its own laws, and fought its own fights.
This was well enough in one way, but it was not so well in another. At
one time the people had the Indians to fight with, at another time the
French, and sometimes both of these together, and many of them thought
that they could do their fighting better if they were united into one
country.
So in the year 1754 the colonies sent some of their best men to Albany,
to talk over this matter, and see if a union of the colonies could not
be made. This is what I meant when I said that the first step towards
the American Union was taken at Albany.
Of these men, there is only one I shall say anything about. This man's
name you should know and remember, for he was one of the noblest and
wisest men that ever lived in this country. His name was Benjamin
Franklin. Forty years before this time he was a little Boston boy at
work in his father's shop, helping him make candles. Afterwards he
learned how to print, and then, in 1723, he went to Philadelphia, where
he soon had a shop and a newspaper office, and in time became rich.
There was nothing going on that Franklin did not take part in. In his
shop he bound books, he made ink, he sold rags, soap, and coffee. He was
not ashamed of honest work, and would take off his coat and wheel his
papers along the street in a wheelbarrow. He started many institutions
in Philadelphia which are now very important. Among these there are a
great university, a large hospital, and a fine library. No doubt you
have read how he brought down the lightning from the clouds along the
string of a kite, and proved that lightning is the same thing as
electricity. And he took an active part in all the political movements
of the time. That is why he came to be sent to Albany in 1754, as a
member of the Albany Convention.
Franklin always did things in ways that set people to thinking. When he
went to Albany he took with him copies of a queer picture which he had
printed in his newspaper. This was a snake cut into thirteen pieces.
Under each piece was the first letter of the name of a colony, such as
"P" for Pennsylvania. Beneath the whole were the words "Unite or die."
That was like Franklin; he was always doing something odd. The cut-up
snake stood for the thirteen divided colonies. What Franklin meant was
that they could not exist alone. A snake is not of much account when it
is chopped up into bits, but it is a dangerous creature when it is
whole. He proposed that there should be a grand council of all the
colonies, a sort of Congress, meeting every year in Philadelphia, which
was the most central large city. Over them all was to be a
governor-general appointed by the king. This council could make laws,
lay taxes, and perform other important duties.
That is enough to say about Franklin's plan, for it was not accepted. It
was passed by the convention, it is true, but the king would not have it
and the colonies did not want it; so the snake still lay stretched out
along the Atlantic in thirteen pieces. Then came the great war with the
French of which I have told you. After that was over, things came to
pass which in the end forced the colonies to combine. Thus Franklin's
plan, or something like it, was in time carried out, but for many years
the country was in a terrible state. This is what I am now going to tell
you about.
You should know that the war with the French cost the king and the
colonies a great deal of money. The king of England at that time was
named George. He was an obstinate man, but not a very wise one, as you
will think when you have learned more about him. One thing he wanted to
do was to send soldiers to America to keep the French from getting back
what they had lost, and he asked the people to pay these soldiers. He
also asked them to send him money to pay the governors and judges whom
he had chosen to rule over them. But the people thought they could take
care of themselves, and did not want British soldiers. And they
preferred to pay the governors and judges themselves as they had always
done, and did not want King George to do it for them. So they would not
send him the money he asked for.
Some of you may think this was very mean in the Americans, after all the
British had done to help them in their war with the French. But they
knew very well what they were about. They thought that if they gave the
king a dollar to-day he might want five dollars to-morrow, and ten
dollars the next day. They judged it best not to begin with the dollar.
Kings, you should know, do not always make the best use of money that is
given them by their people.
And that was not all. The people in the colonies did not like the way
they had been treated by the English. They had mountains full of iron,
but the king would not let them make this iron into tools. They had
plenty of wool, but he would not let them weave it into cloth. They must
buy these and other things in England, and must keep at farming; but
they were not allowed to send their grain to England, but had to eat it
all at home. They could not even send goods from one colony to another.
Thus they were to be kept poor that the rich English merchants and
manufacturers might grow rich.
These were some of the things the American people had to complain of.
There were still other things, and a good many of the Americans had very
little love for the English king and people. They felt that they were in
a sort of slavery, and almost as if they had ropes on their hands and
chains on their feet.
When King George was told that the Americans would not send him money he
was very angry. I am afraid he called them bad names. They were a low,
ignorant, ungrateful set, he said, and he would show them who was their
master. He would tax them and get money from them in that way. So the
English Parliament, which is a body of lawmakers like our Congress, came
together and passed laws to tax the Americans.
The first tax they laid is what is called a stamp tax. I fancy you know
very well what that is, for we have had a stamp tax in this country more
than once, when the government was in need of money. Everybody who wrote
a bank check, or made any legal paper, or sent away an express package,
had to buy a stamp from the government and put it on the paper; and
stamps had to be used on many other things.
But there is this difference. Our people were quite willing to buy these
stamps, but they were not willing to buy the stamps which the British
government sent them in 1765. Why? Well, they had a good reason for it,
and this was that they had nothing to do with making the law. The
English would not pay any taxes except those made by the people whom
they elected to Parliament, and the Americans said they had the same
right. They were not allowed to send any members to Parliament, so they
said that Parliament had no right to tax them. Their own legislatures
might vote to send the king money, but the English Parliament had no
right to vote for them.
