E 221 
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 Copy 1 
 
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 Cbe Other Side 
 
 OF .— ii.x^i^'-' '' 
 
 CDe Declaration of 
 
 inaepeiidc^Ke. 
 *^ 
 
 a Xecture bv fxanU JSeraen, 
 
 m Tliac6tmfn6ter Gbapcl, 
 
 B«3abetbt 
 
 December I6tb, 1897* 
 
 lpubliijbe& unDer tbe auspices of tbe 
 
 ubacite iloal 3fimt> ot ^rfnlt^ 
 
 Cburcb, Blisabetb, m» 5. 
 
Pass B-Z-^l 
 Book. 
 
 3i^t^ 
 
THE OTHER SIDE 
 
 OF o f ,' 
 
 The Declaration of Independence. 
 
 A Lecture By Frank Bergen, 
 
 At Westminster Chapel, Elizabeth, N. J. 
 December i6th, 1897. 
 
 ''(^xx^i GJfferam ^arfem.'* 
 
 2ncl COPY 
 
 Elizabeth, N. J.: ■ f 
 
 Elizabeth Journal Print, '^^Oi, 
 
 1898. 
 
 I. 
 
 \ 0-% D 
 
 \vA/ - \?.v \*.v » 
 
4244 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1398, 
 BY FRANK BERGEN. 
 
Ubc Qtbct Sl^e of tbe Declaration 
 ot IfnbepenDence* 
 
 Ladies and Gentleinen : 
 
 ONE day last September, in a laughing 
 talk with my friend Mr. Atkinson,* B 
 expressed the opinion that the Decla- 
 ation of Independence was an unjustifiable 
 and an ungrateful act. I made the remark in 
 order to hear my friend discourse patriotic elo- 
 quence ; and you may be sure that he did. We 
 discussed the matter for some time without 
 coming to an agreement ; probably we did not 
 intend to agree when we began to dispute. 
 Our talk ended with an invitation, extended 
 rather in the form of a challenge, to make 
 my remark the text of a discourse for the 
 benefit of the coal fund, and so it came to 
 pass that I am here this evening to stand in 
 the pillory for a half hour or so as a punish- 
 ment for trying to have a little fun with a 
 minister. 
 
 Sometime ago, to gratify a curious or per- 
 verse impulse, I made some inquiry to learn 
 whether there were two sides to the contro- 
 versy that led to our Revolutionary War, and, 
 if so, to find out how much of the blizzard of 
 
 *Rcv. J. R. Atkinson, rector of Trinity Church, Elizabeth. 
 
4 ^be ©tber SlDe of 
 
 eulogy and oratory, which we accept as his- 
 tory, is veritable fact. I found two sides to 
 the dispute, as you probably know, but have 
 not yet finished the rest of my task. 
 
 I^et me say a word to guard against mis- 
 understanding. I do not think an accurate esti- 
 mate of the Declaration of Independence can 
 be made without a minute and critical survey 
 of the course of civilization in Europe and 
 America from the break-up of the Dark Ages 
 to the outbreak of the French Revolution. 
 To form an opinion of the document, or of the 
 men who signed it, from a mere reading of 
 its text and an account of the skirmishes from 
 Lexington to Yorktown would be quite absurd, 
 and yet such an opinion has been formed many 
 a time on that meagre stock of information. 
 All I shall undertake to do is to remind you 
 of a few facts on one side of a long contro- 
 versy — a controversy in which neither side had 
 a monopoly of righteousness. 
 
 No doubt the Declaration of Independence 
 is regarded as one of the beacon lights shining 
 in the course of the long march of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race from the feudal system 
 to rational liberty, fit to be bound up 
 with Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, 
 the Bill of Rights and the Federal Constitution. 
 But whatever may be the final judgment of 
 
tbe Declaration ot -ffnOepeuDence. 5 
 
 history on the Declaration— if history ever ren- 
 ders any final judgment — there can be no harm 
 in turning the famous old document over for 
 a moment and looking at the other side. If 
 there is reason to suspect that some of the 
 statements in the Declaration of Independence 
 are exaggerated, unsound or untrue, or that 
 some of the reasons alleged to justify it are 
 fallacies, let us try to forget our dislike of 
 England for a little while and ask the Fourth 
 ot July orators to be still long enough for us to 
 find out what was the real trouble between 
 George Washington and George III. 
 
 I am convinced that such an investigation 
 would be wholesome and cheerful, and an act 
 of justice to the present generation. Our native 
 historians and the common run of Fourth of 
 July orators have treated our countrymen badly 
 for a hundred years. They have given the 
 world to understand that we are the degen- 
 erate children of a race of giants, statesmen and 
 moralists who flourished for a few years about 
 a century ago and passed away. The truth, I 
 think, is different. An impartial examination 
 foi the records would show that we are wiser, 
 better, more benevolent, quite as patriotic and 
 brave as the standard heroes of 1776. Anyone 
 familiar with a horn book of natural or politi- 
 cal history should suspect this to be so. If 
 
6 Zbc ©tber SiOe ot 
 
 we know anything certainly it is that the 
 conflict going on around us between what we 
 call forces of good and evil is a process of 
 perpetual improvement in obedience to some 
 immutable and higher law that we laymen do 
 not clearly understand. On this point the 
 most profound historians and those deepest in 
 science seem to agree. Mr. Spencer, who has 
 taken all knowledge for his province, and has 
 succeeded better than Bacon, tells us that 
 " Progress is not an accident, but a necessity. 
 Instead of civilization being artificial it is a 
 part of nature ; all of a piece with the devel- 
 opment of an embryo or the unfolding of a 
 flower." And the late Professor Huxley, whose 
 profound learning seemed to strengthen his 
 good sense, after giving us a dismal picture of 
 man emerging from the darkness of prehistoric 
 ages with the marks of his lowly origin strong 
 upon him, — a mere brute, he says, more in- 
 telligent than other brutes, — rejoices that enor- 
 mous changes for the better have occurred 
 and are still going on in the world, and adds, 
 that if this were not so he would hail the 
 coming of a kindly comet to sweep the whole 
 affair away as a public blessing. And so Ma- 
 caulay, grown gray over history, displays the 
 same truth by one of his flashes of rhetoric. 
 He tells us that " those who compare the age 
 
tbc Declaration ot IFtiDepen^cnce. 7 
 
 on which their lot has fallen with a golden 
 age that exists only in their imagination may- 
 talk of degeneracy and decay, but no man 
 who is correctly informed as to the past, will 
 be disposed to take a morose or desponding 
 view of the present." 
 
 I have hastily summoned these eminent wit- 
 nesses, and examined them briefly, in order to 
 show that the presumption is against the ac- 
 curacy of the history of our revolutionary era 
 as commonly written. We may give our an- 
 cestors credit for many admirable virtues with- 
 out attempting to maintain that a multitude of 
 unlettered colonists, scattered along the Atlan- 
 tic coast — hunting, fishing, smuggling and till- 
 ing the soil for a living, and fighting Indians 
 and wild beasts to save their lives — possessed a 
 vast fund of political virtue and political in- 
 telligence, and carried off the bulk of it with 
 them when they passed away. 
 
