Chapter
Summary
Utility of knowing the origin of nations in order to
understand their social condition and their laws—America the only country in
which the starting-point of a great people has been clearly observable—In what
respects all who emigrated to British America were similar—In what they
differed—Remark applicable to all Europeans who established themselves on the
shores of the New World—Colonization of Virginia—Colonization of New
England—Original character of the first inhabitants of New England—Their
arrival—Their first laws—Their social contract—Penal code borrowed from the
Hebrew legislation—Religious fervor—Republican spirit—Intimate union of the
spirit of religion with the spirit of liberty.
Origin Of The Anglo-Americans, And Its Importance In
Relation To Their Future Condition.
After the birth of a human being his early years are
obscurely spent in the toils or pleasures of childhood. As he grows up the
world receives him, when his manhood begins, and he enters into contact with
his fellows. He is then studied for the first time, and it is imagined that the
germ of the vices and the virtues of his maturer years is then formed. This, if
I am not mistaken, is a great error. We must begin higher up; we must watch the
infant in its mother's arms; we must see the first images which the external
world casts upon the dark mirror of his mind; the first occurrences which he
witnesses; we must hear the first words which awaken the sleeping powers of
thought, and stand by his earliest efforts, if we would understand the prejudices,
the habits, and the passions which will rule his life. The entire man is, so to
speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child.
The growth of nations presents something analogous to
this: they all bear some marks of their origin; and the circumstances which
accompanied their birth and contributed to their rise affect the whole term of
their being. If we were able to go back to the elements of states, and to
examine the oldest monuments of their history, I doubt not that we should
discover the primal cause of the prejudices, the habits, the ruling passions,
and, in short, of all that constitutes what is called the national character;
we should then find the explanation of certain customs which now seem at
variance with the prevailing manners; of such laws as conflict with established
principles; and of such incoherent opinions as are here and there to be met
with in society, like those fragments of broken chains which we sometimes see
hanging from the vault of an edifice, and supporting nothing. This might
explain the destinies of certain nations, which seem borne on by an unknown
force to ends of which they themselves are ignorant. But hitherto facts have
been wanting to researches of this kind: the spirit of inquiry has only come
upon communities in their latter days; and when they at length contemplated
their origin, time had already obscured it, or ignorance and pride adorned it
with truth-concealing fables.
America is the only country in which it has been possible
to witness the natural and tranquil growth of society, and where the influences
exercised on the future condition of states by their origin is clearly
distinguishable. At the period when the peoples of Europe landed in the New
World their national characteristics were already completely formed; each of
them had a physiognomy of its own; and as they had already attained that stage
of civilization at which men are led to study themselves, they have transmitted
to us a faithful picture of their opinions, their manners, and their laws. The
men of the sixteenth century are almost as well known to us as our
contemporaries. America, consequently, exhibits in the broad light of day the
phenomena which the ignorance or rudeness of earlier ages conceals from our
researches. Near enough to the time when the states of America were founded, to
be accurately acquainted with their elements, and sufficiently removed from
that period to judge of some of their results, the men of our own day seem
destined to see further than their predecessors into the series of human
events. Providence has given us a torch which our forefathers did not possess,
and has allowed us to discern fundamental causes in the history of the world
which the obscurity of the past concealed from them. If we carefully examine
the social and political state of America, after having studied its history, we
shall remain perfectly convinced that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law,
I may even say not an event, is upon record which the origin of that people
will not explain. The readers of this book will find the germ of all that is to
follow in the present chapter, and the key to almost the whole work.
The emigrants who came, at different periods to occupy
the territory now covered by the American Union differed from each other in
many respects; their aim was not the same, and they governed themselves on
different principles. These men had, however, certain features in common, and
they were all placed in an analogous situation. The tie of language is perhaps
the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind. All the emigrants
spoke the same tongue; they were all offsets from the same people. Born in a
country which had been agitated for centuries by the struggles of faction, and
in which all parties had been obliged in their turn to place themselves under
the protection of the laws, their political education had been perfected in
this rude school, and they were more conversant with the notions of right and
the principles of true freedom than the greater part of their European
contemporaries. At the period of their first emigrations the parish system,
that fruitful germ of free institutions, was deeply rooted in the habits of the
English; and with it the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people had been
introduced into the bosom of the monarchy of the House of Tudor.
