Social forces in American history

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Preface

That political struggles are based upon economic interests is to-day disputed by few students of society. The attempt has been made in this work to trace the various interests that have arisen and struggled in each social stage and to determine the influence exercised by these contending interests in the creation of social institutions.

Back of every political party there has always stood a group or class which expected to profit by the activity and the success of that party. When any party has attained to power, it has been because it has tried to establish institutions or to modify existing ones in accord with its interests.

Changes in the industrial basis of society — inventions, new processes, and combinations and methods of producing and distributing goods — create new interests with new social classes to represent them. These improvements in the technique of production are the dynamic element that brings about what we call progress in society.

In this work I have sought to begin at the origin of each line of social progress. I have first endeavored to describe the steps in mechanical progress, then the social classes brought into prominence by the mechanical changes, then the struggle by which these new classes sought to gain social power, and, finally, the institutions

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PREFACE which were created or the alterations made in existing institutions as a consequence of the struggle, or as a result of the victory of a new class.

It has seemed to me that these underlying social forces are of more importance than the individuals that were forced to the front in the process of these struggles, or even than the laws that were established to record the results of the conflict. In short, I have tried to describe the dynamics of history rather than to record the accomplished facts, to answer the question, "Why did it happen?" as well as, "What happened?"

An inquiry into causes is manifestly a greater task than the recording of accomplished facts. It is certain that I have made some mistakes, probably a great many, in analyzing the underlying forces of so complex a thing as American social development. The finding of such mistakes will prove nothing as to the method save that the leisure of ten very busy years in the life of one individual is all too short a time in which to trace to their origin the multitude of forces that have been operating in American history.

This work has been the more difficult since only a few, historians, and these only in recent years, have given any attention to this viewpoint. It was, therefore, necessary for me to spend much time in the study of "original documents, " — the newspapers, magazines, and pamphlet literature of each period. In these, rather than in the "musty documents" of state, do we find history in the making. Here we can see the clash of contending interests before they are crystallized into laws and institutions.

I have not sought after new or bizarre facts. I have

PREFACE ix sought rather to understand the reasons for those whose existence is undisputed. Occasionally I have found things which seemed to be neglected in the familiar histories and have stated these. In my references, also, I have tried to name the most accessible works rather than to multiply references and strain after scholastic effect with many citations of seldom used and almost inaccessible material.

In this connection it should be stated that most of this work was written before the publication of the " Documentary History of American Society," edited by Dr. R. T. Ely and John R. Commons of the University of Wisconsin. Otherwise I should have made more frequent reference to its pages. Thanks to the courtesy of these editors, however, I had an opportunity to consult their notes and the original publications upon which that work is based, and this service is here gratefully acknowledged.

Chapter I

American history is usually made to begin with the voyage of Columbus. Since all historical beginnings are more or less arbitrary, the especial starting point is of no great importance.

History, like time, its principal element, has neither beginning nor end. American social institutions have their roots far back in the days to which history does not run. With these origins the historian does not deal. Here he gives way to the anthropologist, the biologist, and the geologist.

The stream of social evolution which bore the first germs of American society had its main source in Europe. The social genealogy of America goes back to Greece j and Rome, and from these comes down through Germans, French, and English, rather than through Mound Builder, Pequod, and Iroquois.

Since the voyages of Columbus form the first link^in the chain that was to bring these European influences to these shores, a knowledge of European society at the

B I time of those voyages and the forces that led to them is essential to an understanding of American history.

The "Age of Discovery," in which the voyages of Columbus were the most striking, though by no means isolated events, came during that period of great social transformation known as the Reformation.

It was the period of the revival of Greek learning, of the Decline of the Roman Empire and the Papacy, of the disappearance of feudalism and chivalry, when towns and nations were growing at the expense of feudal tenures, and commerce and manufacturing were taking on new forms and new life. It was a day not so much of a rebirth of old things as of the birth of those new things whose climax, as capitalism, is the dominant feature of the United States to-day. 1

A number of revolutionary inventions were primarily responsible for these industrial, political, and religious changes. In navigation the compass had but recently made it possible to guide a ship beyond the sight of landmarks. Without the compass the Mediterranean marked the limit of navigation. The " world" surrounding this sea was the extent of human knowledge. Now the navigator could carry his landmarks with him, and the Atlantic could be crossed with as certain accuracy as if its western shore were visible from the Pillars of Hercules.

The astrolabe now gave the location of a vessel by its relation to astronomical bodies. These inventions broke all boundaries to the possibility of exploration.

