WOEKS BY THE SAME AUTHOE. Historical Studies. One vol. 12mo. 1850. Biographical Studies. One vol. 12mo. 1860. Nathanael Greene: an Examination of some Pas- sages in the IXth Volume of Mr. Bancroft's " His- tory of the United States." 8vo. 1866. The Life of Nathanael Greene, Major-General in the Army of the Revolution. Three vols. 8vo. 1871. HISTORICAL VIEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION. BY GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, LL. D., T iTF NON-RESIDENT PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY, AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF MAJOR-GENERAL NATHANAEL GREENE, ' "the GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE WAR OP AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE," ETC., ETC. •' As to tliose however, who shall desire to have a clear view of past events, and indeed of future ones (such and similar events being, according to the natural course of human affairs, again to occur) i for those to esteem them useful will be sufficient to aus.wer every purpose." Tiux-vdides, Book I., c. cxxii. FOURTH EDITION. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON. 187G. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the jear 1865, by ANNA M . GREENE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts PRINTED BT H. 0. HOOOIITON AND COmPANI, rivkrs:pe i>p.b:ss. camuridok. 9i TO CHARLES BUTLER, OF NEW YORK. My deak Mr. Butler: — You know the history of this volume. You know, also, of my other studies in the field of our Revolutionary History, and my hope to con- tribute something more to the just appreciation of the great men it produced. You will not, therefore, deny me the gratification of connecting your name with my labors by this public expression of the respect and affection with which I am, most truly. Your friend, GEO. W. GREENE. Greenesdale, February 2, 1865. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. The following pages were written in the dark- est hour of the War for the Union. Unable to take an active part in the contest, and unwilling not to put my convictions upon record, I gave them expression in these pages. They have met, I am told, a general want, and I gladly offer them anew in this Centennial Edition. To make them more acceptable in a class-room, if they should find their way there, I have added to them an Analytical Table of Contents. G. W. G. Wind Mill Cottage, East Greenwich, R. I. April 1, 1876. PREFACE. THE following Lectures were written for the Lowell Institute of Boston in 18G2, and read before it in the January and February of 1863. A part of them was also read before the Cooper Institute of New York in March and April of the same year. Relating to a past of great present value, they have already, I am told, done some good ; and I publish them in the hope that, in a more accessible form, they may do still more. No nation can neglect the study of its own history without exposing itself to the danger and disgrace of repeating past errors. No statesman can confine his attention to the present, without losing sight of the principles from which the present grew, and thus becoming a groper in the dark, instead of a trustworthy guide. It is impossible to read our history without seeing that we, like aU other historical nations, have been con- trolled by general laws. It is a universal law that every principle works out its own development; and hence, as an inevitable corollary, if you accept the prin- ciple, you must sooner or later accept its consequences. Our Puritan forefathers claimed freedom of judgment for themselves, and founded their Colonies that they might have a home of their own to exercise it in. But ^ vi PRE FA CE. they failed to see that what was true for one was true for all ; and the dark pages of their history are the pages which record their fruitless struggle with the fundamental principle of their own institutions. It is a principle of English law, that the King cannot take the subject's money without the subject's consent. Denying this principle, England attempted to tax the Colonies through the Imperial Parliament instead of the Colonial Assemblies, and lost them. Appealing to this principle, the Colonists claimed the right to dispose freely of the fruits of their own labors, and established their claim by the War of Independence. But they failed to see that, if the principle was true, it was true as a law of universal humanity, and therefore must sooner or later demand and obtain universal application. And this failure to accept all the consequences of the accepted principle left the bitter and bloody war — hella plus quam civilia — through which we are now passing as a part of their legacy to their children. "Will not history say that wise statesmanship should have foreseen this as a logical sequence, and consistent Christianity should recognize it as the act of that divine justice which could not have imposed the obligation of personal responsibility without according the right of personal freedom ? The conduct too of the War of Independence is full of lessons. More than half its waste of blood, treasure, and time was caused by the want of an efficient general government. What a comment is the history of the civil government of the Revolution upon the doctrine of State rights ! When Washington, in his proclama- tion of the 25th of January, 1777, called upon those PREFACE. vii who bad accepted British protections to give them up and take an oath of allegiance to the United States, a delegate from New Jersey, Mr. Abraham Clark, con- demned his proclamation as " exceptionable in many things and very improper " ; adding, with an air of in- finite condescension, " I believe the General is honest, but I think him fallible." Has not the present war given rise to many accusations which history will record with the same wonder and disgust with which she records this ? Another cause of the profuse exi^enditure and pro- tracted sufferings of the War of Independence, was the neglect to raise an army for the war when popular en- thusiasm was so high that the ranks might have been filled with hardly any effort but that of making out the roll^;. If I were to copy from "Washington's and Greene's letters all the paragraphs against short enlist- ments and temporary levies, I should fill a volume. Have we not seen the lesson blindly and fatally neg- lected ? A copy of Washington's letters in every school and disti'ict library of the country, to serve as a text-book in clubs and debating societies, and a manual for public men in every department of civil and military adminis- tration, would do more for the formation of our national character, would stand us in better stead in difficult emergencies, and furnish us more appropriate examples of that wisdom which we need at all times, than any other source to which we could go for guidance and counsel. A careful study of them by our statesmen at the beginning of the present war would have saved us thousands of lives and millions of treasure. \ viii PREFACE. " Why have the fathers suffered, but to make The children wisely safe? " I have not attempted to give my authorities for tlie statements and opinions contained in these Lectures, for the form of Lectures does not achnit of it; and if my purpose m publishing them is reached, they will carry the reader directly to the original sources. But I can- not permit them to go forth into the world without acknowledging my obligations to the able and trust- worthy volumes of Mr. Hildreth, to the judicious and accurate Annals of Holmes, and to that admirable series of publications by which Mr. Sparks has connected his name indissolubly with the history of our Revolution. Force's Archives unfortunately cover only the first two years of the war; but for those years they leave nothing to be desired. What a disgrace to the administration of 1853, and its immediate successor, that such a work should have been suspended, and the exhaustive re- searches and wonderful critical sagacity of such a man lost to historical Uterature, by the arbitrary violation of a solemn contract. In using Gordon, I have often felt the want of the critical edition which was promised us some years ago in the name of Mr. George Henry Moore of the New York Historical Society. In using the Journals of Congress, I have constantly had occasion to regret the awkward separation of the secret journals from the main collection, and the want of a new edition based upon an accurate collation of the original manuscript, and com- pleted by the insertion in their proper places of the fragments of debates and speeches that are scattered througli the works of Adams, and Jefferson, and Gou- verneur Morris, and other members of that body. PREFACE. ix Among the other sources from which I have drawn, I would particuhirly mention the documents in De Witt's valuable woi-k upon Jefferson, and the elaborate Life of Steuben by Mr. Kapp. Since these Lectures were written, this profound and careful writer has published in German two other works which bear upon my sub- ject, — " The Life of DeKalb," and " The Trade of German Princes in Soldiers for America." I will not say with Vertot, mon siege est fait ; but I have felt in reading them that, if they had reached me before my own work was v/ritten, I might have enriched it by new and important details. I trust that these valuable con- ti'ibutions to our history will soon be made more gener- ally accessible to American readers. Mr. Kapp has proved by his Steuben that he writes English well enough to be his own translator. GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE. Greenesdale, Newport, February 2, 1866. CONTENTS. Lecture Pagk I. The Causes op the Revolution ... 1 II. The Phases of the Revolution . . 33 m. The Congress of the Revolution . . 67 IV. Congress and the State Governments of THE Revolution ..... 104 V. Finances of the Revolution . . . 137 VI. The Diplomacy of the Revolution . .173 VII. The Army of the Revolution . . . 210 VIII. Campaigns of the Revolution . . . 245 IX. The Foreign Element of the Revolution 282 X. The Martyrs of the Revolution . . 320 XI. Literature of the Revolution. (Prose.) 357 XII. Literature of the Revolution. (Poetry.) 389 APPENDIX. Chronological Outline ...... 44!> Statistical Tables 449 Address to General Greene 458 AI^ALTSIS HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. LECTURE FIRST. CAUSES or THE REVOLUTION. The Revolution a decisive epoch of civilization No good true Republic in existence, when the American Republic was formed ..... The Republics of Europe. Holland ; Venice Genoa ; Lucca ; San Marino The Monarchies contrasted with them ; Prussia ; Russia Austria ........ Enghmd ; Spain ; France The feudal system in antagonism with modern ideas The dependence of the American colonies on England a natural one The colonists thoroughly English in their sympathies All tliese changed in a few years .... The Revolution eclipsed for a time by the events which followed it Impartiality of History 7 The Revolution viewed in this light both a cause and effect 7 What was the cause 1 8 Two classes of canses 8 First, in the colonial system 9 Reverence for law a national characteristic ... 9 The spirit of English liberty an animating principle of the colonists 9 The spirit of English liberty defined and traced to its origin . . . . . . . . . 10 Its form when transported to America . . . .10 XIV ANALYSIS. The Xavigation Act, the first interference of Parliament with colonial rii;-lit.s . . . . . . .11 The feelinas which it awakened .... .12 After this the relation between England and her colonies a business relation in her eyes . . . . 12 The feelings caused by this relation among Americans . 13 Anecdote of Attorney General Seymour illustrating the English feeling . . . " 13 English ignorance of America a second cause . . 14 Alienation caused by a lack of appreciation . . .14 English conceptions of the colonies . . . . 15 Their thoughts of investment and gain, not brotherhood . 15 Their unfavorable opinions of America and Americans 16 Their treatment of the American traveller . . .17 Alienation a result of the.se prejudices . . . . 17 The nature of municijial institutions a third cause . . 18 The European colonial system a false one . . . 18 Freedom of the English system an advantage over other systems 18 Importance of municipal institutions in the history of civ- ilization 19 The colonists' form of municipal institutions English . 20 A separation in time inevitable from these three causes 20 Two more causes ........ 20 England in her dealings with the colonics at war with her own political .system 21 England ojipressed by debt 21 Enghuid's misfortune, adopting an erroneous system and adhering to it ....... 22 Possibility of .a reconciliation before 1763 . . . .22 Part of George III. in the contest .... 23 The course of the English tax-payers during the war . 24 The dispute a question of constitutional rights . . 24 Effects of this . 25 Many steps before actual war 26 American feeling of dependence vague and undefined . 27 All (picstious discussed in the colonies .... 27 Alienation a slow process ....... 28 The American struggle in connection with the state of European politics ....... 29 The Treaty of Paris and its results . ... 30 The course of French and English statesmen contrasted 30 THE SECOND CLASS OF CAUSES. A great question sure to be agitated .... 31 The colonial question a great one 31 A now principle of government 32 ANALYSIS. XV Air nations agitated by the contest 32 The interests at stake 32 The American Revohition a war between natural and hereditary rights 32 LECTURE II. THE PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. Recapitulation of Lecture 1 33 The first colony and the first league .... 33 The growth of the colonies and their relations to the mother country 34 Their relations to each otlier ...... 35 The first iuterference of the home government . . 36 Position of England toward the colonies during the com- monwealth ........ 36 English estimation of the Act of Navigation . . .37 The thirteenth clause 37 Tlie object and spirit of the Act 38 The enumerated commodities 40 The King's claim on Maine woods 41 Its results 41 The feelings of the colonists in regard to this claim . 42 The contest between Maine lumbermen and royal survey- ors and its consequences 43 A law in violation of public opinion a fatal error in Leg- islation 44 An effect of the Act of Navigation on the colonists . 45 The effect of the reservation in the new Massachusetts charter ......... 45 The ways by which England drives the colonies to seek independence 46 A new phase, the French and Indian war . . .47 The action of the colonists. The Congress at Albany . 47 England's great opportunity 48 Her misuse of it and the result 49 A critical moment ........ 49 A separation inevitable and foreseen by men of intelli- gence .......... 50 The wisest course for England 51 Another phase, aggression and resistance Grenville's policy 52 The Stamp Act 52 Its Repeal. A reconciliation still possible ... 53 The " Declaratory Act." Townshend's Resolutions and their spirit 53 xvl A NA L YSIS. 'I'lid I'cliil.ivn |Mi'y Ifi'lajinliim mi tint iiiirl, of AiiiiMiru ...... A Itrili-li j^finiMun in Ito.ilini iiml llir nITiicl, 'Mm 'I'liA mi Icii iiliil llir ito^l.mi " lr:i |,iul.y " Tlic, ( 'miiinillDCM 111' ( 'onrMpmiiliMiin Tlu'ir ri'MiillH. 'I'lin IiihI. |iliiiw (if ihc K'l'volnl.imi Kii);r(^l, 1)1' iiiiiny AinrriraiiH ill, llm Hi|iiiriiJimi. rn'iiain l.imiH I'or vviir . ...... Tjri>;.'ii ........ 