The religious quarrels which have agitated the Christian
world were then rife. England had plunged into the new order of things with
headlong vehemence. The character of its inhabitants, which had always been
sedate and reflective, became argumentative and austere. General information
had been increased by intellectual debate, and the mind had received a deeper
cultivation. Whilst religion was the topic of discussion, the morals of the
people were reformed. All these national features are more or less discoverable
in the physiognomy of those adventurers who came to seek a new home on the
opposite shores of the Atlantic.
Another remark, to which we shall hereafter have occasion
to recur, is applicable not only to the English, but to the French, the
Spaniards, and all the Europeans who successively established themselves in the
New World. All these European colonies contained the elements, if not the
development, of a complete democracy. Two causes led to this result. It may
safely be advanced, that on leaving the mother-country the emigrants had in
general no notion of superiority over one another. The happy and the powerful
do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men
than poverty and misfortune. It happened, however, on several occasions, that
persons of rank were driven to America by political and religious quarrels.
Laws were made to establish a gradation of ranks; but it was soon found that
the soil of America was opposed to a territorial aristocracy. To bring that
refractory land into cultivation, the constant and interested exertions of the
owner himself were necessary; and when the ground was prepared, its produce was
found to be insufficient to enrich a master and a farmer at the same time. The
land was then naturally broken up into small portions, which the proprietor
cultivated for himself. Land is the basis of an aristocracy, which clings to
the soil that supports it; for it is not by privileges alone, nor by birth, but
by landed property handed down from generation to generation, that an
aristocracy is constituted. A nation may present immense fortunes and extreme
wretchedness, but unless those fortunes are territorial there is no
aristocracy, but simply the class of the rich and that of the poor.
All the British colonies had then a great degree of
similarity at the epoch of their settlement. All of them, from their first
beginning, seemed destined to witness the growth, not of the aristocratic
liberty of their mother-country, but of that freedom of the middle and lower
orders of which the history of the world had as yet furnished no complete
example.
In this general uniformity several striking differences
were however discernible, which it is necessary to point out. Two branches may
be distinguished in the Anglo-American family, which have hitherto grown up
without entirely commingling; the one in the South, the other in the North.
Virginia received the first English colony; the emigrants
took possession of it in 1607. The idea that mines of gold and silver are the
sources of national wealth was at that time singularly prevalent in Europe; a
fatal delusion, which has done more to impoverish the nations which adopted it,
and has cost more lives in America, than the united influence of war and bad
laws. The men sent to Virginia *a were seekers of gold, adventurers, without
resources and without character, whose turbulent and restless spirit endangered
the infant colony, *b and rendered its progress uncertain. The artisans and
agriculturists arrived afterwards; and, although they were a more moral and
orderly race of men, they were in nowise above the level of the inferior
classes in England. *c No lofty conceptions, no intellectual system, directed
the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was scarcely established
when slavery was introduced, *d and this was the main circumstance which has
exercised so prodigious an influence on the character, the laws, and all the
future prospects of the South. Slavery, as we shall afterwards show, dishonors
labor; it introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and
pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind, and benumbs
the activity of man. The influence of slavery, united to the English character,
explains the manners and the social condition of the Southern States.
a [ The charter granted by the Crown of
England in 1609 stipulated, amongst other conditions, that the adventurers
should pay to the Crown a fifth of the produce of all gold and silver mines.
See Marshall's "Life of Washington," vol. i. pp. 18-66.] [Footnote b:
A large portion of the adventurers, says Stith ("History of
Virginia"), were unprincipled young men of family, whom their parents were
glad to ship off, discharged servants, fraudulent bankrupts, or debauchees; and
others of the same class, people more apt to pillage and destroy than to assist
the settlement, were the seditious chiefs, who easily led this band into every
kind of extravagance and excess. See for the history of Virginia the following
works:—
"History of Virginia, from the First Settlements in
the year 1624," by Smith.
"History of Virginia," by William Stith.
"History of Virginia, from the Earliest
Period," by Beverley.]
c [ It was not till some time later
that a certain number of rich English capitalists came to fix themselves in the
colony.]
d [ Slavery was introduced about the
year 1620 by a Dutch vessel which landed twenty negroes on the banks of the
river James. See Chalmer.]
