History of the American Revolution : designed as a text book for the use of schools and colleges

Front matter

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Contents

_ , „ CHAPTER I.

General Observations on the Importance of the revolutionary Era, .... Pago 7 OHAPTFR ir

^tVJf}V °^ 'li^ early Settlers-Motives for Emigration-Testimony to their Principles from Hume-Party Spirit-Physical Circumstances-Religious Influence. -New England Temperament-Southern Characteristics-General Character- Tendency towards free Institutions-Neglect of them by the mother Country favourable to tins Spirit-Testimony of British Statesmen-Causes of Affm on towards Great Br.tain-State of Feeling at the Peace of J763. . . ... .Page l"

Chapter I

The war of the American Revolution, which established the Independence of the United States, was, beyond question, the most momentous era in the political history of the world. Other periods have, indeed, produced instances of the highest public virtue, — of elevated, fervent and incorruptible fatriotism, — of fidelity, fortitude and heroism, which cannot 8 surpassed, and have been rarely approached. Oppressions more galling than any of which the Britisla, Colonies of '76 could complain, have been bravely and successfully resisted ; and gallant achievements for liberty and country, have been won, from time to time, by those magnanimous spirits who rise occasionally in the darkest periods, to vindicate, by their actions and virtues, the essential dignity of human nature. But theirs were solitary and partial efforts in advance of the intelligence of the age. The institutions, which sprung from their success, designed to secure the rights wrested by force from the hands of tyrants, lacked the self-sustaining vigor of an enlightened public opinion. Resistance to oppression, glorious in its triumph, unfortunately produced no fruits beyond temporary relief. The securities for good government arising from constitutional limitations upon power, and the supremacy of law, were beyond their capacity ; and their victories were accordingly transient anarchies, in the intervals of a perpetually renewed despotism. Hence the noblest conquests over tyranny failed to affect permanently the general course of events, or to impress upon the mass of opinions a popular direction.

That fleeting liberty which was gained in one country, touched not the sympathies nor kindled the emulation of another. The very next generation, corrupted by power and indulgence, or wearied by turbulence and anarchy, and unconscious of those defects m themselves, by which stability and peace were frustrated forfeited those dearly won privileges, and relapsed into that state of passive debasement, from which, under the cruidance . of one or two master minds, tliey had for a while emerc^ed. The American Revolution was, however, of a different character. It was the natural offspring of a state of societyrapidly advancing, under circumstances, moral and phvsical,' peculiarly favourable to general improvement. The sa^city virtue, and heroism, by which it was distinguished" were not alone the traits of illustrious men. but the characteristics of a nation, educated and disciplined in the knowledc^e of their rights. The conflict was waged on principles cfearly defaned and for specific objects. Success therefore only consolidated hberties which were understood before they were fought for. into a system adapted to the matured intelli gence of the people, and sustained as well by their approvin<^ judgments, as by their affections. With them to retrogradd^ into slavery was impossible, because their intellectual cultivation and morsl qualities, harmonized with the institutions they estabhshed ; and these being in their nature pro^Tessive all must advance together. The effect upon other nations, has not been less dissimilar. Astonishment and admiration and sympathy soon ripened into zeal to imitate, as the success ot American example in self-government tested the doctrines ot the American Revolution, and proved their soundness. A new impulse communicated itself to the nations nearest in political condition, and most closely connected by facilities of_ intercourse, and habits of thought. Vast changes in the principles and framework of governments have abeady been silently or violently effected ; still more extensive ana important are plainly at hand. In all the theories of human rights,— in the policy of administrations aoxl cabinets ; in the innermost form and texture of that intricate combination ot interests and relations by which men are connected together in society, — substantial reforms are in proo-ress every where throughout tJie civiHzed globe ; and all are parts of a stupendous series of organic changes, of which the American Revolution marks the first era.

