Readings in the history of the American nation

Front matter

cv *

READINGS IN THE

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION

Preface

It is now common in all schools to require pupils to prepare papers on assigned topics or to do a certain amount of reading in addition to the lesson in the text-book. There appears to be no difference of opinion among teachers concerning the value of this collateral reading and study: it releases the pupil from bondage to the text, widens his view, and gives him training in the handling of material. There are often, however, difficulties in obtaining books to be used in this way, and it is especially difficult to get books covering a large portion of the field; moreover, even when a school is provided with a reference library, the illustrative material is not always found without unreasonable effort. This volume of selections is not offered in expectation that it will entirely take the place of the school library in American history, but with the hopes that it will be of service where schools are not possessed of reference books and that in any case the selections will wisely amplify and illuminate the text-book and will make it possible to require a certain amount of work outside the text without placing unnecessarily heavy burdens on the pupil. Even if these selections are not used as the basis of definite oral or written reports, the pupils will, it is to be hoped, find them interesting and readable.

This volume does not pretend to be a thoroughly balanced presentation of materials on American history, a volume in which each portion of the field receives its just and adequate share of attention; such a thoroughly balanced volume may be desirable, but a book like this, intended to be used in connection with a text-book, rather than independently, need not be so formidable in its content or so precise in its disposition of space. In making the selections I have been influenced by several considerations: first, by the desire to include things that are really interesting and at the same time give significant information; second, by the desire to give ample opportunity for reading of industrial conditions and developments

V vi PREFACE

in American history, because there is an increasing interest in such matters and because they cannot generally be adequately presented in a text-book without unduly limiting the story of political events; third, by the intention of giving materials which will illustrate critical movements or changes in political organization and especially the movements of very recent times — such movements as those for direct primaries, the initiative and the referendum.

I owe my thanks and acknowledgments to a number of publishing houses who have allowed me to use portions of books or articles protected by copyright. The names of the publishers are given in connection with the excerpts in the body of the book and are again given in the table of contents. I therefore content myself here with a general word of appreciation of the courtesy.

I wish, also, to thank Dr. Theodore C. Pease for his efficient assistance in the preparation of the volume.

A. C. McLaughlin.

ChicagOo

PART I THE COLONIES I The English Settler and the American Wilderness I

Edward Eggleston : The Transit of Civilization, pp. 126-127. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1901.

II The Appalachian Barrier 2

N. S. Shaler: Nature and Man in America, pp. 194-5. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1893.

III The Problem of the English Poor 5

Edward Eggleston: The Transit of Civilization, pp. 293-295, passim.

IV The First Legislative Assembly in America . 7

William Wirt Henry : The First Legislative Assembly in America, in Report of American Historical Association, 1893, PP- 302-304; 309- 10; 314.

V The Pilgrim Country 12

Edward Eggleston : The Beginners of a Nation, pp. 149-157. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1896.

VI Witchcraft 19

Edward Eggleston: The Transit of Civilization, pp. 25-34- VII Colonial Schools and a Colonial College . . 26 Edward Eggleston : The Transit of Civilization, pp. 239, 249.

VIII The Life and Home of a Colonial Planter . . 30 Kate M. Rowland : The Life of George Mason, pp. 98-102. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1892.

IX The New England Town :^6

Timothy Dwight, S.T.D., LL.D., Late President of Yale College: Travels in Nezc-England and New-York, Vol. I, pp. 248-252. New Haven, 182 1.

vii

Vlll

CONTENTS

Part II

X Causes of the American Revolution .... 42 W. E. H. Lecky: The American Revolution, 1762-1283. Being the Chapters and Passages Relating to America from the Author's History of England' in the Eighteenth Century. Arranged and Edited by J. A. Woodburn, pp. 51-56, 75-79. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1898.

XI Taxation and Representation 51

The Parliamentary History of England, Vol. XVI, pp. 98 fif. London, 1813.

XII The Loyalists in the American RevcTlution . 57 M. C. Tyler: The Loyalists in the American Revolution, in the American Historical Review, 1896, Vol. I, pp. 27-31.

XIII The United States after the Revolution . . 61

J. P. Brissot de Warville : New Travels in the United States of America Performed in 1788. Second Edition, Vol. I, pp. 97-102, 128-132, 266-270, 384-386. London, 1794.

XIV How the Framers of the Constitution Trav-

eled 70

Massachusetts Spy, or the Worcester Gazette, January 5, 1786. Reprinted in A Century of Population Growth, Bureau of the Census, 1909, p. 22.