In the North, the same English foundation was modified by
the most opposite shades of character; and here I may be allowed to enter into
some details. The two or three main ideas which constitute the basis of the
social theory of the United States were first combined in the Northern English
colonies, more generally denominated the States of New England. *e The
principles of New England spread at first to the neighboring states; they then
passed successively to the more distant ones; and at length they imbued the
whole Confederation. They now extend their influence beyond its limits over the
whole American world. The civilization of New England has been like a beacon
lit upon a hill, which, after it has diffused its warmth around, tinges the
distant horizon with its glow.
e [ The States of New England are those
situated to the east of the Hudson; they are now six in number: 1, Connecticut;
2, Rhode Island; 3, Massachusetts; 4, Vermont; 5, New Hampshire; 6, Maine.]
The foundation of New England was a novel spectacle, and
all the circumstances attending it were singular and original. The large
majority of colonies have been first inhabited either by men without education
and without resources, driven by their poverty and their misconduct from the land
which gave them birth, or by speculators and adventurers greedy of gain. Some
settlements cannot even boast so honorable an origin; St. Domingo was founded
by buccaneers; and the criminal courts of England originally supplied the
population of Australia.
The settlers who established themselves on the shores of
New England all belonged to the more independent classes of their native
country. Their union on the soil of America at once presented the singular
phenomenon of a society containing neither lords nor common people, neither
rich nor poor. These men possessed, in proportion to their number, a greater
mass of intelligence than is to be found in any European nation of our own
time. All, without a single exception, had received a good education, and many
of them were known in Europe for their talents and their acquirements. The
other colonies had been founded by adventurers without family; the emigrants of
New England brought with them the best elements of order and morality—they
landed in the desert accompanied by their wives and children. But what most
especially distinguished them was the aim of their undertaking. They had not
been obliged by necessity to leave their country; the social position they
abandoned was one to be regretted, and their means of subsistence were certain.
Nor did they cross the Atlantic to improve their situation or to increase their
wealth; the call which summoned them from the comforts of their homes was
purely intellectual; and in facing the inevitable sufferings of exile their
object was the triumph of an idea.
The emigrants, or, as they deservedly styled themselves,
the Pilgrims, belonged to that English sect the austerity of whose principles
had acquired for them the name of Puritans. Puritanism was not merely a
religious doctrine, but it corresponded in many points with the most absolute
democratic and republican theories. It was this tendency which had aroused its
most dangerous adversaries. Persecuted by the Government of the mother-country,
and disgusted by the habits of a society opposed to the rigor of their own
principles, the Puritans went forth to seek some rude and unfrequented part of
the world, where they could live according to their own opinions, and worship
God in freedom.
A few quotations will throw more light upon the spirit of
these pious adventures than all we can say of them. Nathaniel Morton, *f the
historian of the first years of the settlement, thus opens his subject:
f [ "New England's Memorial,"
p. 13; Boston, 1826. See also "Hutchinson's History," vol. ii. p.
440.]
"Gentle Reader,—I have for some length of time
looked upon it as a duty incumbent, especially on the immediate successors of
those that have had so large experience of those many memorable and signal
demonstrations of God's goodness, viz., the first beginners of this Plantation
in New England, to commit to writing his gracious dispensations on that behalf;
having so many inducements thereunto, not onely otherwise but so plentifully in
the Sacred Scriptures: that so, what we have seen, and what our fathers have
told us (Psalm lxxviii. 3, 4), we may not hide from our children, showing to
the generations to come the praises of the Lord; that especially the seed of
Abraham his servant, and the children of Jacob his chosen (Psalm cv. 5, 6), may
remember his marvellous works in the beginning and progress of the planting of
New England, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth; how that God brought a
vine into this wilderness; that he cast out the heathen, and planted it; that
he made room for it and caused it to take deep root; and it filled the land
(Psalm lxxx. 8, 9). And not onely so, but also that he hath guided his people
by his strength to his holy habitation and planted them in the mountain of his
inheritance in respect of precious Gospel enjoyments: and that as especially
God may have the glory of all unto whom it is most due; so also some rays of
glory may reach the names of those blessed Saints that were the main
instruments and the beginning of this happy enterprise."