The invention of gunpowder and its application to war produced equally far-reaching results. The first crude firearms sufficed to render the humble foot soldier more 1 Henry Cabot Lodge, " Close of the Middle Ages," pp. 518-519.

than a match for the best equipped and armored knight. The feudal castle was not impregnable even to the very beginnings of artillery. Henceforth military power was with him who could maintain the largest number of soldiers and not to the strongest arm and the most easily defended castle. Gunpowder played a decisive part in military affairs at the battle of Crecy in 1346 and the siege of Constantinople in 1453.

To this period also belong the invention of printing with movable type, and the manufacture of paper on a commercial scale. 1

These industrial changes tended to bring the merchant/ class into a position of social supremacy. Hitherto public opinion had despised the merchant. He was fair prey for the ruling class of robber barons. Commerce was looked upon with disdain. 2 The passing merchant was considered a legitimate source of revenue by the nobility and their retainers. What would now be classified as highway robbery was by all odds the most respectable industry in central Europe for some centuries prior to the discovery of America.

The ideas of the dominant industrial class, the landed nobility, became the standard of morality as preached by / the Church.

"The Church was very hostile to commerce. The theologians sought to show that it was unproductive, and they especially denounced the trade in money, confusing the taking of interest with usury. For many of

1 The first French mill for the manufacture of paper was erected in 1 189, the first English one in 1330, and the first German one in 1390.

2 Paul Risson, " Histoire Sommaire du Commerce," p. 156; William Clarence Webster, " General History of Commerce," p. 96.

them, even in the sixteenth century, merchants were liars, perjurers, and thieves.' ' 1

The inventions to which reference has been made were changing all this. They were promoting the growth of towns, the extension of trade, the knowledge of, and therefore the desire for, luxuries which only commerce and the merchants could provide. The Crusades took many of the nobility away, and left their estates in the hands of merchant princes who had taken this property as security for the expense of a crusading outfit.

As the merchants grew in power they became respect- \ able, and commerce became a virtue. When merchant bankers, like the Fuggers, were able to dictate terms of peace and war to kings and emperors, we no longer hear the merchants referred to as " liars, perjurers, and thieves."

By the fifteenth century the merchants were the ruling class in Europe. The great commercial cities of the Mediterranean and of the north of Europe were more powerful than many nations, and within these cities rich merchants arbitered the political destinies of the known/ world. Any merchant-ruled society seeks new markets. The pressure for exploration at this period was stronger than perhaps at any period before or since. Moreover, the whole commercial and social life was being transformed in such a manner as to make explorations westward across the Atlantic in search of Oriental markets almost inevitable. 2

1 William Clarence Webster, " General History of Commerce," p. 96.

2 Cheney, "European Background of American History," pp. 38-39: " As Europe in the fifteenth century became more wealthy and more familiar with the products of the whole world, as the nobles learned to

The commercial life of Europe in the Middle Ages was built up around the trade with the Orient. From the East came spices, tea, coffee, precious stones, rare fabrics, dyes, perfumes, drugs, carpets, and rugs, — nearly all luxuries enjoyed by the rich and the powerful alone. In exchange for these the West sent woolen goods, tin, copper, lead, arsenic, antimony, and other metals, and especially gold and silver, of which large amounts were always flowing east to meet the heavy 1 'balance of trade" that favored the Orient. 1

Certain Mediterranean cities became the western termini of the long voyage from the East, and distributing points for the goods to the local trade centers. Foremost among these cities were Venice and Genoa.

The stream of goods flowing between these cities and the Orient passed through Asia Minor or down the Red Sea, and through the Arabian Gulf. During the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries the Moslems were moving north out of Africa and gradually cutting these trade routes one by one. When in 1453 Constantinople fell into the hands of the Mohammedan Turks, the last great route to the Orient was closed to European traders. 2

Europe did not sit idle while the arteries of its commercial life were being slowly strangled. How to find

demand more luxuries, and a wealthy merchant class grew up which was able to gratify the same tastes as the nobles, the demand of the West upon the East became more insistent than ever. Therefore, the men, the nation, the government that could find a new way to the East might claim a trade of indefinite extent and extreme profit."

1 Edward P. Cheney, "European Background of American History," pp. 9-19; Aloys Schulte, "Geschichte des Mittelalterlichen Handel und Verkehr.," Vol. I, pp. 674-675.