'rim iiiivuiiilimi iircmii|)li.'tliril ..... MiMlakiiH (III iiiiili Million ii(. Ilm lii'^inniii); nl' liii^ uar . .Kii'Mt. |iiM'i(iil (if (,lio war. VViiHliiiiv,l.mi'H ri.Mi in |inlilic tm li'i'in ......... HriliMJi |il:in lor IH77. A cri.si.M ..... How l.iin pian \h rniHtrali-il ..... Tlir I'lilnnininH an'iiiiiHl. VVaHliin;;l.on .... JMh ruriilriilion of till) (•almniiicM and snpicmar}' Tim ri'siills nl' liis Hiipri'iiuicv mnl MinrHscH . 'riin Aiiicrinui poMilion viinvrd rrmn ihn pniMcnl, and a (•mili'iiiporai'v Hiaiid poini, ..... SiM'oiiil period; III!' ra.inpiii)',ii in lln^ ( 'iiroiiim.H 'I'lic (■anipai,"ii in Viri.',inia ...... Appoinlnnni <,{' K'dju'ii Morris a.M linainiir 'I'lit! niiiiiiiiidri (if Ilm war ...... .•i:( :.r, r)t; .')7 .'I'.i (II) I'.I) r>i l'>.'l (>! r>i ii.'i r.f) f.r) (iC) M<;(!'riiKi'; iii. 'I'lM'j riiNHiticMM 111.' riir; k i;vi)i.iriioN. llriid' rccapiliiialioii of Imi'Iiht II .... . i')? Thn lifvolnlimi di'liimil US Till' IIi'mM 'un^'ri'.HS, ilH rmaniiiimi and oliji'cl, . , . C.H Till' Alhaiiy ('mi);i(SM of IV.M ..... I'.',) IliiporlMiii'o of Ilm iiiiiiiii ....... 70 'I'lio int'ii will) ronipiLSnd llii.i ('mi)j.rt'.MM and llin cliaracl.rr of I'Viiiiklin ........ 70 Fniiiklin'M opinioii.s, at. thai lime, coiu'iu-iiin;; iiidcpi'iidoiico 7 1 A NA L YSfS. xvii Ili'i pliMi i>r Ihiliiii ........ 71 'V\\o jiliui roiiilriiiiKMl liv l'rii\'iiici:il,4 ;mi(I Hriloim . . 71 WcHiiIlM 1)1' llic ('i>ii;;n^ss oC Allwiiy .... 72 The N(nv York ( 'oiii^ross of I7(i,'>. 'I'lic iii.iiiiuu- of issiiinp: tlio cull for it. !iii(l t.lu< iiiiswiT to llu; call . . 72 Il,>4 milJioril.y mid oUJccl. 73 l(s iiii|>uil;uicc .shown liy iJiii condilioii of tlic comilry . 74 Sonic of I lie iiii'iiilicr,>< coiiiposin;;' it. . . . . . 7.5 The l.iiH' ol' Ihc pclilioiis 8(Mit; to lOiiLi'liuiil ... 7.") 'I'lic coiilciils of t.lic pclilioll .>4olvcil ....... 78 'ril(« Congress of 1774. Its ol.jecl ami I he call for it . 78 Our ieiionuice of its dchaies ...... 79 Its mcetine', the viu'iety in the nianner of appointment of its inemhiM's ........ 80 'The orea.ni/.alion, pl•(^^idcllt and secn'lary . . .80 The lirsl. liMnhh> in rej.vard ti> the inaniier of votine; . 81 I'atiick Ih'iu-y ni\t'S up his opinion, the ([uestiiin settled temporarily ........ 81 (^onurcss opened liy prayiu' . . . . . .82 (^umniittetvs appointed to draft a. Kill of IJieht.s and tt) re- port on the statues of eomnieree . . . . 8.'5 'I'he d(>leeiitcs from Mjissaehnsel ts on their JcMirnev ami in the {\>nercss ........ 8.T (>i)inions id' >arious memhers about their rights . . 84 Tlie e-rcal end of the (\>n iloseph lialloway's plan defeated ..... 85 The woi'U aecoiMplished ....... 86 The eh.'UiK'ti'r of the Kill ot' Kiiihls eivon hy Chatham . 8G The ae'rt>on\ent of nou-iinporl.ilion, iion-e\|)ortation, and iiiiii-eoiismuption, !U>d opinions reeanliiie- it, . , 87 Oon-i're.ss dis.solviHl haviiiij' !ieeom|ilislud its ohjeet . . 88 Attempts to hri^>t^ the i\»emhers 88 Opinions on the situation ....... 88 A new Compress eoiiveneil amlil siirriiie- events . . 89 The place of iuir;itious hriue- them HOiirer iiulopoudoiieo iU Their opinions in res^ard to resistjineo diviilod . . 91 Hopes of a reeoueiliatiou oiuso lluetuiUions in their coun- cils 92 Oivisiou o( opinion eoneernine- the oponing- of tho ports . 9.? Uisputes ahout thisipiostion . . . . . . 93 Tho pn>^ios!vl to arrest ilan-^^rons persons ounally onibar- rtisiine- ■ . .94 h xviii ANALYSIS. Rhode Island's proposition to build ,i navy adopted after much delay 95 Measures for the cneouraffcment of manufactures, agricul- ture, the arts aud S('ienc(^s passed .... 96 Congress petitions the King for the last time . . .76 It assumes full powers aud denies the royal proclamation that its nieuihers are rebels . . . . .96 Resolutions of noii-assistauco to British officers passed . 97 England's course drives them to independence . . .97 Extract from the letters of John Adams. ... 98 A resolution for the institution of State Governments in- troduced .... 98 The Preanible added giving the grounds of the resolve . 99 Another extract from a letter of .John Adams . . 99 The C'olonies authorize their delegates to vote for inde- pendence ......... 100 Discussions of the Resolutions of inde])endency and the ap- pointment of a connnitteii to jn-epare tlie declaration 100 A Committee apointed to pre])are a form of Confederation aud one to phui treaties witii foreign powers . . 101 The discussion of the 1st of .luly 101 The Resolution of iudependeiicc passed July 2d . . 101 The Declaration of lnde])endt'nce signed July 4th . 101 Its rece])tion by the i)coj)le of the colonies and of the Avorld 102 Our estimation of it 102 LECTURE IV. CONGRESS AND THE STATE GOVERNMENTS OF THE REVOLUTION. Recapitulation of Lecture III. 104 Appearance of unanimity in the councils of Congress IO.t Internal dissensions aud jealousies . . . .105 Greatness aud weaknesses often joined in the same mind 106 Connnittees apointed . . . . . . .107 The difficulty of obtaining a true estimate of the Confed- eration . . . . . . . . .107 Various alliances and confi'derations .... I118 The diflVreni'e of the relations of citizen aud state in an- cient and modern times . . . . . .109 The theory of the source of authority and the id(\i of of- fice as shown by tlie Italian Kepublics . . . 109 Importance of this ])riiu'ii)le aud the errors of the Con- federation from disregarding it . . . .110 The course of Congress from the Declaration to the ac- ceptance of the Confederation by the states . .111 ANALYSIS. XIX Conprcfss criticised by the people and not entirely acquit- ted by Plistory Ill 'Wasbin<;:ton occupies the place in popular affection for- merl}^ held by Confjress . ... . . . 113 Coujj^ress driven I'roin place to place . . , .114 It loses some of its best members . . . . 114 The place it is entitled to in our esteem .... 115 The Kiui:; the source of autliority in all the various forms of ])roviMcial f^overiinieut ...... 11.5 Anotlier principle checking the King. The rights of Englishmen . . . . . . .116 These rights characterized and specified . . . 117 The result of these rights — a free government . .117 Division of ])owers long famili;ir to the colonists • 118 Outlines of the English Constitution preserved in all the colonies ........ 119 The results of these facts after the separation . .119 The ptissige from the old to the new a critical moment 120 Perplexities regarding the Mnssachusetts clnirter . . 121 Instruction of Congress to New Hampshire about her i'orm of government ....... 121 New constitutions adopted in several states . . . 122 Detects in the constitutions remedied .... 122 The authority of the constitutions derived from the peo- ple 123 Nearly all preserve two houses of the legislature . 123 Jealousy of the chief magistrate a common feature . 124 Religious clauses in the constitutions common . . 124 Educational provisions few . . . . . .125 Property restrictions of suffrage 126 The transmission of real estate. Entails abolished . 126 The only material change the substitution of the people for the King 127 Suspicion of the central power natural . . . 127 Evil results of this jealousy ...... 128 Difficulty between General Greene and the South Caro- lina legislature . 129 General Greene compelled to advise the legislature again 129 Contents of his letter .... . . 1.30 Its unfavorable reception by the Governor and Assem- bly 131 The Governor offers an insult to Congresf? through its General 131 General Greene's course in tlie affair .... 132 His report to the Secretary of War . . . ,133 The proofs of jealousy about Congress many . . 134 The men who iiidulgtid in it . . . . . . 134 A strong central power required by the law of society 135 XX ANALYSIS. The history of the Civil government of the Revolution the liistory of a struggle against this principle . .135 LECTURE V. FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. Introduction 137 Difficulty of attaining the proper standard of historical judgments 138 The undeveloped state of political science at the time of the Revolution ... .... 139 Our more enlightened state 140 Our fathers ]irevented by present perplexities from see- ing future difficulties . . . . . .141 Early history of traffic in America. Buying wives with tobacco 141 A pernicious principle, the power of the government to regulate prices 142 The issue of bills of credit by Massachusetts, and its evil effects ... 143 The fact established that government paper can for a time take the place of money 144 Continental money issued by Congress . . . 145 Probable course of the debate which preceded this step . 145 Difficulty of their position, the accusation of rashness re- futed 146 Discussion as to the responsibility of the bills . . 148 The form and denominations decided upon . . . 149 A committee appointed to attend to the engraving and printing of the bills 150 The scarcity of paper and engravers . . . . 1 50 Paul Revere one of the engravers . . . .150 The execution and signing of the bills . . . 151 The demand for the money urgent 152 The money soon gone — fresh issues . . . . 152 The war protracted — twenty millions gone before the Declaration of Independence .... 153 Depreciation begins — a loan resolved upon . . .154 Tlie loan insuffiuieut — a lottery voted . . . 154 The immorality of lotteries not recognized at this time . 155 The lottery unsuccessful 155 A fresh i:ssue directed 156 The depreciation continues — the public alarmed — a tax voted 156 The difficulty of collecting the tax . . . . 157 The tax inadequate — more paper money . . .158 ANALYSIS. XXI Expedients to revive national credit tried lu vain . 159 Speculation and luxury prevalent 160 John Jay appointed to make an appeal to the states. . 160 The figures which he exhibited to them . . . 161 He states the resolve of Congress not to exceed in issues two hundred million dollars 161 He gives the three causes of depreciation . . . 161 His argument proving the inclination of Congress to re- deem its issues 162 His closing ap])eal 162 The tronhle complicated by State debts and paper money 163 A new cxjiedient — redemption and reissue . . . 164 Public spirit sinking — an unhealthy state of society . 164 Failure of crops — riots and mutinies . . . .165 Agriculture and commerce crippled — speculation active 165 1781 arrives brinuing French and Spanish gold . . 166 The Confederation accepted. Robert Morris appointed financier and Congress votes to return to a specie basis . 167 Another blow at paper money in Pennsylvania. . .168 Robert Morris' fitness for his position — he establishes a bank 169 The history of American finances after this less interest- ing though as important . . . . . .170 Measures of M(jrris he is blamed; but unjustly . 170 A parting glance 171 Errors of Congress and of the people, and their conse- quences . . . . . . . . .171 Could they have been aroided ? 1 72 LECTURE VI. THE DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. Washington and Franklin the great names of the Revo- lution 173 Importance of the French alliance . . . . 173 Franklin, his character, studies, and ambitions . .174 His philanthropy and philosophy . . . . 176 France dcej)ly wounded by the Treaty of Paris and long- ing to revenge herself 177 French emissaries in the Colonies — their vigilance and their reports to Versailles . . . . . 178 De Kalb one of the emissaries — his activity and far- sightedness 179 Choiseul's projects and the suggestions of his agents . 180 He is overthrown by intrigue . . •. . . 181 xxn ANALYSIS. The probable course of events h.ad he remaiued iu power 181 Vergeniies does not try to interfere in American affairs, but is compelled to act 182 The new jrower in France — public opinion favorable to the colonists from desire of revenge on England and love of humanity 183 The Ibrmation of this public opinion an important part of lMirt)|)eau civilization ...... 184 Anotlior French agent sent to America. England suspi- cious *. . 18.5 The Committee of Secret Correspondence and its members 18.5 Franklin's diplomatic experience — his questions to l)e Bonvouloir 186 His corrcs])ondence with Dumas 187 Two parties iu Congress on liiplomatic policy — the one in favor of seeking treaties ])revai]s . . . .187 Agents appointed by the Committee of Secret Corrc- s])0ndence . . . . . . , . .188 Difficulty of olitaining a recognition of independence — Franklin the only one competent to do it . . . 188 His arrival and reception 189 His life, occupations, vigilance, and dangers . . . 190 His associates Deane and Lee ; Lee's disparagement of Franklin aided by Kalpli Izard .... 192 State of affairs upon Franklin's arrival. The opening of negotiations 19.3 Franklin perceives the policy of France. His objects 193 Franklin enabled to honor tlie drafts of Congress upon himself and his colleagues 195 Summer of 1777. Franklin's confidence. The news of Germantown and Burgoyue's surrender. Its result — the first treaty 196 The hall in wiiich the treaty was made . . . .196 The significance of the scene 196 Franklin's confidence justified by the liberal terms of the treaty 198 A rage for treaties prevailing in Congress . . . 199 Jay's character and trying situation in Spain . . 199 Spain's policy 199 Important European events 200 Dijjlomatic relations with Holland. A treaty obtained . 200 Covert intrigues defeated by Franklin's integrity . 201 Diplomatic relations with Germany and Russia. John Adams' iiKlej)endi'nce ...... 202 " England standing alone. The principle at stake on her part 203 The internal state of France. She desires peace as much as her rival 204 ANALYSIS. xxm Overtures for peace. Americii's claims .... 205 Franklin's colleap^ues and their course . . . 205 Preliminary articles signed after many delays . . 207 Franklin's delicate position 207 The treaty finally signed 207 Pecuniary aid rendered to America by France . . 208 Franklin risks his own fortune. His economy . . 208 for one hour of Franklin ! 208 LECTURE VII. THE ARMY OF THE EEVOLTTTION. The remembrances which this title awakens. The vet- erans of the Revolution 210 The English misled by a false belief that the Americans were cowards 211 The materials for an army in the colonies. Prominent military men 212 A grave dilficulty. Can a necessary degree of subordi- nation he obtained 1 213 The people j)repare for the war. A characteristic illus- tration 213 Massachusetts militia. Timothy Pickering, clergyman, in the ranks 214 Massachusetts takes steps toward the raising of an army 215 The army gathering . . . . . . . 215 An instance in Rhode Island 216 The need of a warning . . . . . . 216 The fundamental error. Short enlistments . . .217 Need of a commander-in-chief . . . . . 217 Congress induced to accept the army .... 218 Candidates for commander-in-chief. Washington ap- pointed 218 Plan of the army 219 Heart-burnings and jealousies 219 Washington takes command. His head-quarters . 220 The strength and state of the army .... 221 The scene around Boston 222 The feelings of the Americans. A war-hymn . . 222 Winter ajiproaching. The soldiers longing for home. Their privations ....... 223 Washington's measures. Reorganization of the army 224 Various opinions about the army. P^rrors of Congress . 225 The army disbanding. Washington's dangerous position 227 Enlistment of a new army. The arms of the discharged soldiers retained 227 XXIV ANALYSIS. The chan.e:e accomplished 228 Record of the army of '75 228 Deeds of the army of '76 ..... . 229 Necessity of disciplined troops, — disadvantag-cs of ,ful till 1780. Their position . 267 The country nearly dep<>])ula,ted ..... 267 State of the American army when Greene takes com- mand 267 Gates' plans. Greene changes them. His difficulties . 268 Greene moves his camp, constructs batteaux, establishes depots, etc 269 Cornwallis reinforced. Greene detaches Morgan . 