LORD'S LECTURES
BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME XI
AMERICAN FOUNDERS.
BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,
AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
ETC., ETC.
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
Dr. Lord's volume on "American Statesmen" was written some years after
the issue of his volume on "Warriors and Statesmen," which was Volume IV
of his original series of five volumes. The wide popular acceptance of
the five volumes encouraged him to extend the series by including, and
rewriting for the purpose, others of his great range of lectures. The
volume called "Warriors and Statesmen" (now otherwise distributed)
included a number of lectures which in this new edition have been
arranged in more natural grouping. Among them were the lectures on
Hamilton and Webster. It has been deemed wise to bring these into closer
relation with their contemporaries, and thus Hamilton is now placed in
this volume, among the other "American Founders," and Webster in the
volume on "American Leaders."
Of the "Founders" there is one of whom Dr. Lord did not treat, yet whose
services--especially in the popular confirmation of the Constitution by
the various States, and notably in its fundamental interpretation by the
United States Supreme Court--rank as vitally important. John Marshall,
as Chief Justice of that Court, raised it to a lofty height in the
judicial world, and by his various decisions established the
Constitution in its unique position as applicable to all manner of
political and commercial questions--the world's marvel of combined
firmness and elasticity. To quote Winthrop, as cited by Dr. Lord, it is
"like one of those rocking-stones reared by the Druids, which the finger
of a child may vibrate to its centre, yet which the might of an army
cannot move from its place."
So important was Marshall's work, and so potent is the influence of the
United States Supreme Court, that no apology is needed for introducing
into this volume on our "Founders" a chapter dealing with that great
theme by Professor John Bassett Moore, recently Assistant Secretary of
State; later, Counsel for the Peace Commission at Paris; and now
occupying the chair of International Law and Diplomacy in the School of
Political Science, Columbia University, New York City.
NEW YORK, September, 1902.
CONTENTS.
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.
THE AMERICAN IDEA.
Basis of American institutions
Their origin
The Declaration of Independence
Duties rather than rights enjoined in Hebrew Scriptures
Roman laws in reference to rights
Rousseau and the "Contrat Social"
Calvinism and liberty
Holland and the Puritans
The English Constitution
The Anglo-Saxon Laws
The Guild system
Teutonic passion for personal independence
English Puritans
Puritan settlers in New England
Puritans and Dutch settlers compared
Traits of the Pilgrim Fathers
New England town-meetings
Love of learning among the Puritan colonists
Confederation of towns
Colonial governors
Self-government; use of fire-arms
Parish ministers
Religious freedom
Growth of the colonies
The conquest of Canada
Colonial discontents
Desire for political independence
Oppressive English legislation
Denial of the right of taxation
James Otis and Samuel Adams
The Stamp Act
Boston Port Bill
British troops in Boston
The Battle of Lexington
Liberty under law
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
DIPLOMACY.
Birth of Franklin
His early days
Leaves the printer's trade
Goes to Philadelphia
Visit to England
Returns to Philadelphia
Prints a newspaper
Establishes the "Junto"
Marries Deborah Reid
Establishes a library
"Poor Richard"
Clerk of the General Assembly
Business prosperity
Retirement from business
Scientific investigations
Founds the University of Pennsylvania
Scientific inventions
Franklin's materialism
Appointed postmaster-general
The Penns
The Quakers
Franklin sent as colonial agent to London
Difficulties and annoyances
Acquaintances and friends
Returns to America
Elected member of the Assembly
English taxation of the colonies
English coercion
Franklin again sent to England
At the bar of the House of Commons
Repeal of the Stamp Act
Franklin appointed agent for Massachusetts
The Hutchinson letters
Franklin a member of the Continental Congress
Sent as envoy to France
His tact and wisdom
Unbounded popularity in France
Embarrassments in raising money
The recall of Silas Deane
Franklin's useful career as diplomatist
Associated with John Jay and John Adams
The treaty of peace
Franklin returns to America
His bodily infirmities
Happy domestic life
Chosen member of the Constitutional Convention
Sickness; death; services
Deeds and fame
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Washington's origin and family
His early life
Personal traits
Friendship with Lord Fairfax
Washington as surveyor
Aide to General Braddock
Member of the House of Burgesses
Marriage, and life at Mount Vernon
Member of the Continental Congress
General-in-chief of the American armies
His peculiarities as general
At Cambridge
Organization of the army
Defence of Boston
British evacuation of Boston
Washington in New York
Retreat from New York
In New Jersey
Forlorn condition of the army
Arrival at the Delaware
Fabian Policy
The battle of Trenton
Intrenchment at Morristown
Expulsion of the British from New Jersey
The gloomy winter of 1777
Washington defends Philadelphia
Battle of Germantown
Surrender of Burgoyne
Intrigues of Gates
Baron Steuben
Winter at Valley Forge
British evacuation of Philadelphia
Battle of Monmouth
Washington at White Plains
Benedict Arnold
Military operations at the South
General Greene
Lord Cornwallis
His surrender at Yorktown
Close of the war
Washington at Mount Vernon
Elected president
Alexander Hamilton
John Jay
Washington as president
Establishment of United States Bank
Rivalries and dissensions between Hamilton and Jefferson
French intrigues
Jay treaty
Citizen Genet
Washington's administrations
Retirement of Washington
Death, character, and services
ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
AMERICAN CONSTITUTION.