 We may not agree with the remark of the 
 late Wendell Phillips that history for the most 
 part is a series of lies agreed on ; nor refuse 
 to hear history read as Walpole refused, be- 
 cause he said history must be false ; but it 
 must be conceded ;^as probably true that much 
 of our history of the revolutionary era is fic- 
 tion written in gush. If I should read to you 
 the account of the battle of I^exington, or of the 
 
8 z\yc ©tber Side of 
 
 street figlit we call the Boston Massacre, as 
 written by Bancroft, and then read Lecky's 
 story of the same incidents, it would make you 
 laugh. Yet both of these historians were 
 learned and honest men ; but they saw facts, 
 or at least one of them did, not with eyes, but 
 with prejudices, and kindred writers have been 
 feeding our patriotism on fiction and prejudice 
 for more than a century. 
 
 The public gorge is beginning to rise at 
 this tirade of indiscriminate eulogy, and the 
 public taste is beginning to reject it as a form 
 of defamation. Sixty years ago Emerson, suf- 
 focated by the fumes of sulphur that Jonathan 
 Edwards had blown over New England, de- 
 manded a religion of insight, not of tradition 
 merely. And so the ripening judgment of our 
 people is beginning to demand portraits of our 
 ancestors painted according to the command 
 that Cromwell gave the artist — to paint his fea- 
 tures, warts, blotches and all — and to demand 
 an account of the exploits of our forefathers 
 written as Othello desired his memory to be 
 preserved. When we shall learn to speak of 
 them as they were — to extenuate nothing, nor 
 set down aught in malice — their worthy shades 
 will bow and thank us, for no sturdy charac- 
 ter in history ever craved or relished gush. 
 
 In a short essay on the features of American 
 
tbe declaration of irnDepen^ence, 9 
 
 public life in the revolutionary era, published 
 some years ago. Professor Sumner of Yale ob- 
 served that *' no one appears to have exam- 
 ined critically the opinions, pretensions and 
 methods of the American colonists in the pre- 
 revolutionary period to see how far they were 
 right." The English, he reminds us, never very 
 seriously debated the doctrines put forward by 
 the Americans before the war. Indeed, the 
 great orators of England — Chatham, Burke, 
 Fox, Conway and Col. Barre— in their zeal to 
 break down obnoxious ministries, justified the 
 conduct of the Americans, although asserting 
 the omnipotent power of Parliament to legis- 
 late for the colonies on all subjects. But stil# 
 with this strong force of orators and de-; 
 baters pleading their cause the patriots com- 
 plained that they were not represented in Par^ 
 liament. 
 
 Bancroft was our standard historian for many 
 years. He was very industrious, but his mind 
 was narrow, and not very strong. He had a 
 knack or trick of fine writing. His brain was 
 highly charged with patriotic ardor, which 
 seemed to carry him off his feet now and then ; 
 and so, much of his book came to be written 
 in a style that resembles a prose^translation of 
 Homer. His book, so far as it relates to the 
 revolutionary era, is useful as a magazine of 
 
10 ^be ®tber Si^e of 
 
 patriotic oratory ; but the sober and critical 
 searcher after frozen truth must go elsewhere. 
 t Hildreth told the truth faithfully, but his style 
 i is dull and his work a mere outline. The re- 
 ception of his book displeased many good 
 people who knew nothing about the Revolu- 
 tion, except what they had learned from Ban- 
 croft and the orators, and led him to defend 
 himself in a somewhat luminous remark in the 
 preface to his second edition : 
 
 " The undress portraits I have presented of 
 our colonial progenitors^ though made up 
 chiefly of traits delineated by themselves ; my 
 presumption in bursting the thin, shining bub- 
 ble so assiduously blown up by so many windy 
 mouths of a colonial golden age of fabulous 
 purity and virtue, have given very serious of- 
 fense, especially in New ^England, region of 
 set formality and hereditary grimace, where a 
 careful editorial toning down, to prepare them 
 for being printed, of the letters of even so 
 cautious a person as Washington has been 
 thought to be demanded alike by decorum 
 toward him, and by propriety toward the pub- 
 lic." 
 
 McMaster has collected a great deal of in- 
 formation about the habits of our ancestors, 
 largely from the yellow journals of their day, 
 but he has shown no capacity to use it so as 
 
tbe 2)cclaratlon of irnDepenDence* n 
 
 to instruct. Indeed, his childish effort to imi- 
 tate Macaulay makes his work ridiculous and 
 insincere. It reminds one of the effort of the 
 feeble Richelieu to wield the sword of Charles 
 Martel. But there is a more serious charge to 
 be brought against McMaster. Noting the 
 rising disgust with the fulsome praise of the 
 patriots and all their works, and pandering to 
 indiscriminating irreverence, he turned the bat- 
 teries of his flippant rhetoric against the most 
 worthy of all. He filled a page of his book 
 with a jocular account of the last illness and 
 death of Washington, and added a disgraceful 
 paragraph purporting to depict the great Vir- 
 ginian in his habit as he lived. It was a 
 vulgar effort to dissolve the purple cloud of 
 rhetoric in which Kverett had carried Wash- 
 ington through thirty states. 
 
 The Narrative and Critical History, edited? 
 by Winsor, is a huge mass of raw material, 
 and the other so-called standard histories of 
 our country treat of epochs merely, or were 
 written to amuse children in school. The pub- 
 lic mind filled with such writings is not 
 likely to possess a very clear impression of 
 important facts. IvCt us turn to other sources 
 of information and get a few lights of an- 
 other color to set about the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, and then read it over again. 
 
12 Zhc ©tber Si&e ot 
 
 The earlier half of the eighteenth century- 
 was filled with unheroic war. France, England 
 and Spain were beginning to overrun the in- 
 terior of North America, quarreling and fight- 
 ing as they went. Spain claimed a zone to 
 the south, and France a vast territory to the 
 north and west of the English colonies. Each 
 of the three countries sought aid from the 
 savages to carry on their enterprises and dep- 
 redations, but their petty wars were indecisive. 
 While the English colonies were beset on the 
 north by the French, on the south by the 
 Spaniards, and on the west by the Indians 
 skulking along the Alleghany ranges, and were 
 compelled to depend on the wooden walls of 
 England for the protection of their coasts, they 
 were remarkably loyal to the crown of Eng- 
 land. Their representative assemblies passed 
 obsequious resolutions expressing loyalty and 
 gratitude to the King, and the people erected 
 his statue in public places. Indeed, this feel- 
 ing of loyalty existed in the minds of a large 
 majority of the people down to the battle of 
 Bunker Hill, and was never wholly eradi- 
 cated. In the summer of 1774 Franklin assured 
 Chatham that there was no desire among 
 the colonists for independence. He said, "Hav- 
 ing more than once traveled almost from one 
 end of the continent to the other and kept a 
 
tbe declaration ot IFnDepenDence. 13 
 
 great variety of company — eating, drinking and 
 conversing with them freely, I have never 
 heard in any conversation from any person, 
 drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish 
 for a separation or hint that such a thing 
 would be advantageous to America." Nearly 
 a year later, in March, 1775, John Adams 
 wrote : ' ' That there are any that hunt after 
 independence is the greatest slander on the 
 Province." Jefferson himself, declared that be- 
 fore the Declaration of Independence he had 
 never heard a whisper of disposition to sepa- 
 rate from Great Britain, and Washington, in 
 October, 1774, denied in the strongest terms 
 that there was any wish for independence in 
 any province in America. This feeling must 
 have arisen from gratitude for the protection 
 afforded by the mother country, or at least 
 satisfaction with the relations existing. 
 