2 Helmholt, "History of the World," Vol. VII, p. 8.

or make a trade route between Europe and the Orient was a question that so dominated the life of Europe during this time as to be the principal force in molding its social institutions. Yet for almost three centuries there was scarcely a suggestion of seeking a western route. It is doubtful if geographical ignorance was even the principal cause for the neglect of westward exploration. Knowledge came when it was needed, but no such knowledge was wanted during these centuries. Such a westward route would have overthrown existing trade relations. Those who profited by such relations were in control of society, and could scarcely be expected to seek out such a route. 1

All efforts were directed toward driving back the Moslems and opening up the eastward route. In this fact we find at least one reason for those tremendous movements of armed men, — the Crusades. The accepted explanation of these expeditions is that they were for the purpose of " rescuing the holy sepulchre from the profane touch of the infidel. " It is at least suggestive that crusades were not preached until trade routes were endangered, and that they ceased when commerce underwent a transformation that rendered these particular trade routes of less importance to the ruling merchant class.

It was just these changes that paved the way for the discovery of America.

Oriental products, after their arrival in Europe, flowed along certain well-defined channels. For ages the goods that arrived at Venice and Genoa had moved into northern Europe along routes whose location had largely de-

1 David Macpherson, "History of European Commerce with India" (London, 1812), pp. 7-8.

termined the placing of population and the existence of many social institutions. One set of routes led northward across France. At certain intervals great fairs were regularly held. These fairs performed the same distrib-^ uting service for the commerce of the Middle Ages that is performed by the great cities of the present. They were, in fact, temporary cities, dissolving when their annual function had been performed.

Another trunk of this commerce led from the terminal cities on the Mediterranean over the Alps and down the Rhine. Because this route was the feeder of the commerce of all northwestern Europe, the Rhine was sprinkled thickly with the castles of the robber barons. The traveler who passes down the Rhine to-day can measure the wealth of this commerce by the ruins of the retreats of the castled thieves who preyed upon it.

Whatever disturbed these trade routes and centers would change the whole social structure resting upon . them, — the merchants and the barons who robbed them, the fairs and the country dependent upon them.

This European trade system was being revolutionized and transformed during the years that the Moslems were cutting the trade arteries that united it with the Orient.

Improvements in navigation and shipbuilding had made the voyage around Gibraltar cheaper and safer than the overland trip across France and Germany. The ' discovery of rich mineral deposits in Germany and England, and the development of the English and Flemish woolen industry contributed still further to this alteration. 1 The fairs decayed, the castles on the Rhine grew 1 Brooks Adams, "The New Empire," pp. 50-55.

less profitable, and a new group of commercial cities grew on the Baltic and the North seas.

These cities formed a confederation known as the Hanseatic League. Liibeck, Hamburg, Bremen, and other important trading centers entered into this League, and it grew in power until it possessed its own navy, enacted its own laws governing trade relations, made treaties, and had many of the attributes of a strong nation. The very existence of such a powerful federation composed of mercantile cities is significant of the dominant position of commerce during this period.

The Hanseatic League soon entered into other fields of commerce than those depending upon the Oriental goods brought through the Straits of Gibraltar. Its merchants not only built up an extensive local trade within Europe, but, more significant still in connection with the discovery of America, they were developing a caravan trade direct with the Orient by way of an overland route through Russia and China.

The trade of the Hanseatic League and of England, Holland, and western Europe in general was essentially an ocean trade, developing shipbuilding, training sailors, and offering prizes to navigators. Extraordinary efforts were made to increase the size of ships. Henry V of England experimented in the building of ships that would have been considered large at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Boats of 900 tons burden were built at the Southampton docks in 1449. 1

A summary of the situation at the close of the fifteenth century will show a combination of forces making for

1 Cunningham, "Growth of English Industry and Commerce," Vol. I, P- 4i3- discovery and exploration. The merchants were the ruling class in society. Commerce was built around the Oriental trade. The principal routes of this trade were closed. Within Europe trade centers and routes had shifted to the Atlantic coast. In so shifting there had come a development of navigation and shipbuilding technique such as was essential to any extensive voyage of discovery. Commercial Europe, after facing for centuries toward the East with its outposts on the Mediterranean, was now looking out across the Atlantic from the shore of western Europe.

This commercial world was devoting all its energies to the search for a route to Asia, and there was a general tendency to seek this via the Atlantic. Portugal was already creeping around Africa. In 1445 Dinnis Diaz had sailed beyond Cape Verde, the uttermost point of the great westward bend of the African continent. Further progress would have been rapid had not a new and hitherto unexpected obstacle developed. The explorers had reached the source of slave-supply and found this trade more profitable than hunting for trade routes to India.