Momentous as was that era in its consequences, it was scarcely less remarkable in the combination and succession of events, by which it was preceded. The discovery of America at the close of the 15th century concurred most propitiously with the condition of Europe at the time, to strengthen the infant spirit of liberty that had been struggling in vain against hostile institutions, and to prepare a new unlimited held for its nurture and growth. Just when the wants of civilized man most seemed to need it, — when the pressure of antiquated misrule was most heavily felt, and no practicable scheme of relief on the spot of its predominance seemed possible, — an unoccupied hemisphere was thrown open to him. There, ardent spirits, who found the sphere of action at home limited to too narrow a circle by the tyrannical customs and prescriptions of centuries, and the oppressed and destitute, made so by artificial restraints upon industry,and the extortions and abuses of legalized despotism, joyfully sought a new country. The impatient energies, that at home had exhausted themselves vainly in combating against barriers that were yet too strong to be broken through, here overflowed v.'ithout restraint, and spread themselves over a vast continent, taming the savage, reclaiming the forests, battling fearlessly against all the terrors of solitude and the wilderness, ferocious wild beasts, and fiercer men, to build up institutions fresh from the hands of nature, and suited to their new position, and improved understanding of their rights. Thus was a peculiar people trained up to habits of independence, and experience of the benefits and usages of liberty, under circumstances more favorable than had ever been enjoyed by any people before ; developing by the severest discipline the physical powers of the human frame, and giving the fullest scope to the natural motions of the intellect. This rare combination of moral and social phenomena, tended harmoniously to the same end--the establishment of a common principle of repugnance to arbitrary power, and the assertion for the first time, of the doctrines of popular sovereignty, by the final erection of the American republics.

A slight glance at the comparative rate of progress in social improvements, in both hemispheres, before and since the impetus given at the era of the discovering of America, will signally illustrate its importance in political history. The seeds of Uberty, — which took such instant root, and flourished with such luxuriance here, and have grown with such rapidity elsewhere, — existed long before in Europe. But they had been sown in barren and stony ground, and. though nurtured by the toils, and oftentimes watered by the blood of early martyrs, they sustained themselves feebly against a superincumbent mass of ancient abuses. While the revival of learning, after the darkness of the middle ages, gave a new impulse to the human mind, and the discoveries and inventions by which it was subsequently signalized, perpetuated its new achievements, and have carried it progressively onwards, the natural influence of increased knowledge, upon public liberty, was tardy in manifesting itself in the improvement of governments, or in the elevation of the condition of the people. To partial observation, looking at immediate effects, that influence would seem to have been hostile to freedom. The student of history finds despotism temporarily strengthened as knowledge increased. The resources of learning, applied by the most active intellects, evidently sharpened, for a season, the weapons of arbitrar}^ power, and ministered sedulously to the ruling temper of the times, devising artful defences for its excesses, and new instruments for securing its unresisted ascendency.

The alliance between tyranny, which is the natural form of all unlimited power, and knowledge, which is its natural enemy, is, in the early stages of the latter, as seen in the history of foreign governments, apparently complete. In later times, it has been also found that men of the highest range of intellect, have employed their superiority to uphold the most odious systems of government, and to extinguish those desires for political rights, which have sprung chiefly from the enlarged knowledge, to which themselves have so much contributed. Striving earnestly against popular movements, they, at the same time, spent their lives in pursuits which have prepared the world for the very changes they deplored. The explanation of this apparent anomaly, instead of disproving the inherent sympathy between knowledge and freedom, gives an eminent proof of their aflinity, under all circumstances, and in despite of all personal passions, individual influences, and temporary delusions. The selfish principle peculiar to the age, and the selfish principle of our common nature, were both to be encountered and overthrov^^n, before the beneficent influences of civilization could be made to reach the mass of the community, and elevate them. The thirst for power and booty was the ruling passion of the privileged classes, and learning and mental acquirements were only valued as ministers to that appetite. They were additional weapons for foiling enemies, conquering and enslaving the weak, and strengthening the strong,— and were so estimated only in comparison with other instruments. They were rather contemned in the comparison with bodily strength, because their influences were less obvious. Even when they became more highly considered, they were employed, with few exceptions, in advancing selfish objects, and for personal aggrandizement. Thus for a long series of years, and through various fortunes, knowledge as the great agent of human improvement, struggled not only against the errors and institutions of antiquity, but against the dominant temper of the times, and the selfish principles of its possessor and followers.

The condition of socie^ during the progress of this struggle, while it bears testimony to the arduous conflict which the growing spirit of liberty was waging with its antagonists, furnishes other arguments for the opponents of popular license, much more honourable to human nature, than the baser passions of pride and ambition, with which they were mingled.