 On this point there is a striking answer made 
 by Franklin in his crafty examination before 
 the House of Commons in February, 1766. In 
 reply to the question, " What was the temper 
 of America towards Great Britain before the 
 year 1763?" he said, "The best in the world. 
 They submitted willingly to the government of 
 the crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience 
 to the acts of Parliament. Numerous as the 
 people are in the several old provinces, they 
 
14 ^be ©tber SiOe of 
 
 cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, 
 or armies to keep them in subjection. They 
 were governed by this country at the expense 
 only of a little pen, ink, and paper ; they 
 were led by a thread. They had not only a 
 respect, but an affection, for Great Britain ; for 
 its laws, its customs and manners, and even a 
 fondness for its fashions, that greatlj' increased 
 the commerce. Natives of Britain were always 
 treated with particular regard ; to be an Old- 
 England man was, of itself, a character of some 
 respect, and gave a kind of rank among us." 
 And in reply to the question, " What is their 
 temper now?" he said, "Very much altered." 
 It is interesting to inquire what happened dur- 
 ing the three years intervening to change the 
 temper of the colonists. 
 
 In 1756 Pitt, Prime Minister of E)nglafld, an 
 empire builder of immense energy, conceived 
 the idea of organizing a campaign to put an 
 end once for all to the enemies of the Knglish 
 colonies in America. War was declared against 
 the French ; an army and a fleet were sent 
 from England ; money was pledged to the col- 
 onies to aid in equipping militia, and a war 
 of seven years was waged, ending in the com- 
 plete conquest and cession of Canada. The 
 power of the Indians, who had assisted the 
 French, was weakened, and in order to remove 
 
tbe Declaration ot ITnOepenDcnce. 15 
 
 other enemies of the English colonists Pitt 
 gave Cuba to Spain in exchange for Florida, 
 so that in 1763 the British flag waved from the 
 Gulf of Mexico to the frozen North. The coast 
 of the Atlantic was protected by the British 
 Navy, and the colonists had no longer any en- 
 emies to fear, except the retreating Indians, 
 
 For this relief the colonists gave much thanks 
 to the King and Parliament. The site of Fort 
 Duquesne was named Pittsburgh in honor of 
 the Prime Minister. Massachusetts voted a 
 costly monument in Westminster Abbey in 
 memory of I^ord Howe, who had fallen in the 
 campaign against Canada. The assembly of 
 the same colony, in a joyous address to the 
 Governor, declared that without the assistance 
 of the parent state the colonies must have 
 fallen a prey to the power of France, and 
 that without the money sent from England 
 the burden of the war would have been too 
 great to bear. In an address to the King 
 they made the same acknowledgments, and 
 pledged themselves to demonstrate their grati- 
 tude by every possible testimony of duty and 
 ^oyalty. James Otis expressed the common 
 sentiment of the hour when, upon being chosen 
 moderator of the first town meeting held 
 in Boston after the peace, he declared: "We 
 in America have certainly abundant reasons to 
 
i6 XLbc ©tbec SiDe ot 
 
 rejoice. Not only are the heathen driven out, 
 but the Canadians, much more formidable 
 enemies, are conquered and become fellow sub- 
 jects. The British dominion and power can 
 now be said literally to extend from sea to 
 sea and from the Great River to the ends of 
 the earth." And after praising the wise ad- 
 ministration of His Majesty, and lauding the 
 British constitution to the skies, he went on 
 to say : " Those jealousies which some weak 
 and wicked minds have endeavored to infuse 
 with regard to these colonies had their birth 
 in the blackness of darkness ; and it is a 
 great pity that they had not remained there 
 forever. The true interests of Great Britain 
 and her plantations are mutual ; and what God 
 in his providence has united let no man dare 
 attempt to pull asunder." 
 
 This French and Indian war, as it was com- 
 monly called, waged with so much energy and 
 success, doubled the national debt of England, 
 and made taxation oppressive in that country. 
 The war had been waged mainly for the ben- 
 efit of the colonists, and, as it was necessary to 
 maintain a standing army to protect the con- 
 quered territorj^ it was considered but reason- 
 able that part of the expense should be borne 
 by the Americans. This was especially so in 
 view of the fact that the conquest of Canada 
 
tbe declaration ot "ffnOepenDence, 17 
 
 had been a prime object of statesmen and lead- 
 ing citizens of the colonies for man}' years. 
 
 It has been said on good authority that 
 Franklin brought about the expedition against 
 Canada that ended with Wolfe's victory on the 
 Plains of Abraham. In all companies and on 
 all occasions he had urged the conquest of 
 Canada as an object of the utmost importance. 
 He said it would inflict a blow upon the French 
 power in America from which it would never 
 recover, and would have a lasting influence in 
 advancing the prosperity of the British colonies. 
 Our historians are just beginning to discover 
 and tell us that Franklin was one of the 
 shrewdest statesman of the age in which he 
 lived. For a century we were taught to think 
 of him as a vagrant and industrious youth who 
 was bom somewhere in Boston, emigrated to 
 Philadelphia, carried on a job-printing busi- 
 ness there for many years, scattered some 
 good sense over the country by means of an 
 almanac, established a circulating library, made 
 some crude experiments with electricity, and 
 invented a stove. But this is a low estimate 
 of his abilities. Probably Franklin did as 
 much as any man who ever lived to make 
 life worth living ; but his greatest achievements 
 were in the domain of statecraft. After egging 
 England on to capture Canada from the 
 
i8 ^be ©tber SlDe of 
 
 French, and thus removing the most dreaded 
 enemy of the colonies, he won the confidence 
 of the court and people of France and ob- 
 tained their aid to deprive England of the 
 best part of a continent. He was genial, 
 thrifty and adroit, and his jocose wisdom was 
 never more tersely expressed than when he 
 advised the signers of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence to hang together, or they would 
 hang separately. 
 