" Hence one expedition after another sent out for purposes of discovery, returned, bringing tales of failure to reach further points on the coast, but laden with human booty to be sold. . . . Only the most vigorous pressure, exercised on the choicest spirits among the Portuguese captains, served to carry discoveries further." 1

These navigators had gone far enough, however, to satisfy the rulers of Portugal that India could be reached

1 E. P. Cheney, "European Background of American History," pp. 66-70; "Cambridge Modern History," Vol. I, pp. 7-16.

SOCIAL FORCES OF AMERICAN HISTORY around Africa, and they were consequently indifferent to the plea of Columbus. 1 The merchants of the northern cities hoped much from the routes which they could control through Russia and Siberia, or along the Black Sea to China, and were likewise indifferent to westward sailing explorations. The Italian merchants were trying to bargain with the Moslem whom the Crusades had been unable to crush. A western route would only contribute to their decline, and Columbus found no favor for his plan in his native Genoa.

There were three commercial nations on the Atlantic that would profit directly by a western route. Each could hope to control such a route, and none saw any possibility of similar advantages in any other route. These were England, Spain, and France. Columbus made simultaneous application to the first two. England was suspicious of his Spanish affiliations, had plenty of navigators who were beginning explorations, and therefore rejected his offer, and he sailed under a Spanish nag.

It was an "Age of Discovery. " Explorers were pushing out in all directions. Many had already suggested that the road to India lay to the west. Contrary to the popularly accepted legends that have become embalmed in textbooks, the rotundity of the earth was quite generally accepted in scientific circles.

1 "Cambridge Modern History," Vol. I, p. 21 : "The circumnavigation of Africa was nearly accomplished ; of this route to the wealthy East the Portuguese would enjoy a practical monopoly, and it could be effectively defended. . . . Even if the westward passage were successfully accomplished, it was manifest that Portugal would be unable to monopolize it, and that discovery must ultimately inure for the benefit of the stronger maritime nations of western Europe."

CONDITIONS LEADING TO DISCOVERY n

The discovery of America by Columbus was but the inevitable resultant of the operation of forces that were bound to send some one across the Atlantic at about the close of the fifteenth century.

Chapter II

The movement of the peoples of Europe to the New- World was but a part of the strange age-long migration of the race toward the setting sun. Great masses of people, such as came to America in colonial times, do not move without some deep, underlying cause. Men and women do not leave their homes and friends and brave the dangers of such an ocean voyage as was required to reach America before the age of steam without some strong, compelling force.

The greatest admirer of the New World could hardly claim that it possessed any powerful attractions at this time. The best that it could offer to the first comers was a chance to struggle with the forces of nature in a state of society but little removed from savagery. Yet hundreds of thousands of people did come to America during the three centuries after its discovery.

If there were no powerful attractions drawing them on, the cause of their migration must be sought in the land from which they came.

It was a time of social upheaval and revolution in Europe. The merchant class was ruling. It was the first division of the great capitalist army, — the advance guard, whose work it was to explore the world and clear the way for the army of occupation, — the industrial capitalist.

The forces of feudalism were not yet completely conquered, and the new class was compelled constantly to fight to hold its position and gain greater power. It was a time when nations and religions were being born, and when in all fields of social life mighty forces were struggling for the mastery.

As fast as the merchant or the manufacturing class attained to power, its members set about divorcing the former serfs and peasants from the soil, and dissolving all old feudal relations, in order that the workers might be "free" to hunt for employers. So it was that in nearly all the leading European nations the people were being driven out of their ancient homes.

In England, for example, this was a time of great growth in the woolen industry. Tenants were being driven off the old estates that great sheep pastures might be created. Seldom has this process been more vividly depicted than in a famous extract from the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More. This was written in 161 5, and the author makes one of his characters say concerning the condition in contemporary England : —

"Your sheep, which are naturally mild and easily kept in order, may be said now to devour men and unpeople, not only villages, but towns, for, wherever it is found that the sheep of any soil yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men, the abbots, not contented with the old rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture, destroying houses and towns, reserving only the churches, and inclosed grounds that they may lodge their sheep in them. As if forests and parks had swallowed up too little of the land, those worthy countrymen turn the best inhabited places into solitudes ; for when an insatiable wretch, who is a plague to his country, resolves to inclose many thousands of acres of land, the owners, as well as tenants, are turned out of their possessions, by tricks, or by main force, or, being wearied out with ill-usage, they are forced to sell them. By which means those miserable people, both men and women, married and unmarried, old and young, with their poor but numerous families (since country business requires many hands), are all forced to change their seats, not knowing whither to go ; and they must sell almost for nothing their household stuff, which could not bring them much money, even though they might stay for a buyer."