XV How the Defects of the Federal Union may be

Remedied 71

The Federalist, Edited by Henry B. Dawson, Vol. I, pp. 91-100. New York, 1863.

XVI The Federal Con\^ntion, 1787 79

Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, by James Madison. Revised and Newly Arranged by Jonathan Elliot, pp. 120-122 ; 554- 5; 565- Washington, 1845.

XVII The Framers of the Constitution 87

Notes of Major William Pierce on the Federal Convention of 1787, in the American Historical Review, 1897-8. Vol. Ill, pp. 325 ff.

XVIII The Constitution 93

A description of its contents and its interpretation by the Editor,

CONTENTS

IX

Part III The New Government Chapter Tage

XIX Hamilton on the Construction of the Constitution 103

Works of Hamilton, J. C. Hamilton, Editor, Vol. IV, pp. 106, ff. New York, 1851.

XX Jeffersonian Democracy .107

Journal of the Senate, 6th Congress, 2d Session, pp. 141-147. March 4, 1801.

XXI How THE Embargo Was Enforced and Evaded . 113 J. B. McMaster: Historv of the People of the United States, Vol. Ill, pp. 279-307, passim. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1892.

XXII The Caucus of 1824 122

Niles' Register, Vol. XXV, pp. 137-8- November I, 1823.

PART IV THE NEW WEST XXIII Colonization of the West 128

Frederick J. Turner: The Colonization of the West, 1820-1830, in the American Historical Review, 1905-6, Vol. XI, pp. zoz-Z^7, passim.

XXIV The Ohio Valley in 1817 140

Morris Birkbeck: Notes on a Journey in America, 2d Edition, pp. 69-71, 80-82, 89-92, 103-105, London, 1818; and John Woods: Two Years' Residence . . . in the Illinois Country, pp. 267- 270. London, 1822.

XXV The Commerce of the Mississippi . . . ._ • i47 Report on Internal Commerce of the United States, 1887, pp. 199, 205, 214-15. 50th Congress, 1st Session, House Executive Documents, No. 6, Part II, Vol. 20.

XXVI The Reaper • i53

R. G. Thwaites : Cyrus Hall McCormick, _ m Proceedings of the Wisconsin Historical Society, 1908, pp. 234-259, passim.

XXVII Slavery in the New Southwest 160

Susan Dabney Smedes : A Southern Planter, PP- 7-15; 29-30. London, 1889.

XXVIII An Englishman on American Travel . . . 164 Capt. Marryat: Second Series of a Diary in

X

CHAPTER

XXIX

CONTENTS

PAGE

America, pp. 3-5, 7-8, 9-io, 32-33- Collins, Philadelphia, 1840.

The Development of Transportation on Western Rivers 169

Michel Chevalier : Society, Manners and Politics in the United States, pp. 214-216. Translation. Boston, 1839.

PART V THE MOVEMENT TO THE FAR WEST XXX The Santa Fe Trade . . . ._ I73

XXXI The Oregon Trail 182

Francis Parkman : The Oregon Trail, pp. 1-6,

36, 51-54- Little, Brown and Co., New York,

XXXII California in 1849 190

Frank Soule and Others : The Annals of San

Appleton & Co., New York, 1855.

PART VI SLAVERY AND ABOLITION XXXIII Garrisonian Abolitionism ^ 199

A. — Slavery a Positive Evil, The Liberator, Vol.

I, p. I.

B. — Slavery and the Constitution, The Liberator,

Vol. XIV, p. 86.

C. — Burning the Constitution, The Liberator, Vol.

XXXIV Sla\tery a Positive Good 206

R. K. Cralle: Speeches of John C. Calhoun, Vol. II, pp. 626-633. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1853.

XXXV John Quincy Adams on Slavery ..... 212 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. IX, p. 255; Vol. X, p. 453. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1874.

XXXVI A Favorable View of the Slave System . . . 215 Susan Dabney Smedes : A Southern Planter, pp. 31-32. London, 1889,

CONTENTS xi

XXXVII A Northerner's View of Slavery 216

F. L. Olmsted: The Cotton Kingdom, Vol. I, pp. 8-16, 100, 233-46; Vol. II, pp. 176-179. Mason Brothers, New York, 1861.

XXXVIII Congressional Legislation on Slavery . . . 229 A. — The Missouri Compromise, U. S. Statutes at

Large, Vol. Ill, pp. 545, 548.