 At the conclusion of the Peace of Paris, in 
 1763, Great Britain had ceased to be an insular 
 kingdom, and had become a world-wide empire, 
 consisting of three grand divisions, (i) The 
 British Islands, (2) India, and (3) a large part 
 of North America. In Ireland an army of ten 
 or twelve thousand men was maintained by 
 Irish resources, voted by the Irish Parliament 
 and available for the general defense of the 
 Kmpire. In India a similar army was 
 maintained under the despotic government 
 that existed there. English statesmen be- 
 lieved that each of these great parts of the 
 Empire should contribute to the defence of 
 the whole, and unless they should do so vol- 
 untarily it was their opinion, to which the 
 great lawyers of England agreed, that power 
 to force contribution resided in the Imperial 
 Parliament at Westminster and should be exer- 
 
tbe 2)eclacatfon of ITnDcpenDence* 19 
 
 cised. It was thought that au army of ten 
 thousand men was necessary to protect the 
 territory won from France and to keep the 
 Indians in subjection, especially as it was be- 
 lieved that the French would endeavor to 
 recapture Canada at the first opportunity, 
 America, it should be remembered, paid no 
 part of the interest on the national debt of 
 England, amounting to one hundred and forty 
 million pounds, one-half of which had been 
 contracted in the French and Indian war. 
 America paid nothing to support the navy that 
 protected its coasts although it was the most 
 prosperous and lightly taxed portion of the Brit- 
 ish Empire. Grenville, Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, asked the Americans to contribute one 
 hundred thousand pounds a year, about one- 
 third of the expense of maintaining the 
 proposed army, and about one-third of one 
 per cent, of the sum we pay each year for 
 pensions. He promised distinctly that the army 
 should never be required to serve except in 
 America and the West India Islands ; but he 
 could not persuade the colonists to agree on a 
 practical plan for raising the money among 
 themselves, and so proposed to resort to tax- 
 ation by act of Parliament. At the time he made 
 this proposal he assured the Americans that 
 the proceeds of the tax should be expended 
 
20 ^be ©tfter ©iDe of 
 
 solely in America, and that if they would raise 
 the money among themselves, in their own way, 
 he would be satisfied. He gave them a year 
 to consider the proposition. At the end of the 
 year they were as reluctant as ever to tax 
 themselves for their own defense or submit to 
 taxation by act of Parliament. Then the 
 Stamp Act was passed — it was designed to 
 raise one hundred thousand pounds a year — 
 and the war of words assumed an acute 
 condition. 
 
 The heart of the Oid Dominion was fired by 
 Patrick Henry, one of the most unrestrained 
 mortals who ever walked the earth. Byron 
 called him a forest-born Demosthenes, and 
 Jefferson, wondering over his career, exclaimed : 
 " Where he got that torrent of language is in- 
 conceivable. I have frequently closed my eyes 
 while he spoke, and when he was done asked 
 myself what he had said without being able 
 to recollect a word of it." Henry failed in 
 business — became a bankrupt at twenty-three,, 
 and probably was not asked to pay taxes. 
 Then he studied law a few weeks ; practiced a 
 few 3^ears, and finally embarked on the stormy 
 sea of politics. One day he worked himself into 
 a fine frenzy, and in a most dramatic manner 
 demanded liberty or death, although he had 
 both freely at his disposal. The fixst entry 
 
tbc 2)cclaratlon ot 1In&epen&ence, 21 
 
 Fame ever made of his exploits is an account 
 of his success in an effort to persuade a jury 
 to render one of the most unjust verdicts ever 
 recorded in court. He was a slave-holder nearly 
 all his life. He bequeathed slaves and cattle in 
 his will, and one of his eulogists brags that he 
 could buy or sell a horse or a negro as well 
 as anybody. 
 
 James Otis started the Revolution in New 
 England by what Lecky calls " an incendiary 
 speech" against writs of assistance. These 
 writs were intended to authorize custom-house 
 officers to search for smuggled goods, and if 
 half what Hildreth states and Bancroft admits 
 in regard to smuggling along the coast of New 
 England is true, there is no reason to wonder 
 why such writs were unpopular in Boston. 
 Otis was no doubt an eloquent man, and all 
 the more dangerous because he sometimes 
 thought he was right ; but it is always prudent 
 to distrust the eloquence of a criminal lawyer. 
 We need no further proof of this than the 
 advice Otis gave the people on the passage of 
 the Stamp Act: "It is the duty," he said, 
 "of all humbly and silently to acquiesce in all 
 the decisions of the supreme legislature. Nine 
 hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand of the 
 colonists will never once entertain a thought 
 but of submission to our Sovereign, and to the 
 
^2 tlbe ©tber SiC>e of 
 
 authority of Parliament in all possible contin- 
 gencies. They undoubtedly have the right to 
 levy internal taxes on the colonies." 
 
 At the time the Stamp Act was passed Hutch- 
 inson was Lieutenant Governor and Chief Jus- 
 tice of Massachusetts. He was a man of rare 
 ability, stainless private character, fine charm 
 of manner, and devoted his leisure to studies 
 in literature and history. He was opposed to 
 the policy of the Stamp Act, but as Chief 
 Justice he administered the law faithfully. 
 Goldwin Smith tells us that Hutchinson was 
 " a man whose reputation long lay buried 
 under patriot vituperation, but who is now 
 admitted by fair-minded writers to have been 
 himself a patriot, seeking to the utmost 
 of his power peace with justice." When 
 the stamps arrived in Boston the build- 
 ing intended as a stamp ofi&ce was destroyed 
 by a mob. Public officials were hung in effigy 
 and forced to resign their offices. Court houses 
 and the custom house were sacked and their 
 records burned. The mob, intoxicated with 
 liquor, which they had found in the cellar of 
 a house they had plundered, proceeded to the 
 residence of Hutchinson, the finest in Boston, 
 and destroyed it. His plate, furniture, pic- 
 tures, public documents, and a valuable library, 
 which he had spent thirty years in collecting. 
 
tbe Declaration ot irnDcpenDence. 23 
 
 were plundered and destroyed. This is a speci- 
 men of the way some of the people of Boston 
 discussed a grave constitutional question, when, 
 according to the highest authorities, they were 
 on the wrong side of it. It is true that reso- 
 lutions were afterward carried in a town meet- 
 ing for suppressing riots, but no one was ever 
 punished for these outrages. 
 
 The principal objection made by the colo- 
 nists to the Stamp Act was on the ground 
 that it was an internal tax. They denied the 
 right of Parliament to impose internal taxa- 
 tion, claiming that to be a function that could 
 be exercised only by the colonial assemblies. 
 They admitted, however, that Parliament had 
 a right to levy duties on exports and imports, 
 and they had submitted to such taxation for 
 many years without complaint. 
 
 Franklin, in his examination before the 
 House of Commons, was asked : " Did you ever 
 hear the authority of Parliament to make laws 
 for America questioned until lately?" and he 
 replied : " The authority of Parliament was 
 allowed to be valid in all laws except such as 
 should lay internal taxes ; it was never dis- 
 puted in laying duties to regulate commerce." 
 And in reply to another question, he said: "I 
 never heard any objection to the right of lay- 
 ing duties to regulate commerce, but a right 
 
24 ^be ©tber SlDe of 
 
 to lay internal taxes was never supposed to be 
 in Parliament, as we are not represented there." 
 Franklin agreed with ex-President Cleveland 
 that a duty on an imported article is added 
 to the first cost, and when the article is of- 
 fered for sale makes a part of the price, al- 
 though some of us Republicans deny the 
 soundness of that proposition. The essential 
 point, however, is that duties were regarded 
 as taxes, at least, duties on necessities. 
 