270 Cornwallis perplexed. He sends Tarleton after Morgan 271 Battle of the Cowpens. Cornwallis' advance . . 271 Morgan's motions. Greene's retreat. Cornwallis foiled. He issues a proclamation. The Americans after him again. Greene's manoeuvres. His dangerous position. His vigilance. An anecdote . . 272 • xxvi ANALYSIS. The battle of Guilford Court House. Retreat of the Eritish 275 Greene pursues hut is deserted by Ins militia . . . 276 Greene iidvanees into South Carolina. Cornwallis goes to Wilmiugtou 277 Greene advances on Camden. Battle of Ilobklrk's Hill. Camden evacuated. Other forts taken. Siege of Ninity-Six. The siege raised. The enemy with- draw 277 Greene on the hills of Siinteo. Battle of Eutaw Sjirings. The enemy driven from Dorchester. Washiugion's conuneudation ....... 278 Strategic skill of Washington and Greene comjjared with tliat of other great ficnerals .... 279 Other uauK'S : Sulli\ an, Kiiox, Lincoln, MacDoujiall, Olney, Angell, Christopher Greeue, Williams, How- ard, William Washington, Marion, Henry Lee, Mor- gan, Wayne 280 LECTURE IX. THE FOREIGN ELEMENT OF TUE REVOLUTION. The subject interesting though difficult from lack of sta- tistics. A conjecture of the number of foreign pri- vates 282 The ])rop<)rtiou of foreign officers .... 283 The usefulness of these officers 283 An American's stake in the war. Difficulty of deciding how far foreigners should be trusted . . . 284 A glance at the state of society in Europe. The suprem- acy of France 285 Local attachnicnts changed to personal ones. Instances 285 The attachment to the sovereign. How it is destroyed in France 286 State of public feeling in France at the time of the Rev- olution 287 Abundance of mercenary officers and soldiers . . 287 Varieties of character among them .... 288 I'osition of these men in time of i)eace .... 289 The Ameiican war a Go(l>send to these mercenaries. Many come to America 289 Some act as sjiies for the European jjowers . . 290 American officers alarmed at the claims of these men. Jealousy of promotion 290 Embarrassment of Congress 291 ANALYSIS. xxvii The want of engineers. Duportail, Laimoy, Radi^re and (iouvion eni^aged. Their services . . . 292 Thomas Conway arrives and is made brigadier-general. The plot against Washington. Couway writes to Gates. Tile contents of tlie letter reach Washington. His conduct and that of Gates and Conway . . 293 Troublesome pretensions of foreigners. Fleury at Stony Point. DeKalb's death at Cauulcn. Washington's connnendation of the Chevalier Armand. Pulaski . 296 Kosciusko's introduction to Washington. His services in the northern army. His usefulness to General Greene. His after life, deatii, and burial . . 297 The great names of the subject, Lafayette and Steuben. Their great services ....... 298 Points of reseinl)lance in tlu'ir chaiMcters . . . 299 ]>afayettc's early life, ])rospccts, and education . . 300 Steuljen's early life, education, and military experience during the Seven Years' War . . . • . 300 His life from the peace to the breaking out of the Amer- ican war 302 He is persuaded with difficulty by tlie Prcncli minister to come to America 303 His arrival 304 The romantic manner in wliich Lafayette came to Amer- ica. His noble sentiments 304 His attachment to Washington and studies in the camp . 306 The hard work of an American general . . . 307 The po])ularity of Lafayette in tiie camp . . . 307 American dislike of France and Frenchmen , . 307 Position of American statesmen in regard to France . 308 Lafayette's services in removing prejudices and promot- ing harmony of action between France and America 309 His iulliicnce in hastening the treaty .... 310 His services in France and Spain 310 His services in the field and his jilaee in American history 311 The state of affairs in America upon the arrival of Steu- ben. His motives for coming . . . . .311 His footing with his brother officers .... 313 His friendship for Washington 313 Defects of the American army in evolutions, inspection, and returns 314 The task of Steuben to remedy these .... 314 He adapts his plan to the army 315 He drills Washington's body-guard. Its effect . . 315 His metliod and its success 316 His reforms in other departments . . . . 317 His services .318 Their reward 318 xxvui ANALYSIS. LECTURE X. THE MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION. Unknown martyrs. Imperfections of history. The aid of tlie sister arts needed . . . ' . . . 320 James Otis. His popularity 321 His studies, taleuts and character 322 His hibors and sacrifices 323 His health fails. He is assaulted. His madness . . 325 Josiah Quiucy. His studies and tastes. He becomes a champion of his country. The Boston Massacre. Difficulty of finding counsel for the soldiers . . 326 Quincy defends them. A test of mor;d courage. . . 327 His health foils under his labors. The necessity of send- ing- a delegate to England 328 Quincy chosen. His recej)tion and labors . . . 329 His health again breaks down 330 A messent;er to America needed. Quincy knowing his danger accepts the mission . . ' . . . 331 His courage, sud'erings, and death .... 331 Samuel Ward. His services in Congress. Ho dies at his post. His resting-place ..... 332 Martyrs in domestic life. James Caldwell and his wife. His eloquence and dangers. The enemy approach- ing. Mrs. Caldwell remains. Her murder. His murder. Their grave 333 Cruelty of the British 336 The heroism of our civil martyrs and the benefit of keep- ing them in remembrance 336 The memory of Joseph Warren and his death . . 337 Nathan Hale. His character and sentiments . . 338 He enters the army. His services while there. A spy needed. Hale volunteers and cannot be dissuaded . 339 He is arrested and condemned. His bruttxl treatment and noble death 341 A parallel between Hale and Andre. Its injustice . 343 The guilty motives of Andre. The innocence of Hale . 344 Isaac Hayne. He is ea])tured as a prisoner on parole. He is compelled to acknowledge himself a British subject, and is summoned to take arms contrary to agreement " . 346 Greene's advance. Hayne considering himself freed from his allegiance takes command of an American regi- ment and is captiu-ed 347 His execution 348 The indignation it awakened. Greene's oflBcers ask for retaliation. Their address 349 ANALYSIS. XXIX Retaliation made unnecessary . . . . _ . 350 Tlio thousands of martyrs in jails and prison-ships. Their sufferings . . . . _ . • ■ 350 A case taken. The capture. Sufferings in the guard- house. The niarcii to tlie shore. The Jersey. Tor- tures of the first night ...... 351 From this picture the spirit of our martyrs shown . 355 LECTURE XI. LITERATURE OF THE REVOLCJTIOK. PART I. — PROSE. Revolutions favorable to the cause of literature by awak- ening intellectual activity ..... 357 Revolutions to be favorable must receive their impulse fiom the depths of men's hearts .... 358 The questions that take possession of the heart everlasting 358 Instances of revolutions followed by epochs in literature 358 The intellectual portion of the American Revolution founded on reason rather than feeling . . . 358 Not new theories but old ones carried out . . . 359 An instance. Jefferson's maxim .... 360 Reason, not imagination, the guide . . . . .361 The character of the Revolutionary literature derived from this fact 361 Benjamin Franklin. His ambition to become a good writer 362 An extract from his writings showing his method to at- tain this object . 362 Two jioints regarding this extract .... 364 Franklin's style 364 His humor and satire 365 His position affords an ample field for his genius. His " Edict by the King of Prussia." His " Rules for reducing a great Empire to a small one." Extract from the latter 366 The piece written on his death-bed 369 John Dickinson. His education and success as a law- yer. His first publications. He is elected to the Congress of 1765 and drafts its resolutions. His ad- dress to the committee of correspondence in Barba- does. Extracts from the preface and opening para- graphs 370 His next work " The Farmer's Letters." The advan- tagi'S of their form and character .... 374 XXX ANALYSIS. A passage from one of them 375 The reception of the " Letters " abroad .... ,375 Their success at lionie . . . ' . . . . 375 He is a member of the Congress of 1774 and writes many of the papers of that body 378 His error. lJefutatit)n of tlie charge rliat he refused to sign the Declaration of Independence . . . 378 The remainder of his public life and writings. His death 380 Points of resemblance and contrast in the style of Dick- inson and Adams 381 Jefferson's style 382 John Jay's style. An example. Difficulty of finding a parallel to it '. . . 383 Alexander Hamilton. His precocity and early writings. His connection with Washington's official correspond- ence 384 Other writers. Otis, Quincy, Thomas Paine, Hopkinson, Samuel Adams, Livingston, Richard Henry Lee . 385 Our neglect of these precious legacies .... 386 The newspaper press ....... 387 The debates in Congress 387 The patriot preachers 387 LECTURE XIL LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. PART II. — POETRY. General character of the Revolutionary poetry. The lack of fancy " . . . 389 English poetry at this time 390 Timothy Dwight. His services. The estimation in which he was held ....... 390 His " Conquest of Canaan " and " Greenfield Hill." An extract 391 Joel Barlow as a man . 393 The opinion of his contem])oraries concerning him . 394 His " Vision of Columbus." Its publication. Extracts from it 394 The weakness of the verses 396 His faults as a poet. His best poem .... 397 David Humphreys. His verses. His personal expe- riences and opportunities for poetical description . 397 His fault as a {)oet. A lack of vividness . . . 400 His " Address to the Armies of America." Contempo- rary reviews of it 401 analysts: xxxi Curiosity a cause of his success 402 The openino- lines 402 Hi:< description of the Battle of Lexington . , , 403 Of Bunker Hill and Washington .... 404 Other extracts ........ 405 Humphreys considered especially the poet of the Revolu- tion ". . . . . " 406 Phillis Wheatley. Freueau ..... 407 The humorous poets more successful. John Trumbull. His serious poems. Specimen .... 407 His satire compared with that of Butler .... 409 " The Progress of Dulness." " MacFingal." Its success 409 An outline of the plot and extracts .... 410 The opening. MacFingal's origin. His second-sight and eloquence ........ 412 The town and place of meeting 412 The moruing session 415 Adjournmeut for dinner . . . . . . 417 The afternoon session . . . . . . .417 The liberty pole. The tight. The sentence and its exe- cution 42.3 The meeting of Tories by night 426 Other points of the poem 428 Its reception 428 Songs and ballads of the Revolution .... 427 A specimen " The Dance " 429 Other ballads. " Clinton's Invitation to the Refugees" 430 Final specimens, " The Battle of the Kegs " and the ballad of Nathan Hale 432 CONCLUSION. History the record of man's acts and the interpreter of God's will 437 Comparison between the Revolutionary War and the War of the Rebellion 437 Every responsibility carries a corresponding right . 437 Person;)l freedom a result of personal responsibility , 438 The war of the Rebellion a logical sec[uenee of the war of Independence ....... 438 The two wars alike iu origin, in the practical lessons they convey and in errors ..... 438 Errors uf our fathers compared with ours . . . 439 Our peculiar error . 440 An illustrative anecdote 441 As they conquered by perseverance, endurance and faith, so we must conquer by the same means . . 441 ANALYSIS. APPENDIX. Chronological outline 445 Ameiicivu Colonial Trade 449 List of aeneral officers at the commencement and close of tlic Kevolutionary War , . . . . 452 Statement of troops furnished by the respective states during the war 454 Force that each state furnished for the regular army . 455 Expense of the Kevolutionary War .... 455 Emissions of Continental IMouey 456 State Expenditures and Balances 457 Address to General Greene ...... 458 LECTURE I. THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. THE subject to which I have the honor to in- vite your attention is one of those events which are sometimes overshadowed for a while by the magnitude of their own resuhs ; but which, when time enough has passed to give them a proper distance, and show the extent and variety of their ramifications, take their place among the decisive epochs of civilization. When the thirteen Colonies of Great Britain dissolved their connection with the mother country, and determined that they would henceforth have a government of their own, — a government of the people and for the people, — the name of republic had almost become a by- word and a reproach. The United Provinces were fast yielding to the selfish pretensions of the House of Orange, and the monarchical influences by whicli they were surrounded. Venice — an oligarchy fi'om her cradle — was dying, as oligarchies die, enervated and corrupt beyond the power of regen- 2 LECTURE I. eration, Genoa and Lucca were but names on the map, asking only to be forgotten Avhile they Hved the passive and aimless lives of beings who have survived all the associations that make life a bless- ing. While San Marino, still preserving in her little territory of seventeen miles square the spirit which had carried her unchano;ed through twelve centuries of comparative independence, seemed a Kving confirmation of the favorite doctrine of mo- narchical publicists, that republics, to be durable, -must be small, industrious, and unpretending. While the incapacity of the people for self-gov- ernment seemed thus to have been set in the strong- est light by the failure of every people that had undertaken to unite it with material development, the power of man to govern man, both with an absolute and a limited authority, seemed to have been set in a light equally clear and equally strong. The Seven Years' War had shown what a small state can do against fearful odds, when its resources are developed and applied by a man of genius. Russia was still pursuing, under Catharine, the ca- reer of internal improvement and external ex- pansion which she had begun under Peter. The throne of the Hapsburgs had never appeared more firmly rooted, nor their crown more dazzling; and the hand which the young Emperor, emulous of philosophic renown, held out to his people, was the hand of imperial condescension. Never, too, had England been so powerftd abroad, or so pros- CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 3 perous at home ; and never befoi'e had so much happiness been diffused over so wide a space, under any form of government, as was diffused over her vast possessions under her aristocratical monarchy. Spain, it is true, had fallen into a deep sleep. But the brief career of Albcroni, within the mem- ory of men still living, had shown startled Europe how much vitality was slumbering, imdreamed of, in the lethargic mass ; and how much a single will may do when it is an intelligent and a strong one. And if France excited any doubts in the minds of thoughtful partisans of monarchy, was there not enough in her profane philosophy, in her infidelity under the garb of formal devotion, and her hisane trifling with all that was venerable and sacred in human as well as in divine things, under the spe- cious pretext of philanthropy, to explain the deg- radation of a power which had more than once given laws to the continent ? But beneath this smooth exterior tliere was an internal fermentation, a feverish restlessness, a longing, vague in the beginning, but growing eveiy day more definite, and even breaking out at times in energetic protests and warnings of deep signifi- cance. To those who had read history