It is not to be denied, that in those days, the multitude were incapable of government, or of any proper use of their faculties, in judging of affairs of state. Ignorant and brutal, — taught from infancy to know nothing but the law of force, and the will of a master scarcely less brutal and ignorant, — they were, without question, a stolid and insensate mass, whom power alone could restrain, and to whom freedom was a word as unintelligible as it now is to the bodyguard of an African chief. So the first dawning of civilization found them, and so the first master spirits saw them, the more clearly as themselves were more highly elevated. Knowledge of civil rights, which is the growth of a general increase of intelligence, spread but slowly, even when the most rapid advance was made by individuals in science and the arts: what wonder is it, then, that direct fear of the savage excesses of an ignorant multitude should have prevailed over vague and unformed notions of a human perfectibility, of which there was no present token nor promise ? Having no means of safety for all the growing interests of society, save in the strength of those classes which held the power to protect,and which, by their position and their limited numbers, were within the reach of improvement, it ought not to surprise us, that men of the best intentions and widest range of intellect and acquirement should have been the advocates of monarchy, the defenders of established institutions, and the partizans of dynasties, claiming to exist by " divine" appointment.

Ambition and vanity, custom and fear, the weight of antiquity, the authority of history, and the abused or mistaken sanctions of religion, were all on the side of governments, wherever and however they existed. Yet in all this apparent union of every influence, in favour of despotic governments, the seeds of revolution were planted. The tightening and bracing of the social springs showed an increasing pressure to be counteracted — a growing impulse upward, against which conservative force had become necessary. While the jealousy of power, barred with increasing rigour the advance of popular inquiry irf re ligion and politics, mental activity enlarged its field widely in every other direction, The general level of capacity gradually rose, until the forbidden precincts were invaded by a universal tide of public opinion, in spite of the barriers which had been raised upon each other, by the care of centuries. What the immediate effects were, is not wi4;hin our limits to describe minutely. From the period of the reign of Henry the VIII., in England, the eiForts of the rising spirit of the people, more and more enlightened by education, and directed by experience, have gradually — sometimes by violence, and sometimes by natural operations imperceptibly, — raised the moral character of nations, and finally enlisted knowledge on the side to which it naturally belongs — that of Liberty. In the most propitious period for mankind, of this unequal strife which is not yet decided in the old world, the colonization of America produced an entire change in the moral characteristics of the contest. Here were no obstacles to the freest exercise of intellectual independence : the issue has invigorated the hopes, and given unerring promises of the final triumph, of those who have not only to build up new institutions, but to combat inveterate prejudices, to remove the consequences of errors that have been interwoven with the most intimate texture of society, and to prepare whole nations, not only to conquer and establish, but to understand and enjoy their rights.

The co-operation of knowledge and civilization, with fortune, or Providence, in this work of human regeneration, may not unaptly be compared to that of physical phenomena, which, by the agency of independent laws, without apparent concert, produce the finest and noblest results. Intellectual and moral improvement, the soil from which public virtue and liberty spring as the natural growth, is formed, gradually, from a thousand indirect and direct sources, as the earth is formed for the benevolent purposes of vegetation, upon a barren rock. By slow attrition and progressive deposites of the elements, layer after layer accumulates. If human industry be wanting to stimulate its energies, by and by comes along a bird of the air dropping the grain, or the wind, blowing where it listeth, scatters a seed, or the waves throw ftp a random twig, and the newmade soil soon sends up from its bosom a little plant, that ere long swells into a mighty tree, fixing its roots deep into the earth, and stretching its brawny arms wide into the air, bearing fruit to refresh and sustain living beings, and preserving the inherent faculty of re-producing its kind for ever. The plant of liberty thus springs in a soil which virtue and knowledge have matured and prepared for the hand of some master spirit, labouring with almost divine philanthropy for the good of the species; or for some happy conjuncture of events to call forth its dormant powers into spontaneous action. Thenceforward, though the growth may be affected by untoward events, and delayed, more or less, as society advances more or less slowly, it is not in the nature of truth, that it should ever perish again. All experience hitherto, in the only fair trial ever made, confirms this judgment. Americans, proud of their own share, as a people, in these glorious events, as well as zealous for the improvement of the condition of other nations, by the same happy influences, ought frequently to turn with gratitude to the period of their own revolution, and not cease to impress its principles, and the magnitude of their bearings, upon the hearts of each succeeding generation. The train of events which immediately brought on the struggle between the then colonies and Great Britain, and the vicissitudes of fortune by which it was marked until the final triumph by the establishment of independence, have, moreover, the merit of exhibiting rare examples of personal virtue and heroism in our ancestors, well worthy of the highest admiration of their descendants — fit to foster a just national pride ; to strengthen the impulses of patriotism, and stimulate a warmer zeal in the universal cause of virtue and liberty.