Hamilton's youth
Education
Precocity of intellect
State of political parties on the breaking out of the Revolutionary War
Their principles
Their great men
Hamilton leaves college for the army
Selected by Washington as his aide-de-camp at the age of nineteen
His early services to Washington
Suggestions to members of Congress
Trials and difficulties of the patriots
Demoralization of the country
Hamilton in active military service
Leaves the army; marries; studies law
Opening of his legal career
His peculiarities as a lawyer
Contrasted with Aaron Burr
Hamilton enters political life
Sees the necessity of a constitution
Convention at Annapolis
Convention at Philadelphia
The remarkable statesmen assembled
Discussion of the Convention
Great questions at issue
Constitution framed
Influence of Hamilton in its formation
Its ratification by the States
"The Federalist"
Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury
His transcendent financial genius
Restores the national credit
His various political services as statesman
The father of American industry
Protection
Federalists and Republicans
Hamilton's political influence after his retirement
Resumes the law
His quarrel with Burr
His duel
His death
Burr's character and crime
Hamilton's services
His lasting influence
JOHN ADAMS.
CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMANSHIP.
The Adams family
Youth and education of John Adams
New England in the eighteenth century
Adams as orator
As lawyer
The Stamp Act
The "Boston Massacre"
Effects of English taxation
Destruction of tea at Boston
Adams sent to Congress
His efforts to secure national independence
Criticisms of the Congress
Battles of Lexington and Concord
Adams moves Washington's appointment as general-in-chief
Sent to France
Adams as diplomatist
His jealousy of Franklin
Adams in England
As vice-president
Aristocratic sympathies
As president
Formation of political parties
The Federalists; the Republicans
Adams compared with Jefferson
Discontent of Adams
Strained relations between France and the United States
The Alien and Sedition laws
Decline of the Federal party
Adams's tenacity of office
His services to the State
Adams in retirement
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
Thomas Jefferson
Birth and early education
Law studies
Liberal principles
Practises law
Successful, but no orator
Enters the House of Burgesses
Marries a rich widow
Builds "Monticello"
Member of the Continental Congress
Drafts the Declaration of Independence
Enters the State Legislature
Governor of Virginia
Appointed minister to France
Hails the French Revolution
Services as a diplomatist
Secretary of state
Rivalry with Hamilton
Love of peace
Founds the Democratic party
Contrasted with Hamilton
Becomes vice-president
Inaugurated as president
Policy as president
The purchase of Louisiana
Aaron Burr
His brilliant career and treasonable schemes
Arrest and trial
Subsequent reverses
The Non-importation Act
Strained relations between France and the United States
English aggressions
The peace policy of Jefferson
The embargo
Triumph of the Democratic party
Results of universal suffrage
Private life of Jefferson
Retirement to Monticello
Vast correspondence; hospitality
Fame as a writer
Friend of religious liberty and popular education
Founds the University of Virginia
His great services
JOHN MARSHALL.
BY JOHN BASSETT MOORE.
THE SUPREME COURT.
The States of the American Union after the Revolution, for a time a
loose confederation, retaining for the most part powers of independent
governments.
The Constitution (1787-89) sought to remedy this and other defects.
One Supreme Court created, in which was vested the judicial power of the
United States.
John Marshall, in order the fourth Chief Justice (1801-35), takes
pre-eminent part in the development of the judicial power.
Earns the title of "Expounder of the Constitution".
Birth (1755) and parentage.
His active service in the Revolutionary War.
Admitted to the bar (1780) and begins practice (1781).
A member of the Virginia Legislature.
Supporter of Washington's administrations, and leader of Federal party.
United States Envoy to France (1797-98).
Member of Congress from Virginia (1799-1800), and supporter of President
Adams's administration.
Secretary of State in Adams's Cabinet (1800-01).
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
His many important decisions on constitutional questions.
Maintains power of the Supreme Court to decide upon the
constitutionality of Acts of Congress.
Asserts power of Federal Government to incorporate banks, with freedom
from State control and taxation.