aright, it was evident that that natural harmony which makes form the spontaneous expression of substance, ena- bling yoti to iiiterpret the inner life by the outward manifestation, and which reconciles anomalies and contradictions by voluntary concessions and ready +• 4 LECTURE 1. adaptation, was lost forever. The vassal gave grudgingly, as an extortion, the labor which his father had given cheerfully as his lord's unques- 1 tioned due. The peasant hated the noble who i trampled down his grain with his dogs and horses, and forbade him to fence out the hares and rabbits / who ate with impunity the vegetables which he I had planted and tended for the food of his children. The merchant dreaded monopolies ; the manufac- ( turer dreaded new edicts ; industry in every form L feared interference and repression under the name of protection and guidance. The man of letters sighed for freedom of thought ; the lawyer, for an harmonious code ; the rich man, for an opportunity to employ his wealth to advantage, and make him- self felt in the world ; the soldier, for promotion by service ; society, through all its classes, for the cor- rection of abuses, which in some form or other were felt by all. Two worlds, two irreconcilable systems, stood face to face, — the Middle Ages, with ideas drawn from the convent and the feudal castle, and the eighteenth century, with ideas drawn from the compass and the printing-press ; and every day the gulf between them grew wider and deeper. But in the thirteen Colonies of British America there was no such contradiction between the gov- ernment and the people. There Avere no Middle Ages to efface ; no feudal abuses to correct ; nc institutions Avhich had outlived their usefulness, to tear up by the roots. They had been accustomed CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 5 from the beginning to regulate their domestic affairs according to their own conception of their interests ; and they were contented to leave their foreign affairs in the hands of the mother country in return for her protection. But they felt that that protection was no free gift ; that the restric- tions which they accepted for their commerce and manufactures transmuted every shilling which the English treasury expended on their behalf into pounds of profit for the English merchant and manufacturer. Dependence in this form they could submit to, for, though sometimes pushed to the verge of oppression, there was no humiliation in it. It was the dependence of the industrious child upon the thrifty parent ; a habit outliving the necessity vrhence it sprang. And they had too much of the English love of precedent and Eng- lish reverence for law about them to wish for any changes which did not seem to be the necessary consequence of acknowledged facts. They loved their mother country with the love of children, who, forsaking their homes under strong provoca- tion, turn back to them in thought, when time has blunted the sense of injury, with a lively recol- lection of early associations and endearments, — a tenderness and a longing not altogether free from self-reproach. To go to England was to go home. To have been there was a claim to especial consid- eration. They studied English history as the be- ginning of their own ; a first chapter which all 6 LECTURE I. must master thoroughly wlio would understand the sequel. England's literature was their litera- ture. Her ffreat men were their great men. And when her flag waved over them, they felt as if the spirit wliicli had borne it in triumpli over so many bloody fields had descended upon them with all its inspiration and all its glory. They gave Eng- lish names to their townships and counties ; and if a name had been ground enough to build a pre- tension upon, more than one English noble, who already numbered his acres in the Old World by thousands, miglit have claimed tens of thousands in the new. They loved to talk of St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey; and, with the Hudson and the Potomac before their eyes, could hardly per- suade themselves that the Thames w.is not the first of rivers. More especially did they rejoice to see English- men and converse with them. The very name was a talisman that opened every door, broke down the barriers of the most exclusive circle, and trans- formed the dull retailer of crude opinions and stale jests into a critic and a wit. In nine years, — years fall of incident, and which passed so rapidly that the keenest eye was unable to see what a mighty work they were doing, — all this was changed radically and forever. The I thirteen Colonies became thirteen United States, Avitli a name and a flag, and allies, and a history of their own ; great men of their own to point to, CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 7 great deeds of their own to commemorate, and the recollection of common sacrifices and a common glory to bind them together. And scarcely had this great change been completed when the French Revolution came ; and then for a time the splendor of the Ameincan Revolution seemed to have been eclipsed by the variety and magnitude of the events ,which followed it. Men forgot, as is their wont, what their fathers had done, that they might mag- nifv their own achievements. Their eyes were too much dazzled by the meteors that were flashing before them, to feel the full force of the clear and steady light that was shining on them from the past. But History forgets not. In her vast treasure- house are garnered all the fruits and all the seeds of civilization. At her aAvful tribunal men await in silent expectation, face to face with their deeds. She assigns to each his place, apportions to each his reward ; and when the solemn moment arrives wherein it is permitted to lift the veil from human errors and frailties, and give to man and to circum- stances their due part in the production of events, the wondrous chain of causes and effects stretches out before us into the deepest recesses of the past, uniting by indissoluble links the proud aspiration of to-day with the hope that was breathed, half formed and almost indefinite, three thousand years ago. In this light the American Revolution has, at last, taken its place in history, both as cause and 8 LECTURE I. as eftbet ; receiving its impulse iVom the past, and transmitting it with a constantly increasing power to a future yet unrevealed. What now was the cause of this rapid change in the opinions and attections of three millions of men, — a change so complete as almost to justifv the opinion, that it was the work of design from the beginning? How was confidence transformed into suspicion, loyalty into aversion, submission and love into detiance and hatred? How could statesmen be so ignorant of the common laws of our nature, as to suppose that the industry which had been fostered by security could survive the sense of se- curity ? How could philosophers so far forget tlie force of general principles, as to suppose that the descendants of men who, when few m number and hard pivssed by poverty, had preferred a wilder- ness for their home to a yoke for tlieu' consciences, should so far belie their blood as tamely to renounce thoii' birthright when they were become a power- ful people, and had made that wilderness a garden? And here, at the threshold of our inquiry, we must pause a moment to remember that nothing is so fatal to a correct understanding of history as tlie blending and confounding of the two classes of causes which luiderlie all human events. For wliile every occiu'rence may be traced back to some im- mediate antecedent, it belongs also as a part to those great classes of events, which, gathering into themselves the results of whole periods, enable us CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 9 to assign to nations and epochs, as well as to inci- dents and individuals, their appropriate place in the progress of humanity. Keeping, therefore, this distinction in view, we find the first cause of alienation in the colonial system itself. This system had grown up grad- ually and almost imperceptibly; beginning with a few feeble colonists scattered over a vast extent of territory, or clustering here and there in towns which, in Europe, would hardly have passed for villages. These colonists had no wish to dissolve their legal connection with England. Reverence for law and precedent, as I have already hinted, was a national characteristic ; an inborn sense which they had inherited from their fathers, and could not eradicate without changino; their whole nature. They still trod and loved to tread in the footsteps which they knew. The beaten track was a safe and a plain track, full of pleasant associations, fa- miliar to their eyes and dear to their hearts. With this under their feet they walked firmly, like men who know what is behind them and what is before. They had brought with them the common law, and, as far as the difference of circumstances per- mitted, followed its precepts. They had brought their municipal forms with them, and adapted them to the wants of their new home. And above all, they had brought with them the animating princi- ple, the vital spirit of those laws and forms, the 1* 10 LECTURE I. spirit of English liberty. They had forsaken one home for it, and without it no ])lace woidd have looked to them like home. It was their inspiration, their guide, and their comforter, interwoven with all their habits and thouo-hts and feelin<'-s, and in- separable from their conception of duty to them- selves, to their chiklren, and to their Maker. The spirit of English liberty is not an abstract conception, logically deduced from fundamental principles, and applied to the practice and purposes of life. Neither is it a sentiment, reaching the feelings tlirouoli the imamnation, and mvino; its coloring to thought because it had already been specidatively combined with action. It is an in-j/ stinctive conviction, confirmed by reason, deep, ever present and ever active. You find it first in the forests of Germany, an absolute individuality, unlike anything that the Greek or Roman world had ever seen ; strong-willed, self-dependent, spurn- ing involuntary control, yet submitting cheerfully to the consequences of its own acts. Thence it crosses the seas as a conqueror, and suffering, as conquerors generally do, from the completeness of its own triumph, it relaxes somewhat of its vigor, passes through many vicissitudes, and, having sur- vived the associations both of its origin and its transmigration, comes out, with all the fVesimess of its youth about it, in the meadow of Runnymede. Here it entered upon a new phase of existence ; a phase which gradually devv^loped all its chai'acter* CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 11 istic traits, strengthening and purifying it till it be- came the most perfect conciliation which the world had yet seen of the rights of the individual with the rights of society. And this was the form which it had assumed when our fathers first brought it to these shores, where for forty years it was allowed to grow at will, and had already penetrated every part of the new society, before the guardi- ans of the old bethought them of taking it under their j)rotection. The first fruit of this protection was the Act of Navigation, so long celebrated as the masterpiece, of statesmanship, and so tenaciously clung to as the bulwark of England's commercial prosperity. The foundation, indeed, had been laid by the Long Parliament, and confirmed by the courts of West- minster. But it was not until Charles II. had entered upon his career of profligacy and corrup- tion, that the Colonists began to feel the chains gradually tightening ai'ound their commerce, and contracting the sphere of their industry. First came a five per cent duty upon exports and im- ports ; tlien the great Act itself, closing their ports to eveiy flag but that of England, restricting the pursuit of commerce to native or naturalized sub- jects, and prohibiting the exportation of certain " enumerated ai'ticles, such as sugar, tobacco, cot- ton, wool, ginger, or dye-woods," produced in the Colonies, to any country but England. Still the Colonies grew and prospered, and still the jealous r< ./ 12 LECTURE I. watchfulness of the motlier country kept pace with their increasing prosperity. As new branches of industry were opened, new shackles were forged, and every fresh product of their enterprise was promptly added to the lists of prohibition. The Navigation Act, in its enlarged form, was passed in 1660 ; in 1763 it had woven its toils around Amer- ican enterprise in twenty-nine separate acts, each breathing its spirit and enforcing its claims. It is not difficult to imagine the feelincrs with which these acts were received. Open resistance, indeed, was impossible, and remonstrance would have been unavailing. Still the obedience that was rendered wore oftener the air of remonstrance than of cheerful acquiescence ; and although the right was generally conceded, the exercise of it excited bickerino;s and lieart-burnino;s that m-adu- ally prepared the way for independence. The en- terprising spirit itself could not be repressed ; and smuggling, its natural outlet, became almost as reputable, and far more profitable, than regular trade. Thus the relation of England to her Colonies, which might have been a relation of mutual good offices, became, on her part, a mere business rela- tion, founded upon the principle of capital and labor, and conducted with a single eye to her own interests. They formed for her a market of con- sumption and supply, consuming large quantities of her manufactures, and supplying her, at the CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 13 lowest rates, with many objects that she required for her own consumption. What they sent out as raw material, she returned prepared for use. Her ship-owners grew rich as they carried the sure freight to and fro. Her manufactures gave free play to their spirit of enterprise, for their market was secured to them by a rigorous monopoly. She had the exclusive right of buying, and therefore bought upon her own terms; the exclusive right of selling, and therefore set her own prices. If with all these restrictions and obstacles the Colonies still continued to grow in wealth and strength, it was because in a new country, where land was cheap, the spirit of industry could not be crushed from a distance of three thousand miles by the spirit of monopoly. Still the feeling engendered by this relation was not of a kind to make it lasting. That of the Americans was distrust and suspicion, strangely mixed up with filial reverence, — an instinctive sense of injury, instantly met by the instinctive sussestion, that there must be some constitutional reason for doing it, or it would not be done. That of England was summed up with somewhat more of concision than of elegance in Attorney-General Seymor's reply to Commissioner Blair. Pleading warmly for a moderate enlargement of the moder- ate allowance to the churches of Virginia, " Con- sider, sir," said the pious commissioner, " that the people of Virginia have souls to save." " Damn 14 LECTURE I. yoiir souls ! " was the ready answer ; " make to- bacco." A second cause, equally active, and in its effects equally powerful with the first, Avas English igno- rance of America. Nothino; alienates man from man more surely than the want of mutual appre- ciation. Sympathy founded upon respect for our feelings, and a just estimate of our Avortli, is one of the earliest cravings of the human heart. It begins with our first recognition of existence, im- parting an irresistible eloquence to the eye and to the lips of infancy. It grows