B. — Extracts from the Report of the Committee of Thirteen, Senate Report 122, 31st Congress, 1st Session, p. 11.

C. — An Act to Establish a Territorial Government for Utah, U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol.

D. — Texas and New Mexico, U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, pp. 446-447.

E. — An Act to Suppress the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia, U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, pp. 467-8.

F. — The Fugitive Slave Law, U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, pp. 463-465,

G. — An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas. U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. X, pp. 277 ff.

PART VII THE EVE OF THE CIVIL WAR XXXIX Calhoun's Last Speech 242

Works of Calhoun, Vol. IV, pp. 542-573. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1854.

XL The Northwest Forms a New Party .... 254 A. C. McLaughlin : Lewis Cass in the American Statesmen Series, Vol. XXIV, pp. 300-323. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1899.

XLI "A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand" 263 Political Debates Betzveen Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, pp. i, ff. Columbus, Ohio, i860.

XLII Slavery as a Moral Issue 268

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, pp. 481- 486, Vol. Ill of the Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, Edwin E. Sparks, Editor. Springfield, Illinois, 1908.

XLIII Abraham Lincoln

A. — Lincoln's Character. H, von Hoist: Constitutional and Political History of the United States, Vol. VI, pp. 269-278. Callaghan and Co., Chicago, 1889.

xii CONTENTS

B. — Lincoln's First Inaugural Address. Frank Moore : Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, PP- 36-39. New York, 1867.

XLIV Jefferson Davis's Inaugural 289

Frank Moore : Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, pp. 31, 32. New York, 1867.

PART VIII XLV The Emancipation Proclamation 292

Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol. I, pp. 142, 143. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1911.

XLVI The Southern Army 294

George Cary Eggleston : A Rebel's Recollections, pp. 31-53, passim. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1875.

XLVII When Money Was Easy 299

George Cary Eggleston: A Rebel's Recollections, pp. 77-95, passim.

Part IX

XLVIII The Dominant Theory of Reconstruction . . 304 Congressional Globe, December 18, 1865, pp. y^- 74. 39th Congress, ist Session; and Congressional Globe, January 3, 1867, p. 252, 39th Congress, 2d Session.

XLIX The Freedman's Bureau 308

House Executive Documents, No. 70, 39th Congress, 1st Session, p. 154; and Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, Vol. i, pp. 441-2, 42d Congress, 2d Session, Senate Report 41, Part I.

L Southern Government Under Reconstruction . 3T2 A. — Election to the Alabama Convention of 1868. Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, "Alabama Testimony," Vol. Ill, p. 1832. Senate Reports, 42d Congress, 2d Session, 187I-72.

B.— Painted Pegs. Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, "Alabama Testimony," p. 314, Senate Reports, 426. Congress, 2d Session, 1871-72.

C— A Negro Legislature. J. S. Pike: The

CHAPTER

CONTENTS xiii

PAGE

Prostrate State, pp. 12-21, passim. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1874.

LI A Specimen of the Carpet-Bagger and His Mis-

GOVERNMENT •. • • • ' 31"

A— Governor Warmoth of Louisiana. House Report, No. 92, p. 24, 42d Congress, 2d Session, 1872. TT A

B.— The Increase of State Expenditures. H. A. Herbert and Others, Why the Solid SouthT, p. 403. R. H. Woodward and Co., Baltimore, 1890.

LII Social Conditions During Reconstruction ^ . . 320 Charles Nordhoff: The Cotton States m the Spring and Summer of 1875, pp. 17-18, 55, 7», 96. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1876.

LIII The Southern Negro after Emancipation . .322 Robert Somers : The Southern States Since the War, pp. 128-9. New York, 1871.

LIV The Ku Klux Klan . . . ■ - ■ • • -324 Senate Reports, No. i, p. 2, 42d Congress, ist Session, 1871.

Part X The Cattle Industry And Agriculture Since The War

LV Cattle Days in the West . ••••.•.•.• 327

C. M. Harger: Cattle Trails of the Prairies, in

'Scrihner's Magazine, 1892, Vol. XI, pp. 732-

742 ; and W. Baillie Grohman : Cattle Ranches

in the Far West, in the Fortnightly Review,

1880, Vol. XXXIV, pp. 441 ff.

LVI A Late Phase of the Settlement of the West 336 The Opening of an Indian Reservation. William R Draper in Harper's Weekly, August 10, 1901, Vol. XLV, p. 805.