All Europe was in a turmoil. The Hundred Years' War had just ceased when Columbus discovered America. Within the next three centuries nearly every nation of Europe was to be engaged in armed conflict, and for much of that time war was practically epidemic on the continent of Europe. Most of these wars were waged nominally around questions of religion. This was simply because the industrial revolution, which placed the capitalist class in power, necessarily had its religious expression. The Reformation, with its individualism in theology, was as perfect a reflex of capitalism as "free competition" and laissez faire in economics. "Every one for himself and the devil take the hindmost" was the motto in industry, economics, religion, and politics, and it is noteworthy that the best authorities in each of these fields agreed that the majority of mankind is condemned to perdition.

Nowhere did these religious wars rage with such fury as in Germany, and it was from the locality in which the fighting was most destructive that the largest number of German emigrants came to the New World. The great and fertile Rhine Valley, once the main highway of commerce from the Mediterranean to northern Europe, and therefore the best hunting ground for the robber barons, was now the seat of war after war. The first of these was the Thirty Years' War, ended by the peace of Westphalia in 1649. Historians vie with one another in describing the horrible devastation of this conflict upon the locality in which it was waged. Says one writer : —

"Not only were horses and cattle carried away by the various armies which shifted back and forth over the length and breadth of the land; not only were houses, barns, and even crops burned; but the master of the house was frequently subjected to fiendish tortures, in order that he might thus be forced to discover the hiding place of his gold ; or, as often happened, as a punishment for having nothing to give. At the approach of a hostile army the whole village would take to flight, and would live for weeks in the midst of forests and marshes, or in caves. The enemy having departed, the wretched survivors would return to their ruined homes and carry on a painful existence with the few remains of their former property, until they were forced to fly again by new invasions.

"The years 1635 and 1636 mark the period of the most terrible misery. In the years 1 636-1 638 famine and pestilence came to add to the suffering. The people tried to satisfy hunger with roots, grass, and leaves; even cannibalism became more or less frequent. The gallows and the graveyards had to be guarded; the bodies of children were not safe from their mothers. So great was the destruction that where once were flourishing farms and vineyards, now whole bands of wolves roamed unmolested." 1

Even yet the cup of misery of this ill-fated land was not filled. The peace signed at Westphalia in 1649 was quickly broken so far as the Palatinate was concerned. In 1674 another war broke out between France and Holland, that lasted with but few interruptions and with slight changes of combatants for several years more. Finally, in 1689 the French determined completely to depopulate this country. The result has been stated in one of Macaulay's striking paragraphs : —

"The commander announced to near half a million human beings that he granted them three days of grace, and that within that time they must shift for themselves. Soon the roads and fields, which then lay deep in snow, were blackened by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children flying from their homes. . . . The flames went up from every market place, every parish church, every country seat, within the devoted province. The fields where the corn had been sowed were plowed up. The orchards were cut down."

These poor hunted creatures fled by tens of thousands to the valleys and broad fields of Pennsylvania, where they have preserved their language, customs, religion, and traditions even to the present day, presenting the

1 Oscar Kuhns, "The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania," pp. 3-9.

strange paradox of the oldest " Americans " speaking a " foreign" tongue. They fled down the Rhine, crowded into Amsterdam, where they became the victims of a horde of hyena-like shipping agents, who plundered them of their last coin, then shipped them upon overcrowded and unseaworthy ships, with such accommodations that sometimes half of them died upon the passage, and the remainder were landed in America, so indebted to the ship's officers that they were sold into temporary slavery to pay their passage. 1

Throughout this period, whichever of the warring religious sects gained control of any government promptly used its power to " stamp out the heresy" of its competitors. So there was never a lack of religious refugees seeking an asylum in America, although the number of these has been vastly exaggerated, since the love of religious freedom is ordinarily looked upon as a much higher motive for emigration than economic necessity. It is almost needless to say that each little flock of refugees was no sooner safely settled in the New World than it proceeded to discover new heretics among its own members, who were piously driven into the surrounding wilderness.

During the eighteenth century another important element was added to the stream of immigration. This time it came from Ireland and was composed of that body that was to play such an important part in certain phases