Maintains also its power to regulate commerce, free from State
hindrance or obstruction.
His constitutional opinion, authoritative and unshaken.
His decisions on questions of International Law.
Decides the status of a captured American vessel visiting her native
port as a foreign man-of-war.
Sound decision respecting prize cases.
His views and rulings respecting confiscation of persons and property in
time of war.
Personal characteristics and legal acumen.
Weight and influence of the Supreme Court of the United States.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME XI.
Surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown.
_After the painting by Ch. Ed. Armand Dumaresq_
Puritans Going to Church
_After the painting by G. H. Boughton_.
Benjamin Franklin
_After the painting by Baron Jos. Sifrède Duplessis_.
Franklin's Experiments with Electricity
_After the painting by Karl Storch_.
The Fight of the Bonhomme Richard and Serapis
_After the painting by J. O. Davidson_.
George Washington
_After the painting by Gilbert Stuart_
Washington's Home at Mt. Vernon
_From a photograph_.
Alexander Hamilton
_After the painting by Gilbert Stuart_.
Duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr
_After the painting by J. Mund_.
John Adams
_After the painting by Gilbert Stuart_.
Patrick Henry's Speech in the House of Burgesses
_After the painting by Rothermel_.
Thomas Jefferson
_After the painting by Gilbert Stuart_.
John Marshall
_From an engraving after the painting by Inman_.
PRELIMINARY CHAPTER
THE AMERICAN IDEA.
1600-1775.
In a survey of American Institutions there seem to be three fundamental
principles on which they are based: first, that all men are naturally
equal in rights; second, that a people cannot be taxed without their own
consent; and third, that they may delegate their power of
self-government to representatives chosen by themselves.
The remote origin of these principles it is difficult to trace. Some
suppose that they are innate, appealing to consciousness,--concerning
which there can be no dispute or argument. Others suppose that they
exist only so far as men can assert and use them, whether granted by
rulers or seized by society. Some find that they arose among our
Teutonic ancestors in their German forests, while still others go back
to Jewish, Grecian, and Roman history for their origin. Wherever they
originated, their practical enforcement has been a slow and unequal
growth among various peoples, and it is always the evident result of an
evolution, or development of civilization.
In the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson
asserts that "all men are created equal," and that among their
indisputable rights are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Nobody disputes this; and yet, looking critically into the matter, it
seems strange that, despite Jefferson's own strong anti-slavery
sentiments, his associates should have excluded the colored race from
the common benefits of humanity, unless the negroes in their plantations
were not men at all, only things or chattels. The American people went
through a great war and spent thousands of millions of dollars to
maintain the indissoluble union of their States; but the events of that
war and the civil reconstruction forced the demonstration that African
slaves have the same inalienable rights for recognition before the law
as the free descendants of the English and the Dutch. The statement of
the Declaration has been formally made good; and yet, whence came it?
If we go back to the New Testament, the great Charter of Christendom, in
search of rights, we are much puzzled to find them definitely declared
anywhere; but we find, instead, duties enjoined with great clearness
and made universally binding. It is only by a series of deductions,
especially from Saint Paul's epistles, that we infer the right of
Christian liberty, with no other check than conscience,--the being made
free by the gospel of Christ, emancipated from superstition and
tyrannies of opinion; yet Paul says not a word about the manumission of
slaves, as a right to which they are justly entitled, any more than he
urges rebellion against a constituted civil government because it is a
despotism. The burden of his political injunctions is submission to
authority, exhortations to patience under the load of evils and
tribulations which so many have to bear without hope of relief.
In the earlier Jewish jurisprudence we find laws in relation to property
which recognize natural justice as clearly as does the jurisprudence of
Rome; but revolt and rebellion against bad rulers or kings, although apt
to take place, were nowhere enjoined, unless royal command should
militate against the sovereignty of God,--the only ultimate authority.
By the Hebrew writers, bad rulers are viewed as a misfortune to the
people ruled, which they must learn to bear, hoping for better times,
trusting in Providence for relief, rather than trying to remove by
violence. It is He who raises up deliverers in His good time, to reign
in justice and equity. If anything can be learned from the Hebrew
Scriptures in reference to rights, it is the injunction to obey God
rather than man, in matters where conscience is concerned; and this
again merges into duty, but is susceptible of vast applications to
conduct as controlled by individual opinion.
Under Roman rule native rights fare no better. Paul could appeal from
Jewish tyrants to Caesar in accordance with his rights as a Roman
citizen; but his Roman citizenship had nothing to do with any inborn
rights as a man. Paul could appeal to Caesar as a Roman citizen. For
what? For protection, for the enjoyment of certain legal privileges
which the Empire had conferred upon Roman citizenship, not for any
rights which he could claim as a human being. If the Roman laws
recognized any rights, it was those which the State had given, not those
which are innate and inalienable, and which the State could not justly
take away. I apprehend that even in the Greek and Roman republics no
civil rights could be claimed except those conferred upon men as
citizens rather than as human beings. Slaves certainly had no rights,
and they composed half the population of the old Roman world. Rights
were derived from decrees or laws, not from human consciousness.