with our youth, and, as we rise into manhood, finds new strength in reason and experience, teaching us in their daily lessons that without it there can be no sure foundation for the purest and noblest sentiments of our nature. It is the only feehng which can reconcile us to that condition of mutual depend- ence in which it has pleased our Maker to place us in this life ; and working, as all the feelings Avhich he has implanted in our breasts work, for the accomplishment of its appropriate end, it cher- ishes in the harmonious co-operation of fellow- citizens the germ of that beneficent concurrence of human wills and human desires, which, in God's chosen time, Avill become the brotherhood of the nations. Few Eno;lishmen had accurate ideas of the na- ture, the extent, or even the position of the Colo- nies. And when the Duke of Newcastle hurried CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 15 to the King with the information that Cape Breton was an island, he did what perhaps half his col- leagues in the ministry, and more than half his colleagues in Parliament, would have done in his place. They knew that the Colonies were of vast extent ; that they lay far away beyond the sea ; that they produced many things which English- men wanted to buy, and consumed many things which Englishmen wanted to sell ; that English soldiers had met England's hereditary enemies, the French, in their forests ; that English sailors had beaten French sailors on their coasts. But they did not know that the most flourishing of these Colonies had been planted by men who, prizing freedom above all other blessings, had planted them in order to secure for themselves and their children a home in which they could worship God according to their own idea of worship, and put forth the strength of their minds and of their bodies accord- ing to their own conception of what was best for them here and hereafter. Hence, the ideas awakened by the mention of plantatioiis were not ideas of brotherhood and sym- pathy, but of investment and gain. Like land- lords who receive their rents through an agent, with- out seeing or caring to see the farm that produces, or the men who make it productive, they merely counted their money, and asked why there was not more of it. And when more came, it was wel- comed as a proof that there was still more to come : 16 LECTURE I. that the soil had not yet been made to pay its full tribute ; that a little more care, a little more watch- fulness, a little more exaction, would multiply its increase many fold ; and that every attempt to turn that increase to the advantage of the laborers was a fraud upon the state. It was known, also, that from time to time crim- inals had been sent to the plantations as an alter- native, if not an equivalent, for the dungeon or the gallows ; — and what to many minds seemed hard- ly less heinous, that men too poor to pay their pas- sage across the ocean had often sold themselves into temporary servitude, in the hope of finding a home in which they might eat in security the bread which they had earned in the sweat of their brows. Philosophers, too, comparing the animals of the two worlds, had discovered that America was incapable of producing the same vigorous race which had carried civilization so far in Europe ; and that, whatever might be the grandeur of her mountains, the vastness of her lakes, and the ma- jesty of her rivers, the man that was born among them must gradually degenerate both morally and physically into an inferior being. And thus, when the eye of his kindred beyond the ocean was first turned upon him, the American colonist ah'eady appeared as an infeiior, condemned to labor in a lower sphere, and cut off by Nature herself from all those higher aspii'ations which en- noble the soul that cherishes them. His succ(iss CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 17 awakened no pride ; liis filial reverence called in vain for maternal affection. The hand that had been held out in cordial welcome to the English stranger in America, found no respondent grasp when the American stranger returned to visit the home of his fathers in England. With a heart overflowing with love, with a memory stored with traditions, with an imagination warmed by tales and descriptions that began in the nursery ballad, and led by easy transitions to Shakespeare and Mil- ton, with a mind elevated by the examples of Eng- lish history and the precepts of English philosophy, he was received with the repulsive coldness of English reserve, and the haughty condescension of English pride. Had it not been that man is never so set in his opinions as when he takes them up in order to reconcile his conscience to a preju- dice, the best minds of England Avould have seen that America had soon produced minds fully able to cope with theirs on their strongest ground. But the choicest lessons of experience were thrown away. From generation to generation the galling insult was repeated; and still the Colonist loved the land whose language he spoke, and revered the mstitutions from which he had drawn his own ideas of the duties of the sovereign and the rights of the subject. But already the work of aliena- tion was begun, and every new demonstration of English prejudice was like the loosening of another of the "hooks of steel" which had once grappled t: 18 LECTURE I. the land of his forefathers to the " soul " of the American. A third cause is found in the nature of the in- /^h,P stitutions, and more particularly of the municipal institutions, which the Colonists brought "with them. For institutions have their nature, like human be- ings, and will as consistently and as inevitably work it out. Society is a soil whereon no seed falls in vain. Years, and even centuries, may pass before the tender germ makes its slow way to the light. But grow it must, and thrive and bear its fruit ; and not merely fruit for the day, but fi'uit produ- cing a new, though kindred seed, which, passing through the same changes, will lead in due time to a new and kindred growth. The English colonial system Avas false from the beginning, — formed in erroneous conceptions of the laws of national prosperity, and the relations of sovereign and subject. But still it was, in part, an error common to all the countries which had plant- ed colonies in America, all of whom had carried it into theii' colonial policy, and done battle for it by land and by sea. Even Montesquieu, when he discovered the long-lost title-deeds of humanity, failed to discover amongst them, in distinct specifi- cation, the title-deeds of colonial rights. But in the apphcation of tliis eiToneous system, the superiority of a free over a despotic govern- ment was manifest. English colonies prospered in a cold climate, and on a meagre soil, as French and CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 19 Spanish colonies never prospered under mild skies, and with a soil that almost anticipated the labors of the husbandman. This superiority, and not the protection of her armies and fleets, was the endur- ing though unconscious service which England ren- dered to America. Her colonists were the free sons of fathers so accustomed to freedom that they held life as of little worth without it ; and so trained by their municipal institutions to the forms of self- government, that even rebellion assumed the garb of order, and resistance to constituted authority moved with the precision and regularity of legal action. And here, permit me at the risk of a digression to remind you of the important part Avhich muni- cipal institutions have ever borne in the history of civilization. The natural growth of every gener- ous soil, we find them in Italy at the dawn of his- tory, and we find them still there through all its manifold vicissitudes. They gave energy to the long struggle with Rome. They nourished the strength which bore the imperial city to the sum- mit of glory and power. They survived the great inroad of the barbarians, appearing even in the darkest hour of the tempest like fragments of some noble ship, to which the survivors of the wreck still cling with trembling hands, in the fond hope that the winds may yet cease and the ocean rest from its heavings. Need I remind you of those republics of the Middle Ages, which, gathering up 20 LECTURE I. the lessons of Greece and Rome, enriched them by new lessons of their own, lessons accepted by ev- ery free people as essential elements of freedom ? Need I tell you how the spirit of industry, how commercial enterprise and mechanic invention, and, better than all these, freedom of thought and vigor of creative imagination, have followed the waxing and waning of municipal freedom, still grow- ing with its growth and withering with its decay ? These were the institutions which our fathers brought with them in their English form, — surely one of the best ; for by virtue of this, while they cherished that belief in inalienable rights which made independence inevitable as an aspiration, they preserved those habits of self-government without which it would never have been attainable as a blessing. The three causes which I have already men- tioned would sooner or later have produced a ^do- lent separation of the Colonies from the mother ^/ country. For the colonial system would have led to a collision of interests ; English ignorance to ill- directed attempts at coercion ; the sentiment of inalienable rights fostered by English institutions, to firm and resolute resistance. But many years, perhaps another century, might have passed before these causes alone would have brought on an open contest, if their action had not been hastened by the concurrence of two other causes, one of later growth, the other almost contempoi*ary with the first three. CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 21 This last was the fact that, in her war upon the freedom of colonial industry, England was at war with the spirit of her own political system. She had left nothing midone to break down the bar- riers with which Spain had fenced in her American Colonies. The illicit trade which she punished by fine and imprisonment on her own colonial coast, was long pursued on the Spanish Main, almost under the shadow of St. George's cross. Her true interest required an enlargement of her commerce, new markets for her manufactures, an expansion of her navigation in every du'ection ; and the true interests of a country will always, sooner or later, infuse somewhat of their spirit into its con- duct, even where they fail to commend themselves to its rulers. By nature and by position England was the champion of free trade. But her states- men, unable to raise themselves above the preju- dices of the age, seem to have vied with each other, during every period of her colonial history, in do- ing all that depended upon them to transform a nation of merchants into a nation of shopkeepers. The cause of later growth was the fact that Eng- land was oppressed with debt, — her landholders overburdened with taxes. The monopoly which brought golden streams to the merchant and the manufacturer, brought no evident advantage to the country gentleman. He could not see in what his condition was to be bettered by an increase in the shipping of Bristol ; just as at this very time the 22 LECTURE I. moneyed men of Liverpool were unable to see how the Duke of Bridge water's canals were to be of any use to tlieni, and allowed liis note for £ 500 to be hawked about I'roni broker to broker in quest of a }>urc'liaser. Town and country railed at each other, :is they have always done, and the landholder, as he Olive vent to his indionation, called loudly for some one to share Avith him the burden of taxation. What class so able as the rich colonists who Avere thriving under his protecticm ? That ])rotection, as he luulerstood it, Avas an advantage avcU worth paying for ; and with a foresight worthy of his (^ motives, he hailed the Stamp Act as the harbinger of that happy day which was to send the tax-gath- erer from his own door to that of his American factor. It was Enghind's first misfortiuie that she adopt- ed an erroneous system. But this might have been pardoned her, as a common cn-or of the age. Her second misfortune was that she persevered in it kmg after its crroncousness had been demonstrated, and for this her only apology is the humiliating confession that lier rulers were unlit ior their jilaces. There was no jieriod previous to ITG-^ wherein a real statosnian might nt)t have reconciled the just claims of both countries ; giving \.o each all that, in the true interest of civili/ation, it had a right to ask ; imposing upon each all that, in the true in- terest of civilization, it was bound to bear. For what is statesmanship but the art of adapt- CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 23 ing the actual condition of a nation to what must inevitably be its future condition, — the art of con- necting the present with the past and the future, — distinguishing the permanent from the casual causes of national prosperity, and thus knowing what to lop off as an excrescence, what to root up as a noxious growth, and what to foster with all the arts of sedulous cultivation ? More tlian half the blood that has been shed upon this blood-stained earth of ours, has been shed because mankind have per- severed in iutmsting their dearest intei'ests to the guidance of men who have no reverence for the \y jDast, no intelligent appreciation of the present, no prophetic visions of the inevitable future. How much to attribute to individuals, and how much to general causes, is one of the most difficult problems of philosophical history. But the publi- cation of George the Third's letters and billets to Lord North leaves no room to doubt the part which tlie monarch bore in the contest with Amer- ica. George the Third, notwithstanding his Eng- lish birth and nominally English education, had all the arbitrary instincts of a German prince. To free himself from the hereditary control of the great Whig families, and to exalt the royal prerog- ative above the aristocracy and the people, was the hope with which he ascended the throne, and to this end all his policy was directed as long as he was able to direct it. In the searchino; light of his- tory it matters little that he was a pure man in his 24 LECTURE I. domestic relations, and an industrious man in liia royal functions. Not even tlie sincerity of his con- victions can cleanse him from tlie taint of unneces- sary bloodshed ; for he erred in tliino-s wherein it is not permitted to man to err and hold himself guiltless. With none of the chai-acteristics of greatness himself, he could not bear great men around hun ; and while no one can blame him for seizing the earliest opportunity to tlu'ow off Gren- ville as a tedious formalist, no one should forget that the ear wdiicli was reluctantly opened to Chat- ham and Fox drank in with avidity the congenial counsels of a Bute and a Wedderburn. And thus the English tax-payer, groaning inider his burdens, joined henrtily with short-sighted min- isters and a narrow-minded king in the attemj)t to draw a revenue from the Colonies by Parliamen- tary taxation. While the contest lasted, he sup- ported government with his vote and his jnu'se, submitting, though not without an occasional mur- mur, to an increase of his ])vesent load, in the firm hope of future I'clief. And when, at length, the inevitable day of defeat came, he was the last to see that the attemjit had been lioj)eless from the beginning. And this brings to view a circumstance which, though not an original cause of alienation, added materially to the diflficulty of effecting a cordial reconciliation when the