When the king found that the Americans would not use his stamps he tried
another plan. He laid a tax on tea and some other goods. He thought that
our people could not do without tea, so he sent several shiploads across
the ocean, expecting them to buy it and pay the tax. But he soon found
that the colonists had no more use for taxed tea than for stamps. They
would not even let the captains bring their tea on shore, except at
Charleston, and there it was packed in damp cellars, where it soon
rotted. A ship sent to Annapolis was set on fire and burned to the
water's edge with the tea in it.
But the most stirring event took place at Boston. There one night, while
the tea-ship lay at a wharf in the harbor, a number of young men dressed
like Indians rushed on board with a loud war-whoop and began to break
open the tea-chests with their hatchets and pour the tea into the
harbor. This was the famous "Boston tea-party."
Americans liked tea, but not tea with an English tax on it. They boiled
leaves and roots and made some sort of tea out of them. It was poor
stuff, but they did not pay any tax. And they would not buy any cloth or
other goods brought from England. If the king was angry and stubborn
they were angry and stubborn, too, and every day they grew more angry,
until many of them began to think that they would be better off without
a king. They were not the kind of people to be made slaves of easily by
King George or any other king.
When the king heard of the "Boston tea-party" he was in a fury. He would
make Boston pay well for its tea, he said. So he sent soldiers there,
and he gave orders that no ships should go into or out of Boston harbor.
This stopped most of the business of the town, and soon the poor people
had no work to do and very little to eat. But they had crowded meetings
at Faneuil Hall, where Samuel Adams and John Hancock and other patriots
talked to them of their rights and wrongs. It began to look as if war
would soon come.
The time had come at last for a union of the colonies. What Franklin had
failed to do at Albany in 1754 was done at Philadelphia in 1774. A
meeting was held there which was called a Congress, and was made up of
some of the best men of the country sent from the colonies. One of these
was George Washington, who had lived on his farm at Mount Vernon since
the end of the French War.
Congress sent a letter to the king, asking him to give the people of
this country the same rights that the people of England had. There was
no harm in this, I am sure, but it made the king more obstinate still. I
have said he was not a wise man. Most people say he was a very foolish
one, or he would have known that the people of the colonies would fight
for their rights if they could not get them in peace.
All around Boston the farmers and villagers began to collect guns and
powder and to drill men into soldiers. These were called "minute men,"
which meant that they would be ready to fight at a minute's notice, if
they were asked to. When people begin to get ready in this way, war is
usually not far off.
One night at Boston a man named Paul Revere stood watching a distant
steeple till he saw a light suddenly flash out through the darkness.
Then he leaped on his horse and rode at full speed away. That light was
a signal telling him that British soldiers were on the march to Concord
twenty miles away, to destroy some powder and guns which had been
gathered there for the use of these "minute men."
Away rode Revere through the night, rousing up the people and shouting
to them that the British soldiers were coming. He was far ahead of the
soldiers, so that when they reached the village of Lexington, ten miles
from Boston, the people were wide awake, and a party of minute men was
drawn up on the village green. The soldiers were ordered to fire on
these men, and some of them fell dead. Those were the first shots in a
great war. It was the 19th of April, 1775.
The British marched on to Concord, but the farmers had carried away most
of the stores and buried them in the woods. Then the red-coats started
back, and a terrible march they had of it. For all along the road were
farmers with guns in their hands, firing on the troops from behind trees
and stone walls. Some of the soldiers got back to Boston, but many of
them lay dead in the road. The poor fellows killed at Lexington were
terribly avenged.
Far and wide spread the news, and on all sides the farmers left their
plows and took down their rifles, and thousands of them set out along
the roads to Boston. Soon there were twenty thousand armed men around
the town, and the British were shut up like rats in a trap. The American
people were in rebellion against the king and war had begun.
It was to be a long and dreadful war, but it led to American liberty,
and that was a thing well worth fighting for. While the people were
laying siege to Boston, Congress was in session at Philadelphia, talking
about what had best be done. One good thing they did was to make George
Washington commander-in-chief of the army and send him to Boston to
fight the British there. They could not have found a better soldier in
all America.
The next good thing took place a year later. This was the great event
which you celebrate with fireworks every 4th of July. Congress decided
that this country ought to be free, and no longer to be under the rule
of an English king. So a paper was written by a member from Virginia
named Thomas Jefferson, with the help of Benjamin Franklin and some
others. The paper is known by the long name of "Declaration of
Independence." It declared that the American colonies were free from
British rule, and in future would take care of themselves. It was on the
4th of July, 1776, that this great paper was adopted by Congress, and on
that day the Republic of the United States of America was born. That is
why our people have such a glad and noisy time every 4th of July.
Everywhere the people were full of joy when they heard what had been
done. In the state house at Philadelphia rang out the great bell on
which the words, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the
inhabitants thereof." In New York the statue of King George was pulled
down and thrown into the dust of the street. The people did not know
what dark days lay before them, but they were ready to suffer much for
the sake of liberty, and to risk all they had, life and all, for the
freedom of their native land.