Where then did Jefferson get his ideas as to the equal rights to which
men were born? Doubtless from the French philosophers of the eighteenth
century, especially from Rousseau, who, despite his shortcomings as a
man, was one of the most original thinkers that his century produced,
and one of the most influential in shaping the opinions of civilized
Europe. In his "Contrat Social" Rousseau appealed to consciousness,
rather than to authorities or the laws of nations. He took his stand on
the principles of eternal justice in all he wrote as to civil liberties,
and hence he kindled an immense enthusiasm for liberty as an
inalienable right.
But Rousseau came from Switzerland, where the passion for personal
independence was greater than in any other part of Europe,--a passion
perhaps inherited from the old Teutonic nations in their forests, on
which Tacitus dilates, next to their veneration for woman the most
interesting trait among the Germanic barbarians. No Eastern nation,
except the ancient Persians, had these traits. The law of liberty is an
Occidental rather than an Oriental peculiarity, and arose among the
Aryans in their European settlements. Moreover, Rousseau lived in a city
where John Calvin had taught the principles of religious liberty which
afterwards took root in Holland, England, Scotland, and France, and
created the Puritans and Huguenots. The central idea of Calvinism is the
right to worship God according to the dictates of conscience,
enlightened by the Bible. Rousseau was no Calvinist, but the principles
of religious and civil liberty are so closely connected that he may have
caught their spirit at Geneva, in spite of his hideous immorality and
his cynical unbelief. Yet even Calvin's magnificent career in defence of
the right of conscience to rebel against authority, which laid the solid
foundation of theology and church discipline on which Protestantism was
built up, arrived at such a pitch of arbitrary autocracy as to show
that, if liberty be "human" and "native," authority is no less so.
Whether, then, liberty is a privilege granted to a few, or a right to
which all people are justly entitled, it is bootless to discuss; but its
development among civilized nations is a worthy object of
historical inquiry.
A late writer, Douglas Campbell, with some plausibility and considerable
learning, traces to the Dutch republic most that is valuable in American
institutions, such as town-meetings, representative government,
restriction of taxation by the people, free schools, toleration of
religious worship, and equal laws. No doubt the influence of Holland in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in stimulating free inquiry,
religious toleration, and self-government, as well as learning,
commerce, manufactures, and the arts, was considerable, not only on the
Puritan settlers of New England, but perhaps on England itself. No
doubt the English Puritans who fled to Holland during the persecutions
of Archbishop Laud learned much from a people whose religious oracle was
Calvin, and whose great hero was William the Silent. Mr. Motley, in the
most brilliant and perhaps the most learned history ever written by an
American, has made a revelation of a nation heretofore supposed to be
dull, money-loving, and uninteresting. Too high praise cannot be given
to those brave and industrious people who redeemed their morasses from
the sea, who grew rich and powerful without the natural advantages of
soil and climate, who fought for eighty years against the whole power of
Spain, who nobly secured their independence against overwhelming forces,
who increased steadily in population and wealth when obliged to open
their dikes upon their cultivated fields, who established universities
and institutions of learning when almost driven to despair, and who
became the richest people in Europe, whitening the ocean with their
ships, establishing banks and colonies, creating a new style of
painting, and teaching immortal lessons in government when they occupied
a country but little larger than Wales. Civilization is as proud of such
a country as Holland as of Greece itself.