LVII The Agricultural Development and Progress of

the Nation , V j : - '1 ^^^

H. de B. Gibbins: Econom-ic and Industrial Progress of the Century, pp. 405 ff- Bradley- Garretson Co., Brantford, Ontario, 1903; and C H Cochrane: Modern Industrial Progress, pp. 209 ff. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1904.

CONTENTS PART XI

CHAPTER LVIII

LIX

LX

General Industrial Progress of the Country . 354 H. de B. Gibbins : Economic and Industrial Progress of the Century, pp. 453 ff. Bradley- Garretson Co., Brantford, Ontario, 1903.

How A Big Modern Business is Organized . . 362 E. S. Meade: Trust Finance, pp. 198-211. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1903.

Causes of Trusts 369

Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol, XIII, pp. v-vii. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1 90 1.

PART XII LXI Great Wealth and Discontent 37s

H. T. Peck: Twenty Years of the Republic, p. 724. Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1907.

LXII Immigration t,?^

J. H. Latane: America as a World Power, pp. 285 fif. Harper and Brothers, New York, 1907.

LXIII The City 379

F. C. Howe: The City the Hope of Democracy, pp. 9-18; 280-288, passim. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1905.

LXIV The Direct Primary 385

Iva Cross: Direct Primaries in The Arena, Vol. XXXV, p. 587, June, 1906. Published in The Primer of Direct Legislation, by Wm. H. Plunkett, Trenton, N. J.

LXV Initiative, Referendum and Recall 390

Jonathan Bourne, Jr. : Popular Government in Oregon, in The Outlook, 1910, Vol. XCVI, pp. 322-330, passim.

LXVI A Presidential Campaign 393

W. B. Shaw: Methods and Tactics of the Campaign in the Review of Reviews, Vol. XIV, PP- 554-559 passim. New York, 1896.

LXVII Publicity of Campaign Contributions .... 398 R. C. Brooks : Corruption in American Politics and Life, pp. 233-237. Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1910.

CONTENTS XV

LXVIII Corrupt Practice Legislation 400

S. Gale Lowrie: Corrupt Practices at Elections in American Political Science Review, 191 1, Vol. V, pp. 236 ff.

LXIX The United States Amended Corrupt Practice

Act 405

Statutes of the United States, 62d Congress, 1st Session, pp. 25-29.

LXX The Inaugural Address of President Woodrow

Wilson, March 4, 19 13 408

READINGS IN THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NATION

Part I The Colonies The English Settler And The American Wilderness

Love of Nature in its wilder forms was not common to men of the seventeenth century, whether in Europe or America, and it is not strange, therefore, that we do not find the early settlers given up to admiring the forests or appreciating the beauties of the untamed wilderness. The following extract gives us some idea of how the settlers were affected by their surroundings.

If there had been any love of Nature in the seventeenth century, American settlers would have shown some appreciation of its aspects in a new world. But the prevailing sentiment of the time was that Nature had long been steadily deteriorating, and that the everlasting frame of the universe was in a state of rack and decay. For the sublime in external Nature there was no taste. An accomplished English traveler in 1621 describes the " hideous " Alps, which he had crossed, as " uncouth, huge, monstrous excrescences of Nature." This, we may suppose, represents the sentiment of English settlers toward the grand primeval wilderness about them. *' Uncouth " is Captain John Smith's only epithet for the picturesque wilderness trails through which he marched ; and George Sandys, though a poet, never 2 I seems to look upon the wilderness except as an obstruction and an enemy. The colonial verse writer does not suffer any intrusion into his meditations of the overawing effects of Nature, primitive and unsubdued, as he encountered it. What contemplation there is in the books and letters of the time expends itself on the supernatural, or revels in the merely grewsome.

This " uncouth, huge, monstrous " wilderness puts its thumb mark on the character of the people otlrerwise than by contemplation. They grew up in the earlier generations woodsmen. Distinctively English characteristics fell away from them. The exigencies of a new country made them quick-witted and shifty. The dignity and repose of bearing that belong to a fixed po-sition in an older civilization were lost, for the time at least. The American was pushing, aggressive, inquisitive. He was also more open-minded than his ancestors ; a change of circumstances broke up the conservative crust of centuries of English life. The " go " of a new country came into the new life and a hundred years after the early settlenrent of the colonies an English clergyman in Virginia sketches the American as we have known him — nimble-witted, but less patient and profound than the Englishman.

Edward Eggleston : The Transit of Civilization, pp. 126- 127. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1901.

Why was the seventeenth century Englishman left unimpressed by the beauty of the American wilderness? With what feelings did he regard it? How did a few generations of life on the American frontier, near the wilderness, affect the settler mentally?