dispute became a discussion of Parliamentary rights. It is one of the great CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 25 advantages of the English constitution, that it has grown lip with the growth of the Enghsh nation. Thus, as society has continued its progress, the con- stitution has nearly kept pace with that progress ; never much in advance, never long in the rear; sometimes gtiiding, sometimes waiting upon its footsteps ; but always the faithful exponent of the feelinirs and convictions of the bulk of the nation. Some of these adaptations and expansions have been made silently ; the statute-book reflecting, as it were with an instinctive S3mipathy, the mind and the heart of the people. But by far the greater part have cost long and bitter contests, — convulsions some of them, and some of them blood. And in them all the spirit of the constitution has been pre- served, although the letter has often changed, — its spirit of freedom, which was already a living spirit under the Plantagenets, though a feeble one, which tempered the arrogance of the Tudors, and never was truer to its mission than when it crushed the Stuarts. But while this gradual development has been attended by many advantages, it has been produc- tive also of an iinusual degree of that uncertainty and contradiction which always attend the inter- pretation of a constitution, whether compressed within a few pages like our own, or scattered through hundreds of folios like that of England. An absolute government — France or Spain — would have brought the claims of the Colonists to 2 26 LECTURE I. the decision of the sword from the beginning ; for the French and Spanish colonist, in resisting the pretensions of the mother country, would have had no legal or constitutional ground to stand upon. What one arbitraiy sovereign had given, another ai'bitrary sovereign might take away ; and the col- ony that was too feeble to resist had no choice but to submit. But with English colonists the question of Par- hamentary supremacy was a constitutional ques- tion, a discussion of legal rights, leading, as men's blood grew warm, to the sword, but necessarily be- ginning with the pen. In this discussion, individ- ual opinions and party opinions were soon enlisted. awakening fiery zeal, and gradually preparing both sides for a solution from which they would both have shrunk at the outset. The Parliament that " languidly " voted the Stamp Act, would have de- bated loner and divided often before it voted an armed invasion. The men who resisted it would have repelled with indignation the charge of dis- loyalty. It was by steps which to them who were taking them seemed very slow, that the final step of an open war was reached. Both sides had much to study and much to say. Englishmen, though fiilly agreed iipon the question of Parlia- mentary supremacy as a constitutional principle, were far fi*om agreeing upon the interpretation of that supremacy. Did it imply the right of taxa- tion ? If it did, what became of that other fiinda- CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 27 mental principle, — taxation goes with representa- tion? Were the Amei'icans represented in Par- liament? If not, what would be the final effect of this taxing without representation upon England herself? The field of discussion was immense, almost boundless, — embracing, as some of Dean Tucker's tracts show, a prophetic glimpse of the true laws of trade ; and, as Chatham's speeches show, a foreshadowing of Parliamentary reform. On the part of the Americans, the feeling of de- pendence was very vague, very indefinite. In some form and degree they all acknowledged it ; but the form was nowliere clearly defined, the de- gree nowhere distinctly marked out. The most important Colonies had been founded at a moment when all the best minds of the mother country were actively engaged in discussing the claims of the royal prerogative, — the very best, in trying to set bounds to it. With this feeling towards roy- alty, the Colonists laid the foundations of the new state, and laid them more in harmony with the rights which they came here to secure, than with the claims whicli tliey came here to avoid. As the state grew, those foundations became more firmly fixed% The great problem of social organization — how far the rights of the individual can be car- ried without interfering with the rights of society, or impeding its legitimate action — was met as a practical question, susceptible of a practical solu- tion. All the forms of their society compelled 28 LECTURE I. them to think and to discuss. They discussed in their town meetings. They discussed at their elec- tions. They discussed in their General Courts and General Assemblies. Every question was brought to the final test of individual opinion ; and when tliis became merged in the general opinion, every individual felt that he could still recognize therein something of his own. They were all parts of the state, and, as parts, had an equal interest in it, an equal claim to its protection, an equal right to control its action. To counteract this, there was their love of Eng- land, their Anglo-Saxon love of precedent, their insthictive sense of legal subordination; — feelings so strong and so deep rooted, that it was not until the Act of Navigation had, by the slow gi'owth of a hundred and four yeai's, reached its logical con- clusion in the Stamp Act, that " the strong man arose from his slumber, and, shaking his invinci- ble locks," burst forever the bands tliat had bound him to an ungenerous and unsympathizing pai'ent. Thus a false colonial policy led to false relations between England and her American Colonies ; an unjust depreciation of colonial character undermined the sentiments of reverence and love which the Colonists had piously cherished for their mother country ; an insane hope of alleviating his own burdens by casting part of them upon his American brethren led the English tax-payer to invade in the Colonies a riixlit which he would have cheer- CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 29 I'ully died for at home ; and a narrow personal am- bition combined with gross ignoi'ance of the science of statesmanship prevented the adoption of any effective measures for adapting the relations of the two countries to the changes which a century of marvellous prosperity had produced in their re- spective positions. And thus alienation and oppo- sition grew, advancing step by step — twenty-nine in all — from the Act of Navigation to the Boston tea-party and tlie battle of Lexington. Thus far I have spoken only of the relations arising from the connection between England and her Colonies. But both England and her Colonies formed part of a larger system, — the great Euro- pean system, not merely as a system of policy, but as a form of civilization. And during the whole period of Colonial history, this system was under constant .discussion, — discussion with the pen and with the sword. While the Pilgrims were making for themselves a home at Plymouth, and prepar- ing the way for Roger Williams and the doctrine of soul liberty, Richelieu was undermining the aristocracy of France, and preparing the way for Louis XIV. and absolutism. While the claims of hereditary monarchy as the most peaceful method of transmitting sovereign power were receiving a bloody confutation in the wars of the Spanish and the Austrian succession, England was taking firm possession of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, mak- ing sure the fur trade of Hudson's Bay, the fish- 30 LECTURE I. eries of the Great Banks, planting new Colonies in the Carolinas, and pivparing herself for the great, and, as she fondly thought, the final struggle, in the valley of the Ohio, and on the banks of the St. Lawrence. American clauses gradually crept into European treaties. Diplomatists, with the map of Europe before them, began to cast longing eyes on the vast territories beyond the Atlantic. At last came the treaty of Paris, in 17G3, — the proudest treaty which England had ever signed, wherein a needy partisan, grasping at the succes- sion of a great statesman, set his name to the act which stripped France of the Canadas, and sliixt her out forever from the valley of the Ohio. And now, thought the King and his counsellors, we have our Colonies to ourselves, and can hence- forth make war or peace in Europe as Ave choose, without taking them into account. But not so thought the French jNlinister at Versailles, and the French Ambassador at London ; and while George GreuA-ille, the man who, according to Dr. Johnson, could have comited the Manilla ransom if he could have enforced the payment of it, was eagerly coun't- ingin advance the profits of his Stamp Act, French emissaries were passing through the thirteen Colo- nies in their length and breadth, and Durand, Frances, and Du Cliatelet Avere sending to the Duke of Choiseul long and minute reports of the char- acter, resources, and spirit of the Colonists. When the ministry of Louis XVL were called upon to CAUSES OF THE RE VOLUTION. 31 decide between England and America, the archives of the Foreign Office at Paris afibrded materials for the formation of a sound opinion, hardly less abun- dant, and far more reliable, than those of the For- eign Office at London. Cool observers now, if not absolutely impartial, French statesmen saw clearly in 1766 what statesmen on the other side of the Channel wei'e too much blinded by pride and false conceptions of their interest to see in 1776. " They are too rich to persevere in obedience," wrote Du- rand, just nine years and eleven months before the Declaration of Independence. " They are too rich not to share our taxes," reasoned Grenville, and half England marvelled at his wisdom. And this brings us to that second class of causes which I have already alluded to as gathering into themselves the results of whole periods. Lord Ba- con tells us that "a great question will not h\\ of being agitated some time or other." What question so great for our thirteen Colonies as free labor in its broadest sense, and with its train of mighty consequences ? For free labor implies free- dom of M'ill, — the right to think as well as the right to act. And all Europe was agitated by thoughts which, translated into action, led to an entirely new principle of government, — the great- est good of the greatest number. The doctrine of inherited rights was gradually calling in its de- tachments, and forming the line of battle for the decisive struggle with the doct 'ine of natural rights. 32 CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. All through its ranks gleamed the burnished arms of its devoted allies, — waved the proud banners which had waved over it in triumph for more than half a thousand years. And in front, as far as eye covild reach, stretched the firm phalanx of the enemy ; calm, deliberate, resolute, fearless, confi- dent of victory. For it was no longer a Avar of kino; aoainst kincr, a war to decide whether an Austrian or a Frenchman should sit on the throne of Spain, — whether a few millions more or less of Italians, or of Flemings, should be thrown, as make-weights, into the scale, when their owners were tired of fighting, and satiated with military glory; but the great war of the ages, which was to crush forever the hopes of civilization, or open wide the gates of progress as they had never been opened before. And therefore it was meet that the signal of battle should come from men who saw distinctly for what they were contending, and were prepared to stake their all upon the issue. As a chapter of English and American history, the American Revolution is but the attempt of one people to prescribe bounds to the industry of another, and appropriate its profits. As a chapter and one, too, of the brightest and best in the his- tory of humanity, it is the protest of inalienable rights against hereditary prerogative ; the demon- stration of a people's power to think justly, decide wisely, and act firmly for themselves. LECTURE II. THE PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. IN my first Lecture I endeavored to show the his- torical position of the American Revolution, and point out the causes which produced it. We saw, that, as a purely English and American question, it was the necessary consequence of the colonial system, — a struggle for monopoly on one side, and free labor on the other. We saw that, as a chap- ter in the history of European civilization, it was a struggle between hereditary prerogative and in- alienable rights. Both of these views will be con- firmed by the historical sketch which I propose to give you this evening of the phases through which it passed in the progress of its development. The first permanent English Colony in America was planted in 1607, and by 1643 the foundations of New England had been so securely laid, that MassachusetlSf Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed a league for mutual protection against the French and Indians, under the signifi- cant title of the United Colonies of New England. 2* c 34 LECTURE II. History has nowhere recorded greater persever- ance, or a more marvellous growth. On what, as we look at the map, seems a narrow strip of land betwixt the wilderness and the ocean, Avith a wily enemy ever at their doors, they had built seaports and inland towns, and extended with Avonder- ful celerity their conquests over man and over nature. There were jealousies and dissensions among them. There were frequent misunder- standings with England about undefined rights. The Church, too, from Avhich they had fled that they might worship God in their own Avay, had already cast longing eyes upon their new abode, as a field ripe for her chosen reapers. But their strong municipal organization controlled jealousies and dissensions, even where it failed to suppress them. However vague English ideas of their rights might be, there Avere certain points AA^hereon their o\A'n AA'ere perfectly defined. And AA'hen the Church from longing prepared to pass to open iiwa- sion, they prepared for open resistance. They had hardly emerged from infancy when they began to wear the aspect and speak the language of vigor- ous manhood. Fo, " they had been planted at happy moments, — Avlien James AA'as starting questions which compelled men to think, and Charles doing things AA'hich compelled men to act. Tliose among them Avhich had charters Avatched them jealously and interpreted them liberally. Those that had not yet obtained them spared no exertions to ob- PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 35 tain tliera ; falling back, meanwhile, upon their municipal institutions as a resource that met all their present wants. A few more years like the past, and the whole seaboard would be peopled. As yet, however, one element of strength was lacking, — a spirit of union ; for the' New Eng- land Union was rather tlie expression of an im- mediate want, than a natural aggregation of sym- pathetic parts. Plymouth was soon merged in Massachusetts, and New Haven in Connecticut. And both Massachusetts and Connecticut, which had never admitted little Rhode Island to their con- federacy, would gladly have divided her between them. New York was still Dutch, and remained Dutch in feelings and habits long after it had be- come English in name. New Jersey was not yet settled. A few Swedes were trying to build up colonies in what some years later became Pennsyl- vania and Delaware. Catholics, with an unconge- nial code of religious toleration, held Maryland, — while Virginia, the oldest and wealthiest Colony of all, had grown up under the shadow of the Church, and with a reverence for the King which