With all this, I still believe that it is to England we must go for the
origin of what we are most proud of in our institutions, much as the
Dutch have taught us for which we ought to be grateful, and much as we
may owe to French sceptics and Swiss religionists. This belief is
confirmed by a book I have just read by Hannis Taylor on the "Origin and
Growth of the English Constitution." It is not an artistic history, by
any means, but one in which the author has brought out the recent
investigations of Edward Freeman, John Richard Green, Bishop Stubbs,
Professor Gneist of Berlin, and others, who with consummate learning
have gone to the roots of things,--some of whom, indeed, are dry
writers, regardless of style, disdainful of any thing but facts, which
they have treated with true scholastic minuteness. It appears from these
historians, as quoted by Taylor, and from other authorities to which the
earlier writers on English history had no access, that the germs of our
free institutions existed among the Anglo-Saxons, and were developed to
a considerable extent among their Norman conquerors in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, when barons extorted charters from kings in
their necessities, and when the common people of Saxon origin secured
valuable rights and liberties, which they afterwards lost under the
Tudor and Stuart princes. I need not go into a detail of these. It is
certain that in the reign of Edward I. (1274-1307), himself a most
accomplished and liberal civil ruler, the English House of Commons had
become very powerful, and had secured in Parliament the right of
originating money bills, and the control of every form of taxation,--on
the principle that the people could not be taxed without their own
consent. To this principle kings gave their assent, reluctantly indeed,
and made use of all their statecraft to avoid compliance with it, in
spite of their charters and their royal oaths. But it was a political
idea which held possession of the minds of the people from the reign of
Edward I. to that of Henry IV. During this period all citizens had the
right of suffrage in their boroughs and towns, in the election of
certain magistrates. They were indeed mostly controlled by the lord of
the manor and by the parish priest, but liberty was not utterly
extinguished in England, even by Norman kings and nobles; it existed to
a greater degree than in any continental State out of Italy. It cannot
be doubted that there was a constitutional government in England as
early as in the time of Edward I., and that the power of kings was even
then checked by parliamentary laws.
In Freeman's "Norman Conquest," it appears that the old English town, or
borough, is purely of Teutonic origin. In this, local self-government is
distinctly recognized, although it subsequently was controlled by the
parish priest and the lord of the manor under the influence of the
papacy and feudalism; in other words, the ancient jurisdiction of the
tun-mõt--or town-meeting--survived in the parish vestry and the manorial
court. The guild system, according to Kendall, had its origin in England
at a very early date, and a great influence was exercised on popular
liberty by the meetings of the various guilds, composed, as they were,
of small freemen. The guild law became the law of the town, with the
right to elect its magistrates. "The old reeve or bailiff was supplanted
by mayor and aldermen, and the practice of sending the reeve and four
men as the representatives of the township to the shire-moot widened
into the practice of sending four discreet men as representatives of the
county to confer with the king in his great council touching the affairs
of the kingdom." "In 1376," says Taylor, "the Commons, intent upon
correcting the evil practices of the sheriff, petitioned that the
knights of the shire might be chosen by common election of the better
folk of the shires, and not nominated by the sheriff; and Edward III.
assented to the request."
I will not dwell further on the origin and maintenance of free
institutions in England while Continental States were oppressed by all
the miseries of royalty and feudalism. But beyond all the charters and
laws which modern criticism had raked out from buried or forgotten
records, there is something in the character of the English yeoman which
even better explains what is most noticeable in the settlement of the
American Colonies, especially in New England. The restless passion for
personal independence, the patience, the energy, the enterprise, even
the narrowness and bigotry which marked the English middle classes in
all the crises of their history, stand out in bold relief in the
character of the New England settlers. All their traits are not
interesting, but they are English, and represent the peculiarities of
the Anglo-Saxons, rather than of the Normans. In England, they produced
a Latimer rather than a Cranmer,--a Cromwell rather than a Stanley. The
Saxon yeomanry at the time of Chaucer were not aristocratic, but
democratic. They had an intense hatred of Norman arrogance and
aggression. Their home life was dull, but virtuous. They cared but
little for the sports of the chase, compared with the love which the
Norman aristocracy always had for such pleasures. It was among them that
two hundred years later the reformed doctrines of Calvin took the
deepest hold, since these were indissolubly blended with civil liberty.
There was something in the blood of the English Puritans which fitted
them to be the settlers of a new country, independent of cravings for
religious liberty. In their new homes in the cheerless climate of New
England we see traits which did not characterize the Dutch settlers of
New York; we find no patroons, no ambition to be great landed
proprietors, no desire to live like country squires, as in Virginia.
They were more restless and enterprising than their Dutch neighbors, and
with greater public spirit in dangers. They loved the discussion of
abstract questions which it was difficult to settle. They produced a
greater number of orators and speculative divines in proportion to their
wealth and number than the Dutch, who were phlegmatic and fond of ease
and comfort, and did not like to be disturbed by the discussion of
novelties. They had more of the spirit of progress than the colonists of
New York. There was a quiet growth among them of those ideas which
favored political independence, while also there was more intolerance,
both social and religious. They hanged witches and persecuted the
Quakers. They kept Sunday with more rigor than the Dutch, and were less
fond of social festivities. They were not so genial and frank in their
social gatherings, although fonder of excitement.
Among all the new settlers, however, both English and Dutch, we see one
element in common,--devotion to the cause of liberty and hatred of
oppression and wrong, learned from the weavers of Ghent as well as from
the burghers of Exeter and Bristol.