II The Appalachian Barrier

The English settlements for a century and a half clustered close to tide water, while the French traversed the St. Lawrence and Mississippi valleys from end to end and linked their settlements at Quebec and New Orleans with scattered villages in Illinois. The St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi with its tributaries each in turn invited the canoe of the French explorer and adventurer, while the Appalachians repelled the English pioneer. A vivid mental picture of the physical difficulties of crossing the mountains is necessary to an intelligent understanding of the history of the English colonies.

It is difficult, in the present state of our control over this continent, to conceive the importance which lies in the facts concerning the original sites of the French and English settlements on the American shore. We now traverse this land in every direction with perfect ease ; as for the mountain barriers of the Appalachians, with their great forests and unnavigable streams, they now demand but a ton or two of coal to carry in one railway train a greater population than was ever at one time before the beginning of the eighteenth century imported to our coast. In those old days the Appalachian system, of mountains constituted a really impassable zone extending from Georgia to the far north, broken only at one point by a navigable waterway and the great valley it occupies, the St. Lawrence basin and fiver. It is true that the Hudson in its principal tributary, the Mohawk, in a fashion divides the Appalachian axis, but it opens no pathway into the Mississippi Valley. The Mohawk is unnavigable, and the region about its headwaters contained, perhaps, the densest part of the Indian population north of the Ohio, composed of very vigorous and combative tribes.^

Although the Appalachians have peaks of no great height, their ranges are singularly continuous, and the passes formed by the streams in the numerous wall-like ridges

1 The famous Iroquois Confederacy. The English regarded them as uncertain friends whose friendship was not to be in any way presumed on. The French dread of them is evidenced by the wide berth their explorers gave to the upper Ohio Valley till well into the eighteenth century.

afforded in early days no natural ways whatever. From Maine to Alabama the woods were unbroken and impassable. This great Appalachian forest was, in primitive days, an exceedingly dense tangle. At a few points the aborigines had worn narrow footways through it ; but these trails were not adapted to pack animals, the original means of transportation brought by the Europeans, but were for the use of men who journeyed on foot, and could thus climb steeps inaccessible to a burdened beast. To add to the difficulties of the country, a large part of the district from central Pennsylvania northward was bowlder strewn, affording no footing for horses. Even in the present state of New England, where the superficial layer of glacial erratics has been to a great extent cleared away, it is easy to conceive how impassable the surface must have been in early times. It required a century of enterprising, unrecorded labor to open the paths across the stony and swampy fields of New England to the valley of the Hudson. The undergrowth of this forest country is far more dense than that which is commonly found in European lands. The shrubby plants and the species of smilax or green briar and other creeping vines, make most of our Appalachian forests very nearly impassable, even at the present day.

N. S. Shaler: Nature and Man in America, pp. 194-5. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1893.

What is the configuration of the Appalachian barrier? Where is the only wide depression in the mountains south of Canada? Why was it not open to settlers in the eighteenth century? What is the nature of the Appalachian forest? How has glacial action made progress through the wild country north of central Pennsylvania difficult ?

III THE PROBLEM OF THE ENGLISH POOR

The development of sheep raising in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the consequent use of plow land for pasturage and sheep-walks had thrown many agricultural laborers out of employment. There was, moreover, an industrial and social change going on in England, which was entering on her great career as a sea power with extensive foreign trade. In this time of transition, as small land holding was disappearing, laborers did not readily find their place in the industrial system, but prowled about we are told, " till the gallows did eat them." America offered an outlet, a chance for the unemployed. The facts of the existence of this class are summarized in the following extract. The New World from the beginning till now has been the place to which the poorer people of Europe have looked as a place where they might get on and up.

The problem of England in the days of James I v^as howto be rid of its poor. They had, many of them, been turned out of a living by the inclosure of commons in the mania for sheep husbandry, and some of them had had the villages pulled down about their ears. They were sent a-wandering, living as they could live by hook or by crook. Necessity made many of them rogues, and the desire to have done with rogues was so intense that England hanged its thieves out of hand. Henry VIII thought to be rid of such vermin of society, and he hanged, if we may believe Harrison, two and seventy thousand, including " great theeves, pettie theeves and roges." In Elizabeth's reign three or four hundred felons were eaten up annually by the gallows, and James I merrily carried on the work of extermination ; one reads of " twenty hanged up at a clap," in one place. But the vagabonds did not grow fewer.