In reviewing the earlier portions of colonial history — to trace the remoter as well as the immediate springs of the revolution, secondary to the general advanceme?at of popular knowledge and virtue, which are the first causes — the chief place in importance is undoubtedly due to the peculiar opinions and dispositions of the Colonists and the circumstances in which they were formed. The arbitrary measures of the British, government were not primary causes of the colonial resistance. Upon people of a different education and temperament, much greater oppi^ssions than those employed by the British ministry, from the commencement of the first systematic design to enslave in 1764, to the commencement of hostilities, might have been safely tried ; and with any other existing people, would have probably succeeded. With them, however, as was well said by one of its wisest men, " The revolution was over before the war commenced." It was a moral revolution, to which a sue-' cessful war only gave permanent establishment, and the sanction of victory in the eyes of other nations. It existed in the minds of the Colonists long before the occasion had arisen to call forth its active energies, or to invite them to study attentively the tendency of their own opinions. Its development was hastened by the assertion of unwise and tyrannical doctrines from abroad, and the attempt to reduce to practice here, rules of government which would have succeeded any where else, Vf'iih discontent, but without much contention, and with no resistance. The peculiar character of this people is therefore an essential point of preliminary inquiry.

Chapter II

The first settlers in America were a race of men, not merely enlightened in regard to the principles of government, to the full extent of the intelligence of the age, but were far in advance of the prevailing theories in Europe They were, in fact, for the most part, driven from Europe for their hostility to those theories, as established. Political and religious controversies had been for a long time agitating that whole continent, and cruel persecutions employed to repress and punish all independence ofjudgment, and to maintain despotic control over the body and mind, by the use of force. The mass of the public being unripe for concentrated action in behalf of general principles, they who were foremost in agitation, and who consequently suffered the penalties of defeat, were the active and enterprising — those who best comprehended the. rights of man, and were warmed with the truest zeal for liberty. Such men it was, principally, who, disgusted with tyranny, or forced by rigorous laws and proscriptions, gladly embraced the opportunity of establishing themselves, at whatever cost and labour, where they might provide better institutions for their posterity. The English historian, Hume, himself the apologist of some of the worst tyrants that ever sat upon the throne, passed a merited eulogium upon the principles of the first American settlers, as early as the time of the first James. " That spirit of independence," he remarks, " which was then reviving in England, shone forth in America, in its full lustre, and received new accession of force from the aspiring character of those, who, being discontented with the established church and monarchy, had sought for freedom among the savage deserts." A striking fact, narrated in the memoirs of Cromwell and Hampden, two among the most remarkable men in English history, illustrates the general effect of the misgovernment of that period, in driving the ablest men into exile ; and may also serve as a memorable illustration of that just retribution for evil deeds, of which many examples are on record, wherein violent and arbitrary acts have, by the combination of subsequent events totally unforeseen at the time, led directly to the ruin of their authors. Hampden and Cromwell, under the common Influence of dislike to the measures of Charles I. were actually on board ship, on their way to settle in America, when they were stopped by a royal order in council, prohibiting; emig;ration. They, in consequence, remained in England — the one, by his noble support of the popular cause, to overturn the king's influence in parliament, and become a proverb in all ages for patriotism ; and the other, impelled onward by the current of events, in a career of ambition, to become the means of bringing the king's head to the block ; to banish his children, and sit upon his throne.