 But Franklin differed with Cleveland in one 
 particular. When asked to state whether in 
 his opinion there was any difference between 
 external and internal taxes he replied : — 
 
 "I think the difference is very great. An ex- 
 ternal tax is a duty laid on commodities im- 
 ported ; the duty is added to the first cost and 
 other charges on the commodity, and, when it 
 is offered to sale, makes a part of the price. 
 If the people do not like it at that price, they 
 refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it. 
 But an internal tax is forced from the people 
 without their consent, if not laid by their own 
 representatives. " 
 
 This would be so in case of an article not 
 necessary for use or consumption, but, as many 
 of the imported articles were indispensable and 
 not produced or made in America, Franklin's 
 distinction was bright but thin. Grenville ridi- 
 
tbe declaration of IfnDepenDence. 25 
 
 culed the distinction between external and 
 internal taxes, and Chatham, between the ex- 
 plosions of his oratory, declared : — 
 
 " I cannot understand the difference between 
 external and internal taxes. They are the same 
 in effect, and differ only in name. That this 
 Kingdom has the sovereign, the supreme legis- 
 lative power over A.merica is granted. It can- 
 not be denied. Taxation is a part of that 
 sovereign power." 
 
 The Stamp Act remained in force for a year 
 only, and was then repealed in an effort to 
 pacify the colonists, and a duty laid on tea 
 and other imports, which they had always ad- 
 mitted to be a valid act of Parliament. But 
 the turbulent spirits were not to be satisfied 
 so easily. They organized an immense boycott 
 against British goods and commercial inter- , 
 course with England, and appointed vigilance 
 committees in many communities to see that 
 the boycott was rigidly enforced. In Decem- 
 ber, 1773, three ships laden with tea— private 
 property of an innocent corporation — arrived 
 at Boston, and on the i6th of that month- 
 just one hundred and twenty-four years 
 ago tonight — forty or fifty men, disguised 
 as Mohawk Indians, under the direction 
 of Sam. Adams, John Hancock and others, 
 boarded the vessels, posted sentinels to keep 
 
26 XLhc ©tber SiDe of 
 
 all agents of authority at a distance, and flung 
 the whole cargo, consisting of three hundred 
 and forty-two chests, into the sea. The pub- 
 lic officials did nothing, and no one was ever 
 punished for this act of malicious mischief.* 
 Ships laden with tea arriving at other ports 
 were forced to return, and the law everywhere 
 was violated with impunity. How can we, law- 
 abiding citizens, applaud the Boston Tea Party 
 and condemn the high-handed conduct of Mar- 
 tin Irons and Eugene Debs ? 
 
 There is a remarkable fact about the action 
 of American mobs during the long period of 
 anarchy and riot that prevailed from 1763 
 until the federal government was organized 
 in 1789— they were not blood-thirsty. It is 
 true they resorted to the cruel practice of 
 carrying loyalists about on rails and daubing 
 them all over with tar and feathers. They 
 would burn buildings ; sack dwellings ; confis- 
 cate property ; intimidate public officials and 
 force them to resign ; and pass laws to com- 
 pel honest people to accept worthless money 
 for their goods and chattels, and in payment 
 of just debts ; but it must be said to their 
 credit, that instances of extreme torture are 
 very rare. 
 
 The correspondence and diaries of the revo- 
 
 *See letter of Franklin; note at end. 
 
tbe Declaration of Ifn^epenDence, 27 
 
 lutionary era probably give us the most reli- 
 able information as to the views and condition 
 of the people. In 1774, John Adams made a 
 trip to New York, and notes in his diary :— 
 ** With all the opulence and splendor of this 
 city, there is very little good breeding to be 
 found. We have been treated with an assid- 
 uous respect, but I have not seen one real 
 gentleman, one well-bred man, since I came 
 to town. At their entertainments, there is no 
 conversation that is agreeable ; there is no 
 modesty ; no attention to one another. They 
 talk very loud, very fast, and all together. 
 If they ask you a question, before you can 
 utter three words of your answer, they will 
 break out upon you again and talk away." 
 We would hardly consider this courteous lan- 
 guage about friends who had treated us with 
 assiduous respect while on a visit. I suspect 
 the impetuous visitor was not pleased to find 
 patriotism less ardent in New York than in Bos- 
 ton. If Adams had been entertained by some 
 of the Tories, it is likely he would have given 
 us a different picture of more dainty people. 
 Again, in a letter to his wife, written in 1776, 
 he said : — '' There is too much corruption, 
 even in this infant age of our republic. Vir- 
 tue is not in fashion. Vice is not infamous. 
 The spirit of venality you mention is the most 
 
28 tibe ©tber Si^e of 
 
 dreadful and alarming enemy America has to 
 oppose. It is rapacious and insatiable as the 
 grave. This predominant avarice will ruin 
 America, if she is ever ruined," And then he 
 adds a line that I hesitate to read — " I am 
 ashamed of the age I live in." 
 
 After Washington's dismal retreat from 
 Long Island across New Jersey he wrote to 
 Congress, that ** the inhabitants of this State, 
 either from fear or disaffection, almost to a 
 man, refused to turn out." "With a handful 
 of men," he adds, "compared to the enemy's 
 force, we have been pushed through the Jerseys 
 without being able to make the smallest op- 
 position, and compelled to pass the Delaware. 
 Instead of giving any assistance in repelling 
 the enemy, the militia have not only refused 
 to obey your general summons and that of 
 their commanding officers, but, I am told, 
 exult at the approach of the enemy and on 
 our late misfortunes. I found no disposition 
 in the inhabitants to afford the least aid. We 
 are in a very disaffected part of the province, 
 and between you and me I think our affairs 
 are in a very bad condition ; not so much 
 from the apprehension of General Howe's army 
 as from the defection of New York, the Jer- 
 seys, and Pennsylvania. In short, the conduct 
 of the Jerseys has been most infamous. In- 
 
tbe Declaration of ITnOepenDcnce* 29 
 
 stead of turning out to defend their country 
 and affording aid to our army, they are making 
 their submission as fast as they can. If the 
 Jerseys had given us any support we might 
 have made a stand at Hackinsac, and, after 
 that, at Brunswick ; but the few militia that 
 were in arms disbanded themselves and left 
 the poor remams of our army to make the 
 best we could of it." 
 
 And in a letter written at Philadelphia De- 
 cember 30th, 1778, he says : 
 
 '* If I were called upon to draw a picture 
 of the times and of men from what I have 
 seen, heard, and in part know, I should in 
 one word say that idleness, dissipation, and 
 extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of 
 most of them ; that speculation, peculation, and 
 an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got 
 the better of every other consideration and al- 
 most of every order of men; that party dis- 
 putes and personal quarrels are the great busi- 
 ness of the day ; whilst the momentous con- 
 cerns of an empire, a great and accumulating 
 debt, ruined finances, depreciated money and 
 want of credit, which, in its consequences, is 
 want of everything, are but secondary consid- 
 erations and postponed from day to day, from 
 week to week, as if our affairs wore the most 
 promising aspect. * * * * Our money is 
 
30 Zbc ©tbcv Qittc ot 
 
 now sinking 50 per cent, a day in this city, 
 and I shall not be surprised if in the course 
 of a few months a total stop is put to the 
 currency of it ; and yet an assembly, a con- 
 cert, a dinner, or supper, will not only take 
 men off from acting in this business, but even 
 from thinking of it ; while a great part of 
 the officers of our army from absolute necess- 
 ity are quitting the service, and the more 
 virtuous few, rather than do this, are sinking 
 by sure degrees into beggary and want." 
 
 And Franklin about the same time wrote a 
 letter in which he says: "The extravagant 
 luxury of our country in the midst of all its 
 distresses is to me amazing." 
 