In another respect the Dutch and English resembled each other: they
were equally fond of the sea, and of commercial adventures, and hence
were noted fishermen as well as thrifty merchants. And they equally
respected learning, and gave to all their children the rudiments of
education. At the time the great Puritan movement began, the English
were chiefly agriculturists and the Dutch were merchants and
manufacturers. Wool was exported from England to purchase the cloth into
which it was woven. There were sixty thousand weavers in Ghent alone,
and the towns and cities of Flanders and Holland were richer and more
beautiful than those of England.
It will be remembered that New York (Nieuw Amsterdam) was settled by the
Dutch in 1613, and Jamestown, Virginia, by the Elizabethan colonies in
1607. So that both of these colonies antedated the coming of the
Pilgrims to Massachusetts in 1620. It is true that most of the histories
of the United States have been written by men of New England origin, and
that therefore by natural predilection they have made more of the New
England influence than of the other elements among the Colonies. Yet
this is not altogether the result of prejudice; for, despite the
splendid roll of soldiers and statesmen from the Middle and Southern
sections of the country who bore so large a share in the critical events
of the transition era of the Revolution, it remains that the brunt of
resistance to tyranny fell first and heaviest on New England, and that
the principal influences that prepared the general sentiment of revolt,
union, war, and independence proceeded from those colonies.
The Puritan exodus from England, chiefly from the eastern counties,
first to Holland, and then to New England, was at its height during the
persecutions of Archbishop Laud in the reign of Charles I. The
Pilgrims--as the small company of Separatists were called who followed
their Puritanism to the extent of breaking entirely away from the
Church, and who left Holland for America--came to barren shores, after
having learned many things from the Dutch. Their pilgrimage was taken,
not with the view of improving their fortunes, like the more
aristocratic settlers of Virginia, but to develop their peculiar ideas.
It must be borne in mind that the civilization they brought with them
was a growth from Teutonic ancestry,--an evolution from Saxon times,
although it is difficult to trace the successive developments during the
Norman rule. The Pilgrims brought with them to America an intense love
of liberty, and consequently an equally intense hatred of arbitrary
taxation. Their enjoyment of religious rights was surpassed only by
their aversion to Episcopacy. They were a plain and simple people, who
abhorred the vices of the patrician class at home; but they loved
learning, and sought to extend knowledge, as the bulwark of free
institutions. The Puritans who followed them within ten years and
settled Massachusetts Bay and Salem, were direct from England. They were
not Separatists, like the Pilgrims, but Presbyterians; they hated
Episcopacy, but would have had Church and State united under
Presbyterianism. They were intolerant, as against Roger Williams and the
"witches," and at first perpetrated cruelties like those from which they
themselves had fled. But something in the free air of the big continent
developed the spirit of liberty among them until they, too, like the
Pilgrims, became Independents and Separatists,--and so,
Congregationalists rather than Presbyterians.
The first thing we note among these New Englanders was their
town-meetings, derived from the ancient folk-mote, in which they elected
their magistrates, and imposed upon themselves the necessary taxes for
schools, highways, and officers of the law. They formed self-governed
communities, who selected for rulers their ablest and fittest men,
marked for their integrity and intelligence,--grave, austere, unselfish,
and incorruptible. Money was of little account in comparison with
character. The earliest settlers were the picked and chosen men of the
yeomanry of England, and generally thrifty and prosperous. Their leaders
had had high social positions in their English homes, and their
ministers were chiefly graduates of the universities, some of whom were
fine scholars in both Hebrew and Greek, had been settled in important
parishes, and would have attained high ecclesiastical rank had they not
been nonconformists,--opposed to the ritual, rather than the theological
tenets of the English Church as established by Elizabeth. Of course they
were Calvinists, more rigid even than their brethren in Geneva. The
Bible was to them the ultimate standard of authority--civil and
religious. The only restriction on suffrage was its being conditioned on
church-membership. They aspired, probably from Calvinistic influence,
but aspired in vain, to establish a theocracy, borrowed somewhat from
that of the Jews. I do not agree with Mr. John Fiske, in his able and
interesting history of the "Beginnings of New England," that "the
Puritan appealed to reason;" I think that the Bible was their ultimate
authority in all matters pertaining to religion. As to civil government,
the reason may have had a great place in their institutions; but these
grew up from their surroundings rather than from study or the experience
of the past. There was more originality in them than it is customary to
suppose. They were the development of Old England life in New England,
but grew in many respects away from the parent stock.