It is impossible to read this opening paragraph without
an involuntary feeling of religious awe; it breathes the very savor of Gospel
antiquity. The sincerity of the author heightens his power of language. The
band which to his eyes was a mere party of adventurers gone forth to seek their
fortune beyond seas appears to the reader as the germ of a great nation wafted
by Providence to a predestined shore.
The author thus continues his narrative of the departure
of the first pilgrims:—
"So they left that goodly and pleasant city of
Leyden, *g which had been their resting-place for above eleven years; but they
knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on
these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where
God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. xi. 16), and therein quieted their
spirits. When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things
ready; and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after
them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their
leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with
friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of
true Christian love. The next day they went on board, and their friends with
them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to
hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did
gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other's heart, that sundry
of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain
from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were
thus loth to depart, their Reverend Pastor falling down on his knees, and they
all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with most fervent prayers unto
the Lord and his blessing; and then, with mutual embraces and many tears they
took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of
them."
g [ The emigrants were, for the most
part, godly Christians from the North of England, who had quitted their native
country because they were "studious of reformation, and entered into
covenant to walk with one another according to the primitive pattern of the
Word of God." They emigrated to Holland, and settled in the city of Leyden
in 1610, where they abode, being lovingly respected by the Dutch, for many
years: they left it in 1620 for several reasons, the last of which was, that
their posterity would in a few generations become Dutch, and so lose their
interest in the English nation; they being desirous rather to enlarge His
Majesty's dominions, and to live under their natural prince.—Translator's
Note.]
The emigrants were about 150 in number, including the
women and the children. Their object was to plant a colony on the shores of the
Hudson; but after having been driven about for some time in the Atlantic Ocean,
they were forced to land on that arid coast of New England which is now the
site of the town of Plymouth. The rock is still shown on which the pilgrims
disembarked. *h
h [ This rock is become an object of
veneration in the United States. I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in
several towns of the Union. Does not this sufficiently show how entirely all
human power and greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet
of a few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it is
treasured by a great nation, its very dust is shared as a relic: and what is
become of the gateways of a thousand palaces?]
"But before we pass on," continues our
historian, "let the reader with me make a pause and seriously consider
this poor people's present condition, the more to be raised up to admiration of
God's goodness towards them in their preservation: for being now passed the
vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectation, they had now no
friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or
much less towns to repair unto to seek for succour: and for the season it was
winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and
violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known
places, much more to search unknown coasts. Besides, what could they see but a
hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts, and wilde men? and what
multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they
turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or
content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things
stand in appearance with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country full of
woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew; if they looked behind
them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main
bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world."
It must not be imagined that the piety of the Puritans
was of a merely speculative kind, or that it took no cognizance of the course
of worldly affairs. Puritanism, as I have already remarked, was scarcely less a
political than a religious doctrine. No sooner had the emigrants landed on the
barren coast described by Nathaniel Morton than it was their first care to
constitute a society, by passing the following Act:
"In the name of God. Amen. We, whose names are
underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, etc.,
etc., Having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian
Faith, and the honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony
in the northern parts of Virginia; Do by these presents solemnly and mutually,
in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together
into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and
furtherance of the ends aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute
and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and
officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for
the general good of the Colony: unto which we promise all due submission and
obedience," etc. *i
i [ The emigrants who founded the State
of Rhode Island in 1638, those who landed at New Haven in 1637, the first
settlers in Connecticut in 1639, and the founders of Providence in 1640, began
in like manner by drawing up a social contract, which was acceded to by all the
interested parties. See "Pitkin's History," pp. 42 and 47.]
This happened in 1620, and from that time forwards the
emigration went on. The religious and political passions which ravaged the
British Empire during the whole reign of Charles I drove fresh crowds of
sectarians every year to the shores of America. In England the stronghold of
Puritanism was in the middle classes, and it was from the middle classes that
the majority of the emigrants came. The population of New England increased
rapidly; and whilst the hierarchy of rank despotically classed the inhabitants
of the mother-country, the colony continued to present the novel spectacle of a
community homogeneous in all its parts. A democracy, more perfect than any
which antiquity had dreamt of, started in full size and panoply from the midst
of an ancient feudal society.
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