seemed to place an insuperable barrier betwixt her and her unbishop-loving and more than half republican sisters of the East. Thus each Colony still stood alone ; each still looked to England as to a mother to whom they were all bound by natural and not unwelcome ties. Yet somethins which miffht have awakened sus- 36 LECTURE II. picion had already occurred. The Pilgrims had not yet gathered in the first harvest which they Avrung with weary hands from the ungrateful soil of Plymouth, when an English Order in Council was issued, forbidding the exportation to foreign countries of any colonial product which had not previously paid duty in England. The only Col- ony to which this order could as yet apply was Virginia ; but what would not a mother be likely to ask of her children in the day of prosperity, who already asked so much in the day of trial ? Twenty-two years passed, and a warning voice came from New England ; " where," says the chronicler, " the supplies from England failing much, men began to look about them, and fell to a manufacture of cotton." Prophetic glances, these, into a distant future ; but, like so much of human foresight, thwarted and made useless by human passion. It was in no unkind spirit towards New Eng- land that Parliament passed the Navigation Act of 1651, but partly to curb the aggressions of Hol- land, and partly to arouse the slumbering energy of English nautical enterprise. New England might have asked much of the rulers of the Com- monwealth which she wisely refrained from asking. There was little that Virginia could have asked which would not have been granted grudgingly, if granted at all. The Commonwealth passed away, and the Restoration found the Colonies stronger in PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 37 population, in wealth, and in tliat spirit which makes population and wealth availing. The period of indefinite relations was passed; the first phase of revolution, the period of definite subjection, was begun. For now — IGGO — that Act of Navigation of whicli that of 1651 was but the outline, and which Lords and Commons, histo- rians and orators, united in extolling as the pal- ladium of English commerce, a charta marithna second only to Magna Charta itself, first took its place on the statute-book. " It will enable your Majesty to give the law to foreign princes abroad, as your royal predecessors have done before you," said the Speaker of the House of Commons to Charles, as he presented the bill for approval. " By this act," says an historian of commerce, " we have absolutely excluded all other nations from any di- rect trade or correspondence with our American plantations." By this act, a philosopher might have said, you have opened a breach betwixt your- selves and your Colonies, which every year will widen, till the sword completes what the pen began, and severs you from them forever. It might have been supposed that ther-e was little in those Colonies, as yet, to excite the avaricious longings of commercial monopoly. But monopoly has a keen eye, if not a proplietic one ; and seldom does an immediate interest escape its eager search. " No sugar, tobacco, cotton-wool, indigo, ginger, fustic or other dyeing woods, of the growth or 38 LECTURE II. manufacture of our Asian, African, or American colonies, shall be shipped from the said colonies to any place but Eno;land, Ireland, or to some other of his Majesty's said plantations, there to be landed, under forfeiture as before. And to make effectual this last-named clause, for the sole benefit of our own navigation and people, the owners of the ships shall o;ive bonds at their setting out for the due performance thereof." Thus reads the thirteenth clause. A few years later, Ireland, which, as you will observe, is here put upon the same footing with England, was excluded by name. You will observe, too, that the American Colonies stand last upon the list ; so much had England yet to learn, both about their importance and their character. The articles mentioned in this clause obtained the name of " enumerated commodities," henceforth an irritating and odious name in our colonial his- tory. Thus England took her position towards the Col- onies deliberately and definitely. Henceforth they were to work for her ; to grow strong, that they might add to her strength ; to grow rich, that they might aid her in heaping up riches ; but not to gi-ow either in strength or in wealth, except by the means, and in the direction, that she prescribed. It behooves us to ponder well this thirteenth clause ; to weigh it word by word, that we may understand the spirit in which it was conceived, and the spirit which it awakened. Its object was the general PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 39 increase of shipping and navigation, — " -wherein,'^ says the preamble, " nncler the good providence and protection of God, the wealth, strength, and safety of this kingdom are so much concerned." Words well chosen, and whose truth none can gainsay ; for it is only by the portion of truth which h jnixed up with them that radical errors ever succeed in commendino- themselves to the human mind. And here the proportion of truth was not only large, — for national prosperity is closely al- lied with commercial prosperity, — but the error was singularly in harmony with the opinions and feelings of the age. " So long as your Majesty is master at sea," said the Speaker, "your mer- chants will be welcome wherever they come." Change the form of expression, and what does this mean, but that superior strength is to dictate the laws of commerce, as it dictates the terms of a treaty ? And what is this but the alliance of com- merce, whose power is founded upon interest, — I use the word in its true sense, — with the sword, whose power is founded upon fear ? Follow it a little further ; push it to its logical consequences, and you have that simple formula, so repugnant to truth, to morality, and to religion. My gain is your loss ; your loss is my gain.* * A great empire has been established for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers, who sliould be obliged to buy from the shops of our different producers all the goods with which those could supply them." — Smith, Wealth, &c., B. IV. Ch. Vm. Vol. 11. p. 517. /O LECTURE II. But could we expect men to foresee the disas- trous consequences of this narrow and selfish pol- icy, who undertook, as this Parliament did, in the same session in which they passed the Navigation Act, to encourage the " fish trade " by prohibiting the eating of flesh on Wednesday ? It Avas a necessary consequence of this system, that England should henceforth Avatch American industry in order to check it whenever it entered upon a track which she deemed inconsistent with her own interest, rather than with a view of en- couraging it whenever it opened a brancli useful to the Colonies. The enumerated list was ever at hand, a happy embodiment of the great principle, and susceptible of indefinite extension. Not many years passed before rice and molasses came more largely into demand; and the spirit of enterprise was presently rewarded by their prompt insertion upon the catalogue. Then the hardy trader, who, at the hazard of his life, had penetrated to the banks of the Ohio, and established trading-posts in the wilderness, was cheered in his industry by seeing his furs and peltries honorably classed with the other privileged articles which were reserved exclu- sively for the English market. Copper ore stands close by their side, — an enumeration of the same year, the eighth of George I., and showing how well prepared the House of Hanover came to tread in the footsteps of the House of Stuart. A still wider sweep was taken by George H., when pitch, PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 41 tar, turpentine, masts, yards, and bowsprits were condemned by the ready Yeas of the House of Commons to make a voyage to England — and eleven weeks in those days was nearly the average length of the voyage — before they could be of- fered at any other market. The same spirit extended to royal charters. Al- ready, in the charter of Pennsylvania, the right of taxation had been expressly reserved to Parlia- ment. And when the charter of Massachusetts was renewed by William and Mary, or rather a new charter granted after the arbitrary sequestra- tion of the first by Charles, all the pine forests of Maine, not already granted to individuals, were treated as the property of the King, and every tree in them of more than twenty-four inches diameter at above a foot from the ground reserved to fur- nish masts for the royal navy. A hundred pounds sterling was the penalty for cutting one of those trees without a special license, with the addition of twenty lashes on the bare back if it was done in disguise. The position was taken. All that remained to do was to enforce the law. This required officers, and they were easily found. There were already officers of the customs, with their registers of en- try and clearance. And now, to protect the inter- ests of the royal navy, a new officer was appointed, — a "Surveyor-General of the King's Woods"; and, as he could not watch them all in person, he was 42 LECTURE 11. furnislied with a goodly Land of deputies and un- derlings, who, from the chief with his ample salary and large perquisites to the subaltern with his fees for specific services, were bound, each in his degree, to uphold the King's claims to the pines that had been growing there for centuries, so straight and tall, without the King's aid or permission. It Avas a goodly net-work, spreading far over the land, and gathering, what such nets in such hands always gather, a full draught of litigation and discontent. For the Colonists could not bring themselves all at once to look upon the doings of Parhament as kind and wise. They had worked hard to make for themselves comfortable homes, and felt that the labor they had bestowed upon those homes gave them a right to enjoy them in their own way. When the Pilgrims first came, their chief care was provision and shelter ; how they could most readily make the earth give them food ; how they could most readily construct for themselves, out of the trees of the forest, dwellings which should be a protection both from the inclemency of the weather and a sudden attack of the savages. They planted and reaped with arms at hand for immediate use. They went to meeting with their guns loaded for instant service. All around them was wilderness, - — a leafy canopy of boundless forest. In a few years, fifteen thousand acres of this wilderness were under cultivation. Everywhere, as you went, your eye was greeted by cornfields and orchards t' LIASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 43 and cottages that told of peace within doors and without. And now, as a new generation — a gen- eration born upon the soil — was beginning to reap the fruit of their fathers' sacrifices, they were told that they must not use their strength so freely ; that, before they employed the means which they l)ad created, they must ask permission of that moth T tlu'ee thousand miles off", who had looked on so coldly, if she had looked at all, while they were creating them. With all the love they bore tluit mother, — and we have already seen that they loved her, — there was an instinctive rising of the Colonial spirit against claims which the tamest among them could not but regard as an unjust re- straint upon their industiy. Even if the farmer could submit, could the merchant fail to see whither these restrictions were tending ? The merchant did see, and became the ally of smugglers. The farmer did not submit without murmurs that prepared the way for questionings ; and these questionings, growing bolder year by year, and more searching, led, at last, to open re- sistance. Among the pine forests of ]\Iaine there was a hardy race of lumberers, men who could not understand the Kind's claim to the trees which they had been so freely cutting down as their own. From the first appearance of the " Surveyor-Gen- eral " among them, they began to make his office uncomfortable for him. A feud sprang up between them, which no mediation, no authority could allay ; 44 LECTURE 11. for it had its orimn in that instinct of right wliich often leads man to resist aggression, even where he fails to perceive its remoter consequences. The con- test between the Maine lumbermen and the royal surveyors was tlie prelude of the greater contest which was to set American industry free from ev- ery restraint but such as American legislators sliould see fit to impose upon it for the good of Americans. As the old French war prepared Washington for the peculiar trials of the Revolutionary war, this petty warfare between obscure men prepared the popular mind of Massachusetts — of Avhich Maine was as yet a part — for the discussion of that broader application of the same comprehensive principle w^iich led step by step to the Declaration of Independence. Of all the errors of legislation, there is none so fatal as the making of laws against which the pub- lic mind instinctively rebels. For it is only Avhen law is in harmony with the society for which it is formed, that men will give it that cheei-flil obedi- ence which makes it strong for the protection of good men and the punishment of evil-doers. A law wdiich violates the public conscience excites first hatred, and presently contempt for those who undertake to enforce it ; and from them the feeling soon extends with increased vigor to the source fi'om which the law emanated, confounding the sense of right and wrong, and undermining the very foundations of society. I'HASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 45 Thus one of the natural effects of the Act of Nav- igation was to raise up a generation of law-break- ers ; of merchants, who went regularly to meetings doing the greater part of their business, the while, in a way that might have sent them to jail ; of law- yers, who dressed their wives and daughters in stuffs that the law would have confiscated ; of me- chanics and farmers, who daily put upon their ta- bles what they could not have put there if they had been compelled to obtain it through the regu- lar channels of commerce ; and sometimes, I fear, of clergvmen, who quieted their consciences by drawing subtle distinctions between direct and in- direct participation, — between the statutes of man and the statutes of God. The first and only effect of the reservation in Wilham and Mary's charter was to set in action a class of men who never act without making other men think ; and thus, by action and thought com- bined, and directed to one object, bringing out principles and awakening convictions that broke through reservations, and made charters useless. For thoughtful men, earnest men, cannot break laws often without calling in question the authority as well as the wisdom of the lawgiver. Where habit is not formed by principle, principle falls nat- urally under the control of habit. American mer- chants engaged in smuggling because they wanted a market and money. In time they came to look upon it as something that everybody participated 46 LECTURE 11. in, though nobody cared to talk about it. Next came the unavoidable question, how men who were upright and honorable in everything else could be dishonest and dishonorable in this. And this brouglit them to the true question, When had they intrusted a legislature, so far removed from them by habit, by association, and by interest, with au- thority to control their industry and set bounds to their enterprise ? But it was not till after many trials, and a full experience of the true character of such