The next thing of mark among the Colonists was their love of learning;
all children were taught to read and write. They had been settled at
Plymouth, Salem, and Boston less than twenty years when they established
Harvard College, chiefly for the education of ministers, who took the
highest social rank in the Colonies, and were the most influential
people. Lawyers and physicians were not so well educated. As for
lawyers, there was but little need of them, since disputes were mostly
settled either by the ministers or the selectmen of the towns, who were
the most able and respectable men of the community. What the theocratic
Puritans desired the most was educated ministers and schoolmasters. In
1641 a school was established in Hartford, Connecticut, which was free
to the poor. By 1642 every township in Massachusetts had a schoolmaster,
and in 1665 every one embracing fifty families a common school. If the
town had over one hundred families it had a grammar school, in which
Latin was taught. It is probable, however, that the idea of popular
education originated with the Dutch. Elizabeth and her ministers did not
believe in the education of the masses, of which we read but little
until the 19th century. As early as 1582 the Estates of Friesland
decreed that the inhabitants of towns and villages should provide good
and able Reformed schoolmasters, so that when the English
nonconformists dwelt in Leyden in 1609 the school, according to Motley,
had become the common property of the people.
The next thing we note among the Colonists of New England is the
confederation of towns and their representation in the Legislature, or
the General Court. This was formed to settle questions of common
interest, to facilitate commerce, to establish a judicial system, to
devise means for protection against hostile Indians, to raise taxes to
support the common government. The Legislature, composed of delegates
chosen by the towns, exercised most of the rights of sovereignty,
especially in the direction of military affairs and the collection
of revenue.
The governors were chosen by the people in secret ballot, until the
liberal charter granted by Charles I. was revoked, and a royal governor
was placed over the four confederated Colonies of Massachusetts,
Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. This confederation was not a
federal union, but simply a league for mutual defence against the
Indians. Each Colony managed its own internal affairs, without
interference from England, until 1684.
Down to this time the Colonies had been too insignificant to attract
much notice in England, and hence were left to develop their
institutions in their own way, according to the circumstances which
controlled them, and the dangers with which they were surrounded. One
thing is clear: the infant Colonies governed themselves, and elected
their own magistrates, from the governor to the selectmen; and this was
true as well of the Middle and Southern as of the Eastern Colonies. Even
in Virginia quite as large a proportion of the people took part in
elections as in Massachusetts. It is difficult to find any similar
instance of uncontrolled self-government, either in Holland or England
at any period of their history. Either the king, or the Parliament, or
the lord of the manor, or the parish priest controlled appointments or
interfered with them, and even when the people directly selected their
magistrates, suffrage was not universal, as it gradually came to be in
the Colonies, with slight restrictions,--one of the features of the
development of American institutions.
Another thing we notice among the Colonies, which had no inconsiderable
influence on their growth, was the use of fire-arms among all the
people, to defend themselves from hostile Indians. Every man had his
musket and powder-flask; and there were several periods when it was not
safe even to go to church unarmed. Thus were the new settlers inured to
danger and self-defence, and bloody contests with their savage foes.
They grew up practically soldiers, and formed a firm material for an
effective militia, able to face regular troops and even engage in
effective operations, as seen afterwards in the conquest of Louisburg by
Sir William Pepperell, a Kittery merchant. But for the universal use of
fire-arms, either for war or game, it is doubtful if the Colonies could
have won their independence. And it is interesting to notice that, while
the free carrying of weapons, in these later days at least, is apt to
result in rough lawlessness, as in our frontier regions, among the
serious and law-abiding Colonists of those early times it was not so.
This was probably due both to their strict religious obligations and to
the presence of their wives and children.
The unrestricted selection of parish ministers by the people was no
slight cause of New England growth, and was also a peculiar custom or
institution not seen in the mother country, where appointment to
parishes was chiefly in the hands of the aristocracy or the crown.
Either the king, or the lord chancellor, or the universities, or the
nobility, or the county squires had the gift of the "livings," often
bestowed on ignorant or worldly or inefficient men, the younger sons of
men of rank, who made no mark, and were incapable of instruction or
indifferent to their duties. In New England the minister of the parish
was elected by the church members or congregation, and if he could not
edify his hearers by his sermons, or if his character did not command
respect, his occupation was gone, or his salary was not paid. In
consequence the ministers were generally gifted men, well educated, and
in sympathy with the people. Who can estimate the influence of such
religious teachers on everything that pertained to New England life and
growth,--on morals, on education, on religious and civil institutions!
Although we have traced the early characteristics of the New England
Colonists, especially because it was in New England first and chiefly
that the spirit of resistance to English oppression grew to a sentiment
for independence, it is not to be overlooked that the essential elements
of self-controlling manhood were common throughout all the Colonies. And
everywhere it seems to have grown out of the germ of a devotion to
religious freedom, developed on a secluded continent, where men were
shut in by the sea on the one hand, and perils from the fierce
aborigines on the other. The Puritans of New England, the Hollanders of
New York, Penn's Quaker colony in Pennsylvania, the Huguenots of South
Carolina, the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of North Carolina, Virginia,
Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, were all of Calvinistic training
and came from European persecutions. All were rigidly Puritanical in
their social and Sabbatarian observances. Even the Episcopalians of
Virginia, where a larger Norman-English stock was settled, with
infusions of French-Huguenot blood, and where slavery bred more men of
wealth and broader social distinctions, were sternly religious in their
laws, although far more lax and pleasure-loving in their customs.