Differences of opinions, upon political subjects, undoubtedly existed in the Colonies, from the beginning, similar to those which they left, and which prevailed contemporaneously in Europe. Custom, prejudice, varieties of capacity and education, and the occasional excess of selfish passions — vanity and the thirst for gain and power in individuals — maintained, while their recollections of Europe were distinct, and continued to maintain, as long as the political connexion existed, a spirit of party on the same subjects as those which convulsed the mother country. But popular doctrines predominated from the first, in America, and grow stronger as the ties, which drew them towards the old system, became weakened under the elfect and influence of new scenes and occupations; and as the generations became, in time, farther removed from the parent stock. In all these party differences, too, an important peculiarity is to be observed. Colonial disturbances were always in favour of natural rights; to retain what they had, as it were, resumed tVom society, on betaking themselves to the forests, against the encroachments of lords proprietors, and royal governors. In Europe, on the contrary, the rights of the people had to struggle under every disadvantage, against established institutions and overwhelming power. While in the one country, therefore, their progress has been slow and painfully won, amid terrible convulsions ; in the other they advanced rapidly, and soon threw ofl'the petty impediments of European origiu- When Burke, in his famous speech on conciliation witli America, delivered in tlie British House of Commons, in 1775, spoke so warmly of the "love of freedom." as the "predominating feature"' of the character of the Americans, he spoke truly and generously of what had grown up with them, from the earliest settlement.

"That fierce spirit of liberty," which he then pronounced to be "stronger in the English Colonies, than in any other people of the earth," was tlieir inheritance from the magnanimous ancestors wo have been describing; nurtured by p'erils, labour, and self-denial, until ail their o|)inions, customs, inclinations, and habits of thought and' feeling were impressed with the same hardy traits of independence. It harmonized with the rugged soil they cultivated and the vast solitudes and boundless forests by which they were surrounded, and strengthened, perpetually, by contrast, their repugnance to the narrow dogmas, the insolent assumptions, and artificial institutions of the over-crowded and oppressed po|)ulation of Europe. The persecutions from which they had fled, voluntarily relinquishing their native land, to find political freedom and liberty of faith in the wilderness; tlie privations they endured, by hunger and cold, pestilence, famine, and war, to establish their new dwelhngs; the perpetual watchfulness Avith which, by day and night, while toiling for food and shelter, they had to defend their lives from the tomahawk of a subtle and merciless enemy, and at the same time, to maintain their rights against the unnatural oppressions of the mother country — all combined to invigorate the principles they brought with them, and to perfect, by severe bodily and mental discipline, a national character for austere virtue, irrepressible energy, and indomitable courage ; — jealous and sagacious in its distrust of power ; full of the pride of personal independence ; quick to defect, and prompt to repel, all encroachments upon their rights.

A leading element in the early colonial character, and perhaps the strongest in giving it its j^eculiar cast of austerity and elevation, was religious enthusiasm. The settlers of New England were dissenters, who had been oppressed at home by church and state : by the Catholic, and by the established Protestant church, as either, in the alternate vibrations of this mighty engine of despotism, preponderated. They were, as Botta well expresses it, "Protestants against Protestantism itself," and added to the other pressing inducements to emigration the higher sanctions of religious duty. Many believed themselves under the immediate direction of heaven. The stern traits of the English Puritans, so remarkable in the civil wars of the first Charles, and under the Comnonwealth, were strong in the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, gradually losing, in their descendants, under the benign influence of a better knowledge and wider freedom, the fanaticism which predominated at home ; but preserving their pious trust in

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Providence, their frugal habits, exact morals, and vigilanl sense of independence. The parliamentary act of uniformity, passed in 166:2, by which two thousand of the most conscientious Presbyterian preachers were arbitrarily deprived of their livings, for refusing to subscribe to certain articles of belief, sent great numbers of the most learned and pious ministers of that faith into exile in the Colonies, where they contributed essentially to sustain this tone of elevated religious feeling. Many of them were thoroughly educated in the best English universities; and to them, the general diffusion of education, in the infancy of the Colonies, is mainly to be attributed. Those who have seen how extensive e-ven now is the influence of the clergy of New England, over the minds and feelings of the people, can Vi'ell imagine what must, in that day, have been the reception of so many zealous ministers, who had sacrificed every thing to conscience. As it was in Massachusetts, then the mother colony of New England, so it was in the other Colonies, which took their rise from her, and followed her examples of severe virtue, when they dissented from and resisted her religious discipline. Connecticut and New Haven, at first separate colonies, were principally peopled by emigrants from Massachusetts, in the spirit of voluntary adventure, without compulsion^ and at first acted under her authority. But it must be recorded, as one of the anomalies of human nature, that New Hampshire and Rhode Island rose out of the religious dissensions and persecutions of those who had themselves been exiled by persecution.