 The people were great sticklers for what they 
 regarded as their personal rights. Nearly every- 
 body who could read studied law, and Dean 
 Tucker, in a letter to Burke, records the fact 
 that "in no country perhaps in the world are 
 there so many lawsuits." Patrick Henry was 
 admitted to the bar in the fall of 1760. Dur- 
 ing the next three years he charged fees in 
 eleven hundred and eighty-five cases, besides 
 assisting his father-in-law to keep a hotel — 
 "tended travelers and drew corks," is the way 
 McMaster has to tell it. Many of the people 
 seemed to think, as some people still think, 
 that it is right to do wrong according to law. 
 
tbe 2)ecIaratfon of tfnDepen&ence. 31 
 
 Nor -was the public life of the country at that 
 time more creditable. It was a common ex- 
 pression that many of the patriots thought 
 locally and not continentally, and this vice of 
 thinking on public questions is still a poison 
 rankling in our body politic. It leads men to 
 try to ^et something from the commonwealth 
 instead of trying to do something to promote 
 the general welfare. Washington and other 
 genuine patriots suffered mortal anguish from 
 lack of attention to their most urgent entreat- 
 ies for the barest necessities. John Adams, 
 from the first Continental Congress, wrote to 
 his wife : " Every man in this assembly is a 
 great man — an orator, a critic, a statesman — 
 and therefore every man upon every occasion 
 must show his oratory, his criticism and his 
 political abilities. The consequence is that bus- 
 iness is spun out to an immeasurable length." 
 This sounds like a current comment on the pro- 
 ceedings of our Fifty-fifth Congress. And in an- 
 other place, speaking of the proceedings of the 
 first Continental Congress, he says : "It is almost 
 impossible to move anything but you instantly 
 see private friendships and enmities, and provin. 
 cial views and prejudices, intermingle in the 
 consultation." Indeed, the people of the revolu- 
 tionary era talked more disrespectfully of their 
 representative assemblies than we of ours. 
 
32 XLbc ©tber SiDe ot 
 
 Gouverneur Morris was no doubt one of the 
 shrewdest observers of current events in his 
 day, and the purity of the patriotism of John 
 Jay entitled him to stand by the side of 
 Washington. One day, in a conversation, thirty 
 years after the second Continental Congress 
 had passed away, Morris exclaimed: '*Jay, 
 what a set of scoundrels we had in that Sec- 
 ond Congress ! " And Jay, as he knocked the 
 ashes from his pipe, replied, "Yes, we had." 
 I have omitted an adjective used by Morris. 
 
 After such an account of the Continental 
 Congress you will not be surprised to hear 
 that even in the army some of the unlovely 
 traits of human nature discovered themselves. 
 In the summer of 1777, on a visit to the 
 army, Adams wrote to his wife: — "I am 
 wearied to death with the wrangles between 
 military officers, high and low. They quarrel 
 like cats and dogs. They worry one another 
 like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like 
 apes for nuts." 
 
 But we must not forget the exceptions. In 
 all wars there are acts of heroic devotion on 
 both sides, and perhaps it is but fair to judge 
 the conduct of a soldier without regard to the 
 merits of the cause for which he fights. No 
 doubt Jackson, by shooting BUsworth, showed 
 as much courage as Nathan Hale, standing in 
 
tbe 2)eclaratton ot IFnDepcnDence, 33 
 
 the shadow of a gibbet and lamenting that he 
 had but one young life to give to his coun- 
 try. We may cheer the skill and bravery of 
 Arnold at Saratoga, winning a victory that 
 turned the tide of war, without passing judg- 
 ment on his conduct before or after. And so 
 we need abate no jot of admiration for the 
 heroism of the militia assembled on Bunker 
 Hill when we recall the fact that their leaders 
 made a dispute about the method of raising a 
 small amount of revenue a pretext for rending 
 an empire, which, if united, might civilize and 
 wisely govern the fairest portions of the globe. 
 I will mention one more fact to throw a light 
 on the public spirit of the age. Near the 
 close of 1779, Congress, trying to dispel the 
 fear that the continental currency would not 
 be redeemed, passed a resolution declaring : 
 " A bankrupt, faithless republic would be a 
 novelty in the political world. The pride of 
 America revolts from the idea ; her citizens 
 know for what purpose these emissions were 
 made, and have repeatedly pledged their faith 
 for the redemption of them." The rest of the 
 resolution is too coarse for quotation even for 
 the sake of its emphasis. In a little more than 
 three months from the passage of that reso- 
 lution a bill was passed to refund the conti- 
 nental currency by issuing one dollar of new 
 
34 ^be ©tber SlDe ot 
 
 paper money for forty dollars of the old, and 
 the new issue soon became as worthless as 
 the former edition. Indeed, the patriots repu- 
 diated obligations to the amount of two hun- 
 dred million dollars, and did it so effectually 
 that we still use the expression " not worth a 
 continental " as a synonym of worthlessness. 
 
 These are some of the items of historical in- 
 formation I had in mind when remarking to 
 Mr. Atkinson last September that the Declara- 
 tion of Independence was an unjustifiable act. 
 Whether the statement is correct or not, it is 
 the conclusion that profound historians have 
 reached by studying the whole controversy 
 carefully after the lapse of a century. Let me 
 refer to the opinions of one or two who can- 
 not be suspected of admiring the corrupt par- 
 liaments, foolish ministries, and headstrong 
 stupidity of George III. 
 
 Professor Sumner, whose work I have re- 
 ferred to, tells us that the literature of the 
 revolutionary period is indescribably dull. " It 
 is astonishing," he says, "how far the writers 
 kept from the facts and evidence. This is so 
 much the case, that it is often impossible to 
 learn what was really the matter." He adds 
 that "the colonists first objected to internal 
 taxes, but consented to import duties. Then 
 they distinguished between import duties to 
 
tbe Declaration ot ITnCJepcnDence, 35 
 
 regulate commerce and import duties for rev- 
 enue. They seem to have changed their po- 
 sition and to be consistent in one thing only, 
 to pay no taxes and to rebel." The Ameri- 
 cans, he tells us, admitted the theory by vir- 
 tue of which they were oppressed, while fight- 
 ing the application of it, and thinks " this is 
 the reason why they could never make any 
 rational theory of their opposition. They 
 claimed the rights of free-bom Englishmen 
 and the guarantees of the English constitution, 
 but they were forced to find some means of 
 defining which acts of Parliament they would 
 accept and which not." Alter patiently ex- 
 amining their pamphlets and discussions, Sum- 
 ner concludes : — " The incidents of the trouble 
 offer occasion at every step for reserve in ap- 
 proving the proceedings of the colonists." 
 
 Bentham, although himself a revolutionist of 
 a very destructive type, opposed the move- 
 ment of the colonists, because of the badness 
 of the arguments they used, saying that " the 
 whole of their case was founded on the as- 
 sumption of natural rights, claimed without 
 the slightest evidence for their existence and 
 supported by vague and declamatory generali- 
 ties." This opinion of Bentham was revived 
 and made famous by Rufus Choate in 1856, 
 when, in a letter to the Whigs of Maine, he 
 
36 ^be ©tber SiDe of 
 
 warned them against "the glittering and sound- 
 ing generalities of natural right which make 
 up the Declaration of Independence." 
 