Recent serfdom had left its mark on the poor man. He had been freed, not from benevolence, nor from any motive having regard to the personality of the serf. Wickliffe and others had taught that it was meritorious to free a man from bondage who was a Christian — that is, who had been baptized. This scruple fitted to the churchly conscience of the age ; it grew more and more exigeant. '' We think it pious and meritorious with God to make certain persons absolutely free from the yoke of servitude who are at present under villenage to us," said Henry VIII. Elizabeth and James, less scrupulous on this point, proposed to sell to those whose blood was tainted with slavery the privileges of freedom. It was not till the eighteenth century had dawned that Chamberlayne's State of England, an annual publication, could drop its set phrase, " but few now in England," and say, " Now slavery is entirely thrown away and every Servant Man or Woman are properly, hired Servants." But the habit of regarding the peasant as a recent serf had its influence in the treatment of him.

The " spirit," who was later called a crimp, was on the watch for him. Did they need more soldiers in Flanders? The spirit, by means best known to himself, packed off the poor man to Flanders. He was equally ready to ship him to any other country for a reward. The Virginia colony began to ask for people. The wilderness was hungry for laborers. The spirit shipped little children by the score down the Thames and off for America. Parents followed the vessels all the way to Gravesend, but the law would not help them; Virginia wanted laborers. Sometimes a parent could pay enough to get the lad released. Men were carried also to that abode of hopelessness. From the first there were two general classes : free apprentices, and convicts mostly for petty crimes. " Apprentices," says Chamberlayne, " are a sort of servant that carry the mask of Pure villains or Bond slaves, differing however in that Apprentices are slaves only for a term and by covenant."

Edward' Eggleston: The Transit of Civili::ation, pp. 293-295, passim.

How had the numbers of the English poor been increased? How were they dealt with by the government? How did the presence of serfdom in England account for the presence of the poor? How did the "spirits" prey on this class in the community?

IV The First Legislative Assembly In America

This assembly was called by virtue of an order to that effect passed by the Virginia Company in London. It was not at the begiruiing recognized or authorized by the King; the right to make laws was the gift of the Company. The striking thing about the assembly as here described, is the readiness it showed and the capacity to perform its duties, as well as the orderliness with which it worked.

The English colonists who first settled in America at Jamestown brought with them, by their charter, all the rights of Englishmen. But local self-government ^ was not accorded to the Virginians at first. They suffered great hardships for twelve years under what resembled a military government, until the year 1619, when the colony was deemed sufficiently grown to warrant an assembly. In that year Sir George Yeardley arrived with the commission of governor-general from the London Company, which had planted and governed the colony. Among his instructions was one, also called a commission, that brought joy to the hearts of the colonists. It was, as they described it, " that they might have a hande in the governinge of themselves, it was granted that a general assemblie should be helde yearly once, whereat were to be present the Gov^. and Counsel!, with two Burgesses from each plantation freely to be elected by the inhabitants thereof; this Assembly have power to make and ordaine whatsoever laws and

iThe right to govern the colony themselves.

orders should by them be thought good and proffittable for our subsistance."

This commission, the real Magna Charta of V^irginia, was issued in London, the 28th of November, 1618. That night a flaming comet appeared in the heavens, which was considered then an ill omen, but which might more properly have been taken as a heavenly recognition of the great boon which had been bestowed on America. The comet was visible till the 26th of December, and the prevailing superstition prevented the sailing of Governor Yeardley till it was safely departed. He, therefore, sailed with his commission and instructions the 29th of January, 1619, more than a year before the sailing of the Pilgrims.

In accordance with this commission, in June Governor Yeardley sent his summons all over the country, as well to invite those of the Council of State that were absent, as for the election of two burgesses from each of the plantations, to meet at Jamestown on the 30th of July, 1619. (O. S.) As this was the first legislative assembly which met in America, antedating by fifteen years the assembly of any other colony,^ and was the beginning of the free institutions which we now enjoy, I have thought it would be of interest to give some account of it and of its proceedings.

The place of meeting was the Episcopal Church, a wooden building 60 feet long and 24 wide. Its communion table was of black walnut; its pulpit, chancel, and pews, of cedar. It had handsome wide windows, also made of cedar, which could be shut and opened according to the weather. A green velvet chair was placed in the choir, in which the governor sat. The building was so constructed as to be very light within, and we are told that the governor caused it to be kept " passing sweet and trimmed up with divers flowers." The native Virginia flowers In season were doubtless used. There might be

2 But business was transacted in the assembly of the men of Plymouth Colony long before the fifteen years had passed.