Exeter, the first settlement in New Hampshire, was founded in 16^38, by a party of Colonists, who had been compelled to lea'*e Massachusetts, for adopting the peculiar religious sentiments which Mrs. Hutchinson taught, and for which she had been excommunicated ; and two years previous, Roger Williams, under similar persecutions, had established the colony of Rhode Island. This latter case, in particular, affords striking proof of the inconsistency of men, m the new possession of power, and inexperienced in the practical application of universal principles to affairs touching their individual consciences ; and, at the same time, it demonstrates how happily the character of the Colonists was adapted to defeat the effects and consequences of those antiquated errors, and to prove religious despotism as incompatible with the condition of America as political despotism. Williams, banished from Massachusetts, for entertaining views of the right of private opinion, in religious matters, and the injustice of government interference in points of faith, too liberal to suit the Synod, established, in 1638, the colony of Providence, so called in gratitude for his deliverance, upon the basis of entire freedom of conscience. There he was subsequently joined by many others, maintaining the same liberality of sentiment. The sternness of religious enthusiasm was softened in them by the benevolent influences of their tolerant institutions, and the effect was gradually returned to the mother colony in which they had been proscribed, enlarging the kindlier traits of the New England character, without affecting its exact sobriety of manners; its vigorous contempt of luxury, or its pious elevation of sentiment.

Nor were these ecclesiastical dissensions, springing, as they did, out of a European taint of error, and defeated by the operations of circumstances peculiar to America, unfavourable to the general cause of liberty. In a country so boundless, and with political freedom so entirely unrestrained, religious intolerance had only the effect of dispersing communities and multiplying new settlements. Where state power could not restrain emigration, and the genius of the people was averse to all arbitrary institutions, religious tyranny could be but a temporary insanity, and its fruits were a farther enlightenment of public opinion, hostile to its repetition. They who feared not to cross the ocean, then deemed a perilous undertaking, in search of greater liberty of conscience, could not fear to remove a few miles further, to become entirely masters of their own actions. They, who, under these delusions, drove forth their fellow colonists from among them, found that persecution could not conquer its victims, and that at every attempt to oppress, more enlightened principles grew up in every direction, beyond their reach. The futility of the effort, as well as the natural reaction stimulated by an increasing freedom of political inquiry, soon checked this intolerant spirit. Out of the ardent discussions and controversies, and the social improvements to which they led, grew greater liberty of thought ; more subtle inquiry into original principles ; a stronger assertion of individual rights, an aptitude to inquire rigidly into all pretensions to authority over them, and promptness to repel encroachment.

It ought to be added, in justice to the New England clergy of the period, that these mistaken notions of religious supremacy were, by no means, accompanied by any predilection for arbitrary power m politics. As a body, they were, from the beginning, among the sturdiest defenders of the rights of the Colonies. In the very midst of their highest intolerance, at a very early period of the attempts of the royal authority against the colonial charters, they gave a unanimous evidence of their love for political liberty. In the year preceding that in Avhich Providence was peopled by their persecutions, movements were made in England, hostile to the charter, and the design avowed of forming all New England into a consolidated government. The Colonists, in alarm, summoned the ministers, as "the fathers of the Commonwealth," to aid the magistrates with their counsel. All but one met at Boston, in 1035, and unanimously advised, that if the scheme of a general government should be persisted in, and a royal governor sent out, the Colonists "ought not to accept him, but defend their lawful possessions, if able: otherwise, to avoid and protract." Nearly tifty years al'terwards they manifested a like intrepid spirit, and the historian Hutchinson says, that they ''turned the scale" in favour of resistance to the arbitrary measures of Charles II. The struggle between the Colony and the king's olficers had been long and violent ; and the agents of the province in London, had written home in despondency, representing their case as desperate, and desiring the general court to determine whether. Since many cities in England and some of the plantations had submitted, it were better " to resign" to his majesty's pleasure, or suffer a quo warranto to issue. Under the advisement of the ministers, after debate, it was concluded, in a magnanimous phrase that deserves com.memoration. that they would not submit, for ''it was better to die by the hands of others, than by their own."