 Some years ago Mr. Lecky published a his- 
 tory of England in the eighteenth century, 
 and filled more than a volume with an ac- 
 count of the American Revolution. I^ecky is 
 an Irishman, and his work is a masterpiece. 
 I refer to it especially, because it enjoys the 
 endorsement of the New York Sun, by far 
 the ablest and most aggressive advocate of 
 American interests against British pretensions. 
 In its review of Mr. Lecky's work, the Sun 
 said : — 
 
 ** On every ground which should render a 
 history of eighteenth-century England precious 
 to thinking men, Mr. I^ecky's work may be 
 commended. The materials accumulated in 
 these volumes attest an industry more strenu- 
 ous and comprehensive than that exhibited by 
 Froude or by Macaulay. But it is his supreme 
 merit that he leaves on the reader's mind a 
 conviction that he not only possesses the acute- 
 ness which can discern the truth, but the un- 
 flinching purpose of truth-telling." 
 
 Professor Fiske of Harvard, who has lectured 
 and written considerably on the history of the 
 Revolution, admits that Mr. I^ecky is ''emi- 
 nently fair and candid." Fiske is the author 
 
tbe declaration of Ifn^epcnDence. 37 
 
 of an admirable history of the military move- 
 ments of the Revolution ; but his mind is so 
 completely possessed by philosophy that in 
 dealing with other aspects of the Revolution he 
 innocently selects, collates and colors facts so 
 as to make them agree with the theory of his 
 prej udices. 
 
 The opinion of such an authority as Lecky 
 on our revolutionary movement must be worthy 
 of thoughtful attention. And his opinion is this : 
 * ' Any nation might be proud of the shrewd, 
 brave, prosperous, and highly intelligent yeo- 
 men who flocked to the American camp ; but 
 they were very different men from those who 
 defended the walls of Leyden, or immortalized 
 the field of Bannockburn. Few of the great 
 pages of history are less marked by the stamp 
 of heroism than the American Rovolution ; and 
 perhaps the most formidable of the difficulties 
 which Washington had to encounter were in 
 his own camp." 
 
 And he concludes his survey of the move- 
 ment with these words : "In truth the 
 American people, though in general un- 
 bounded believers in progress, are accus- 
 tomed, through a kind of curious modesty, 
 to do themselves a great injustice by the ex- 
 travagant manner in which thej'^ idealise their 
 past. It has almost become a commonplace 
 
38 ^be ®tber SiOe ot 
 
 that the great nation which in our own day- 
 has shown such an admirable combination of 
 courage, devotion, and humanity in its gigantic 
 civil war, and which since that time has so 
 signally falsified the prediction of its enemies, 
 and put to shame all the nations of Europe 
 by its unparalleled efforts in paying off its 
 national debt, is of a far lower moral type 
 than its ancestors at the time of the War of 
 Independence. This belief appears to me 
 essentially false. The nobility and beauty of 
 the character of Washington can, indeed, hardly 
 be surpassed ; several of the other leaders of 
 the Revolution were men of ability and public 
 spirit, and few armies have ever shown a 
 nobler self-devotion than that which remained 
 with Washington through the dreary winter at 
 Valley Forge. But the army that bore those 
 sufferings was a very small one, and the 
 general aspect of the American people during 
 the contest was far from heroic or sublime. 
 The future destinies and greatness of the 
 English race must necessarily rest mainly with 
 the mighty nation which has arisen beyond 
 the Atlantic, and that nation may well afford 
 to admit that its attitude during the brief 
 period of its enmity to England has been very 
 unduly extolled. At the same time, the his- 
 orian of that period would do the Americans 
 
tbe Declaration of irn^epenDence. 39 
 
 a great injustice if he judged them only by the 
 revolutionary party, and failed to recognize 
 how large a proportion of their best men had 
 no sympathy with the movement." My friend, 
 Mr. Atkinson, will smile when I remind him 
 that the Episcopal clergy of the revolutionary 
 era were Tories almost to a man. 
 
 No candid historian contends in our day that 
 the government of England had done anything 
 prior to the commencement of the revolutionary 
 movement that would have justified the Decla- 
 ration of Independence. The amount of taxes 
 required of the colonies by Parliament was mod- 
 erate ; the monej^ was needed for a proper pur- 
 pose, and it seems there was no other way to 
 obtain it. But the colonists were logical peo- 
 ple, and they argued that "the power to tax 
 involves the power to destroy," as Marshall 
 afterwards decided in a famous case. Those 
 who rebelled in good faith did so because they 
 feared that the power of Parliament to tax them 
 moderately to raise money for their own defense 
 might be used sometime in the future for a less 
 worthy purpose, and then they would all be 
 "slaves." Their argument led to anarchy. 
 
 As we review the conflict we are apt to forget 
 that the Americans were not alone in their efforts 
 to throw off the restraints of British law during 
 the twenty years preceding the surrender at York- 
 
40 Zlbe ©tber SiDe ot 
 
 town. Wilkes, Junius and Lord George Gordon 
 surpassed the efforts of Patrick Henry, Sam 
 Adams and Crispus Attucks to make life un- 
 pleasant for George III. Mobs surged about the 
 streets of London as they did in Boston, defying 
 the law, destroying property, and disturbing the 
 public peace. I have described how the home 
 of Hutchinson, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, 
 was wrecked and pillaged. The home of Mans- 
 field, Chief Justice of England, was wrecked in 
 the same manner and burned to the ground. 
 Both mobs claimed to act "on principle," and 
 there is a curious likeness in the details of 
 these two acts of violence. It was an age of 
 insurrection, with no political genius able or in 
 a position to direct the storm. During the 
 Wilkes riots in 1768 the civil power in England 
 was reduced to extreme weakness. Lecky tells 
 us " there were great fears that all the bul- 
 warks of order would yield to the strain," and 
 Franklin, then in Loudon, said that if Wilkes 
 had possessed a good character and the King a 
 bad one, Wilkes would have driven George III 
 from the throne. In 1780, during the Gordon 
 riots, chaos came again to London, and all Eng- 
 land was threatened with anarchy. The time 
 was out of joint on both continents, and George 
 III was not born to set it right. 
 We may be sure there is something more seri- 
 
tbc Declaration of IfnDcpenDence, 41 
 
 ous than glory in all this tumult that embittered 
 the most beneficent of civilizing races. 
 Whoever examines the dispute with im- 
 partial care will probably perceive that 
 the time had come for a new adjust- 
 ment of the constitutional relations of the 
 several parts of the British Empire ; but the 
 temper of George III, and the disorderly ele- 
 ments active both in England and America 
 were unfavorable to rational treatment of the 
 great problem. In the cold light of truth it 
 now seems quite clear that the Americans took 
 up arms before they were in any real danger 
 of oppression, and George III was persuaded 
 to concede more than all their reasonable de- 
 mands, but yielded too late to save the integ- 
 rity of the empire. 
 