Everywhere, this new life of Englishmen in a new land developed their
self-reliance, their power of work, their skill in arms, their habit of
common association for common purposes, and their keen, intelligent
knowledge of political conditions, with a tenacious grip on their rights
as Englishmen.
In the enjoyment, then, of unknown civil and religious liberties, of
equal laws, and a mild government, the Colonies rapidly grew, in spite
of Indian wars. In New England they had also to combat a hard soil and a
cold climate. Their equals in rugged strength, in domestic virtues, in
religious veneration were not to be seen on the face of the whole earth.
They may have been intolerant, narrow-minded, brusque and rough in
manners, and with little love or appreciation of art; they may have been
opinionated and self-sufficient: but they were loyal to duties and to
their "Invisible King." Above all things, they were tenacious of their
rights, and scrupled no sacrifices to secure them, and to perpetuate
them among their children.
It is not my object to describe the history of the Puritans, after they
had made a firm settlement in the primeval forests, down to the
Revolutionary War, but only to glance at the institutions they created
or adopted, which have extended more or less over all parts of North
America, and laid the foundation for a magnificent empire.
At the close of the Seven Years' War, in 1763, which ended in the
conquest of Canada from the French by the combined forces of England and
her American subjects, the population of the Colonies--in New England
and the Middle and Southern sections--was not far from two millions.
Success in war and some development in wealth naturally engendered
self-confidence. I apprehend that the secret and unavowed consciousness
of power, creating the desire to be a nation rather than a mere colony
dependent on Great Britain,--or, if colonies, yet free and untrammelled
by the home government,--had as much to do with the struggle for
independence as the discussion of rights, at least among the leaders of
the people, both clerical and lay. The feeling that they were not
represented in Parliament was not of much account, for more than three
quarters of the English at home had no representation at all. To be
represented in Parliament was utterly impracticable, and everybody knew
it. But when arbitrary measures were adopted by the English government,
in defiance of charters, the popular orators made a good point in
magnifying the injustice of "taxation without representation."
The Colonies had been marvellously prospered, and if not rich they were
powerful, and were spreading toward the indefinite and unexplored West.
The Seven Years' War had developed their military capacity. It was New
England troops which had taken Louisburg. The charm of British
invincibility had been broken by Braddock's defeat. The Americans had
learned self-reliance in their wars with the Indians, and had nearly
exterminated them along the coast without British aid. The Colonists
three thousand miles away from England had begun to feel their
importance, and to realize the difficulty of their conquest by any
forces that England could command. The self-exaggeration common to all
new countries was universal. Few as the people were, compared with the
population of the mother country, their imagination was boundless. They
felt, if they did not clearly foresee, their inevitable future. The
North American continent was theirs by actual settlement and long habits
of self-government, and they were determined to keep it. Why should they
be dependent on a country that crippled their commerce, that stifled
their manufactures, that regulated their fisheries, that appointed their
governors, and regarded them with selfish ends,--as a people to be
taxed in order that English merchants and manufacturers should be
enriched? They did not feel weak or dependent; what new settlers in the
Western wilds ever felt that they could not take care of their farms and
their flocks and everything which they owned?
Doubtless such sentiments animated far-reaching men, to whom liberty was
so sweet, and power so enchanting. They could not openly avow them
without danger of arrest, until resistance was organized. They contented
themselves with making the most of oppressive English legislation, to
stimulate the people to discontent and rebellion. Ambition was hidden
under the burden of taxation which was to make them slaves. Although
among the leaders there was great veneration for English tradition and
law, the love they professed for England was rather an ideal sentiment
than an actual feeling, except among aristocrats and men of rank.
Nor was it natural that the Colonists, especially the Puritans, should
cherish much real affection for a country that had persecuted them and
driven them away. They felt that not so much Old England as New England
was their home, in which new sentiments had been born, and new
aspirations had been cultivated. It was very seldom that a colonist
visited England at all, and except among the recent comers their
English relatives were for the most part unknown. Loyalty to the king
was gradually supplanted by devotion to the institutions which they had
adopted, or themselves created. In a certain sense they admitted that
they were still subject to Great Britain, but one hundred and fifty
years of self-government had nearly destroyed this feeling of
allegiance, especially when they were aroused to deny the right of the
English government to tax them without their own consent.
With the denial of the right of taxation by England naturally came
resistance.