 I do not intend to enter the wide field of 
 speculative controversy concerning the move- 
 ment in which the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence was a passionate outcry. But there is a 
 theory or defense of that movement appearing 
 in some of our histories which needs a 
 moment's attention. We are told that George 
 III was a tyrant, seeking to establish despot- 
 ism, and that Washington rescued and pre- 
 served Anglo-Saxon liberty, not only in Amer- 
 ica, but wherever it existed in the British 
 dominions. I am not willing to endorse this 
 
42 tTbe ®tber SiDe of 
 
 extravagant compliment to the King. We may 
 admit that he was a respectable man in pri- 
 vate life, and that barring bribery he acted on 
 principle as he understood it in his public 
 career. Historians seem to agree that he was 
 dull, badly educated, stubborn and affectionate. 
 He had some princely accomplishments ; but 
 he was far from a great man. Certainly he 
 was not in the class of conquerors nor able 
 to commit what Mcintosh calls a splendid crime. 
 His mother was always croaking in his ears, 
 "George, be a king." His spirit was willing, 
 but some of his faculties were very weak. 
 His sight and hearing failed, and his mind 
 gave way under the strain. Thackeray, drop- 
 ping his cynical style for a moment, gives us 
 a touching account of the King's last years. 
 All history, he tells us, presents no sadder 
 figure. It is too terrible for tears. Driven off" 
 his throne ; buffeted by rude hands ; his child- 
 ren in revolt, his ending was pitiful and awful 
 as that of Lear. In a lucid moment the Queen 
 entered his room, and found him singing and 
 playing on a musical instrument. When he had 
 finished he knelt and prayed for her and for 
 his family and for the nation, and last for 
 himself. And then tears began to flow down 
 his cheeks and his reason fled again. Caesar, 
 Henry VIII and Napoleon tried to establish a 
 
tbe 2)eclarat(on ot IfnOcpen^ence. 43 
 
 dynasty of despots and failed. As we glance at 
 the figure of George III and recall the traits of 
 his character we see that Anglo-Saxon civili- 
 zation or liberty was in no danger of perma- 
 nent injury from the last king of England 
 who tried to reign. 
 
 With this I will close this narrow and parti- 
 san argument, and will endeavor in a few words 
 to present a broader view of the true relations 
 between England and America. We have 
 many just causes of complaint against some of 
 the descendants of the twenty thousand 
 Norman thieves who founded the House of 
 Lords, as Emerson reminds us, but I do not 
 recall a single serious grievance that we can 
 fairl}' charge against the masses of the people 
 of the British Islands. They have never until 
 recently had a potent voice to dictate the 
 policy of their government. They did not 
 enact the trade and navigation laws, which 
 were the real grievance of the thirteen colo- 
 nies. Not one of the maledictions in the 
 Declaration of Independence was spoken 
 against them. They did not hire Hessians and 
 savages to wage war against our ancestors. 
 They did not impress our sailors on the sea 
 nor burn our capitol at Washington. They did 
 not applaud Gladstone's exultant outcry in 
 1861 that Jefferson Davis had created a nation, 
 
44 ^be ©tber SiDe of 
 
 nor approve the sailing of the Alabama to 
 sweep our commerce from the sea. But they 
 have erected a statue of Lincoln in Edinburgh 
 and a bust of Longfellow in Poet's Corner. 
 Whoever converses with the people of England 
 who live outside of the influence of the snobs 
 — English and American — who gather in Lon- 
 don during the season, will hear many good 
 wishes for the success of our momentous ex- 
 periment in popular government, and not one 
 word of unjust detraction. I was once startled 
 and pleased to hear a long rumble of applause 
 by a vast audience in Spurgeon's tabernacle 
 follow a kindly reference by the famous 
 preacher to the great republic beyond the sea. 
 I have not overlooked the portly argument 
 of the late Douglas Campbell, striving to show 
 that we inherited our political blessings not 
 from England but from Holland ; but I believe 
 that a more critical reading of history will 
 show that the vital principles of our political 
 fabric are of British origin or British develop- 
 ment. After reviewing the long struggle for 
 liberty regulated by law extending from the 
 battle of Hastings to the Reform Bill, and still 
 remembering the origin of the House of Lords, 
 Emerson said of England : " It is a land of 
 patriots, martyrs, sages and bards, and if the 
 ocean out of which it emerged should wash 
 
tbe declaration ot irn^epen^ence. 45 
 
 it away it would be remembered as an 
 island famous for immortal laws, for the an- 
 nouncements of original right that make the 
 stone tables of liberty." Some of those tables 
 were brought to America by the Mayflower, 
 and some of those laws were re-enacted here 
 by the lineal descendants of the patriots of 
 the British Islands. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence and the 
 shock of civil war disturbed the harmony, but 
 failed to destroy the unity, of the race that 
 speak English. Washington still followed in 
 the foot-steps of Hampden ; Franklin contin- 
 ued the unfinished work of Bacon ; Marshall 
 inherited the synthetic intellect of Mansfield ; 
 Webster proclaimed the grandeur of the Union 
 in the imperial voice of Chatham, and Sumner 
 came to plead passionately for rational liberty 
 when Burke went silent. We find the stern and 
 sturdy traits of Cromwell revived in our un- 
 conquerable Grant. The daring spirit of Drake 
 or Nelson seemed to live again where Parra- 
 gut was lashed to the mast; and the English 
 race has produced one character on each side 
 of the Atlantic too sublime to be compared 
 or classified — the Voice we call Shakespeare, 
 and the inscrutable Martyr who gave freedom 
 to the slave. 
 
i/C. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 While the foregoing pages were in press my attention was 
 called to a letter written in London by Franklin to Sam. Adams, 
 John Hancock, and others, dated February 2, 1774. At that 
 time Franklin was agent for Massachusetts. Referring to the 
 destruction of the tea, he wrote : 
 
 "It is yet unknown what Measures will be taken here on the 
 Occasion; but the Clamour against the Proceeding is high and 
 general. I am truly concern'd, as I believe all considerate Men 
 are with you, that there should seem to any a Necessity for carry- 
 ing Matters to such Extremity as, in a Dispute about Publick 
 Rights, to destroy private Property. 
 
 " I cannot but wish & hope that before any compulsive Measures 
 are thought of here, our General Court will have shewn a Disposi- 
 tion to repair the Damage and make Compensation to the Company. 
 This all our Friends here wish with me; and that if war is finally to 
 be made upon us, which some threaten, an Act of violent Injustice 
 on our part, unrectified, may not give a colourable Pretence for it. 
 
 " A speedy Reparation will immediately set us right in the 
 opinion of all Europe. And tho' the Mischief was the Act of Persons 
 unknown, yet as probably they cannot be found or brought to an- 
 swer for it, there seems to be some reasonable claim on the Society 
 at large in which it happened, making voluntarily such Reparation 
 can be no Dishonour to us or Prejudice to our claim of Rights, since 
 Parliament here has frequently considered in the same Light similar 
 Cases. 
 
 " I hope in thus freely (and perhaps too forwardedly) expressing 
 my Sentiments & Wishes, I shall not give Offence to any. I am 
 sure I mean well ; being ever with sincere Affection to my native 
 Country, and great Respect to the Assembly and yourselves. 
 
 " Gentlemen, your most obedient and most humble Servant, 
 
 " B. FRANKLIN." 
 
 This letter is said to be in the possession of the Colonial Society 
 of Massachusetts, and was not published until recently. F. B. 
 
31 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 011 699 238 3