legisla- tion, that this question was asked. The Colonist longed for freedom without aspiring to indepen- dence. It was not till the spirit of monopoly had spread from their foreign to their domestic com- merce, — it was not till each Colony had been put by statute in the position of a foreign nation to- wards its sister Colony, — that they saw what a vile spirit they were dealing with, and to what an un- natural condition it was leading them. When a hatter was forbidden to take more tlian two ap- prentices at a time, or any apprentice for less than seven years, — when he was encouraged to buy slaves, and forbidden to use them hi the only way wherein he could make his pm'chase profitable, — he felt aggrieved, deeply aggrieved. But when he was forbidden to send his hats to an adjacent Col- ony that was ready to pay him a fair price for them, and to which he could send them without incon- venience or risk, and get something in return that PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 47 he wanted very much, he felt that the legislator who made these laws for him had made them in wanton defiance of his interest and his rights. Woollen manufacturers were subjected to the same restraints. Iron might be taken from the mine. America produced, and England wanted it ; but eveiy process which could add to the value of the unwrought ore was reserved for English hands. It could neither be slit nor rolled ; nor could any- plating forge be built to work with a tilt-hammer, or any furnace for the making of steel. It was just ninety years ftom the passing of the Naviga- tion Act when this last link was added to the chain. Such laws defied nature, and they for whom they were made, obeying nature, learnt to defy the law. But now a new phase begins. There are ru- mors of war on the frontiers ; not the war of the white man with the red man, but the long-cher- ished hatred of England for France, and of France for England, transplanted to America ; English colonists and English soldiers against French colo- nists and French soldiers, with Indian wiles and cruelty to aid them in the work of destruction. Already, in the last war, the Colonies had displayed their strength as efiicient and active allies, by taking the strong post of Louisburg without help from England. It was resolved in this to bring out their strength with more system and regularity, and a Congress was convened at Albany to consult npon the best way of doing it. Franklin availed him- 48 LECTURE II. self of the opportunity to bring forward a plan of Union, wliich, by giving them a common rallying- point, would have been a first step towards eman- cipation. The English ministry condemned it, and substituted another plan, which, by putting the con- trol of the united strength of the Colonies into the hands of royal agents, would have confirmed them in their subjection. Both failed. But two great words had been uttered, — Congress and Union ; and henceforth men began to think about them and talk about them in a way which soon gave them that place in the public mind which no ideas can hold long without gaining a place m the public heart. Yet England had never before had such an op- portunity of confirming the Colonists in their love for their haughty mother. The war was in one sense as much their war as hers. Success w^ovdd rid them forever of a dangerous enemy. Failure would fix an enterprising rival upon half the long line of their frontiers. IVIilitary glory had attrac- tions for their young men. The prospect of a secure frontier and enlarged territory had attrac- tions for their statesmen. And the old English feeling of hatred for France, the old leaven of na- tional hostility, had lost little of its strength by being transplanted from the Old World to the New. Then was the time for taking as brothers the hands which the Colonists held out to them as children. Then was the time for soothing dissensions, rooting PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 49 out jealousies, uniting judiciously by feeling what might still have been long united by interest. You all know how England profited by the op- portunity. You know how English regulars looked down upon Provincial vohmteers, on the parade- ground and in camp ; and how they were com- pelled to look up to them in the woods, and with the wg,r-whoop ringing in their ears. You know how Provincial colonels were outranked by Royal cap- tains ; how the distinctions which are the elements of military discipline were made to depend upon the caprice of an official who came to-day to go to-morrow, instead of the sure ground of tried merit and approved service. You all know that a Washington asked in vain for a King's commission, while the honor of the King's soldiers and the safety of the King's subjects were intrusted to a Braddock. And knowing this, can you wonder that Americans thought somewhat less reverently of English wisdom, and spoke with somewhat less confidence of English invincibility ? that, while they rejoiced in England's laurels, they should remember their own wounds, and be prepared to look more closely and more sceptically upon their mutual relations ? These relations had now reached their most critical moment. Canada was conquered; the North was free from the dano-er of foreign inva- sion ; England was triumphant everywhere, though loaded with debt; the Colonies jubilant over their 3 D 50 LECTURE II. own successes, and prepared to spring forward with increased elasticity in the career of industrial de- velopment. There were few intelligent men, on either side of the Atlantic, who did not foresee that sooner or later the Colonies must become independent. It was evident that what had already been done to develop their natural resources was but a feeble beginning, if compared with the immense results which must follow the opening of the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi to that race of stm'dy farmers and resolute woodsmen who had so prompt- ly carried cultivation from the shores of the Atlan- tic to the foot of the Alleghanles. Their popula- tion was fast approaching three millions. The Earth gave them iron, lead, copper, all the metals required for calling forth all her strength. They were hardy sailors as well as robust farmers, as fa- miliar with the compass as with the plough, and as skilled in finding their way on the pathless ocean as in the illimitable forest. On every side the thou- sand voices of streams and water-courses seemed to be calling for the busy wheels that were to en- able them to join their mightier sisters in the great work of civilization. And when all these forces were combined, what was to prevent these Colonies from dissolving their connection with England, and establishing a government of their own ? Such strength could not long be held in bondage by a small island three thousand miles oif. Such enter- PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 51 prise could not always submit to the laws imposed by interested jealousy. Such energy could not always be the minister of another's will, the agent of another's power. The historian Robertson, fresh from the study of Charles the Fifth's vain attempt at universal dominion, saw clearly that the same natural laws which had concurred in frustrating the designs of the mighty Emperor, would some day set bounds to the aspirations of England, and make Araei'ica the seat of independent empire. The philosopher Smith, while tracing the laws which govern the growth of nations in wealth, found a law among them which marked out the limits of colonial subjection ; and, following it in its development, believed that the day would come when England would voluntarily transfer the scep- tre from an island to a continent, and Enghsh kings build their palaces on the banks of the Hud- son or the Potomac. Had the rulers of England been statesmen, they would have assumed ultimate independence as in- evitable, and set themselves in all earnestness to prepare the way for it. There was yet much that England could do for the Colonies, and still more that the Colonies could do for England. Mutual good offices, cherishing mutual affection, might still prolong a connection useful to both. And when the day of separation came, when, by the sure ac- tion of an inherent principle, both were brought to see that it was now better for both that they 52 LECTURE II. should henceforth live apart, they might pass hy an easy and natural transition, that would leave no heart-burnings behind it, from the relation of sover- eign and subject to the relation of friend and ally. But the rulers of Eno-land were not statesmen. We enter upon a new phase, — a phase of sys- tematic aggression and prompt resistance. George Grenville, looking out from the little watch-tower tliat he had built for himself on a crumbling wall of the constitution, saw that the Colonies were forbidden to trade Avith the colonies of France and Spain, and presently resolved to enforce the laws against smuo;o;lino;. Naval officers were made offi- cers of the customs, and exerted their authority in a manner far more fatal to legitimate trade than to contraband. The regular officers of the customs, not to be outdone in zeal, applied for writs of assist- ance to authorize them to extend their searches to private dwellings. And thus was brought on that celebrated trial, so eventful in Massachusetts an- nals ; and then, too, was first heard from the mouth of James Otis the watch-word of the Revolution, — " Taxation without representation is tyranny." The ministry persevered in its stringent enforce- ment of the laws of trade. Tlie Colonies remon- strated against the restraints upon legitimate com- merce ; pointed in vain to the steady flow of the wealth it brought them towards the manufactories and counting-houses of England, and thus, event- ually, into the exchequer itself. The line of sight PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 53 from Grenville's watch-tower did not reach as far as this. He only saw that the exchequer was low, and — exact logician — to fill it, devised the Stamp Act. How resolutely that act was met, and how promptly it was repealed, you all know. Had the spirit of that repeal heen adhered to, the day of separation might yet have been put off almost in- definitely, in spite of the fermentation of the pub- lic mind, and the pregnant questions that had been started. For if any already thought of indepen- dence, it was rather as a contingency to be feared than as a blessing to be asked for. Even what George the Third called " the waste-paper of the Declaratory Act " would have failed to gall the Col- onists to resistance, if it had not been closely fol- lowed up by the resolutions of Charles Townshend, imposing a real tax under the name of impost duties on glass, paper, painters' colors, and tea. But there was a contemptuous spirit in those resolutions, far more galling than the resolutions themselves ; for they seemed to say, with a civil sneer, if you do not choose to let us bind your hands, we will bind your feet, and much good may your hands do you ! Other u'ritating acts were passed, renewing tlie agitation of the public mind, and foreshadowing still more arbitrary legislation if this were tamely submitted to. England took her ground, arrogant and menacing, with a threat on her lips, and her sword half drawn. America took hers, indignant 54 LECTURE II. and resolute, prepared to meet threats with defi- ance, and the sword with the sword- Resistance was organized : — no lono-er an ebul- lition of popular feeling, easily aroused by the pres- ence of an object, easily allayed by its removal; no longer dependent upon a few leading minds or a few warm hearts; — but a system, thoughtfully devised and thoughtfully accepted ; a necessity from which there was no esca})e but unconditional submission ; a resource which, promptly and wisely used, would establish freedom on foundations that could not be shaken. Patrick Henry's Virginia Resolutions, and the Declaration of Rights by the Congress of 17 65, told the American story in lan- guage so clear, so firm, and so earnest, that no man not passion-blinded could read them and doubt the sincerity of conviction in which they were con- ceived. And to us, at this distance from the blind- ing passions of the hour, it seems marvellous that an English statesman could have read them with- out recognizing in them the princi])les and the spirit which had raised England to such prosperity. I^it unfortunately for England, her statesmen did not recognize in them cither those pi'inciples or that spirit, and the few who read them understand- ingly had no influence with the King, no control- ling voice in Parliament. But Americans read them and felt their ideas grow clearer, their hearts wax firmer, as they read. There is a period in the growth of the public mind, PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 55 just as there is in tlie growth of the individual mind, when ideas and feehngs are so mixed up, that men can hardly think clearly or act firmly without something to arrange their ideas and de- fine their feelino-s for tliem. There was a o;eneral persuasion among the Colonists that their rights had been invaded, and that there was a design of invading them still further. There was a deep- rooted conviction that resistance was lawful ; a feeling, second only to their religious feelings, that it was a duty. The doctrine that an English Par- liament had no right to tax them was not a new doctrine. New York had announced it by a sol- emn act of legislation as early as 1691 ; Massa- chusetts, in an enumeration of her rights and priv- ileges, in 1692. Both of these acts, it is true, were formally disallowed by the English govern- ment ; but they remained none the less a part of American history. Nor was the doctrine that England had a right to tax America new in England. For in 1696 it was deliberately advocated in an elaborate pam- phlet, and no less deliberately refuted in two pam- phlets, upon the ground which Americans always put it ui)on, — that taxation went with representa- tion. There had been various other indications, too, at various tmies, of the continued existence of both doctrines ; — of what some Englishmen wanted, and of what every American who had ever thought upon the subject was determined not 56 LECTURE II. to submit to. Walpole's advisers were not alone in their longing for American places and pensions, when they advised him to tax America. But Wal- pole was almost alone in his wisdom when he an- swered that America was already paying her full tax in the manner most agreeable to the constitu- tion of England and her own. Patrick Henry's Resolutions, and the Declaration of Rio'hts of the Cono-ress of 1765, brought these ideas and convictions, which had been floating to and fro in the popular mind, to a definite shape ; gave them a form which every one could take in at a glance ; expressed them with a distinctness which left no room for misinterpi'etation, and a solemn earnestness which left no doubt of the depth and intensity of the convictions fi'om which they sprang. Henceforward American statesmen had a chart to guide them in the stormy sea upon which they were entering ; a chart whereon many of the shoals, many of the rocks they were to meet, were not set down, but wliich contained, nevertheless, in bold and accurate lines, the course they were to steer, and the haven in which they might hope for rest. Resistance first took the form of retaliation. England attempted to reach the American purse by taxation. America returned the blow by agree- ments of non-importation. England sent out ship- loads of tea subject to the new duty. America refused to receive it. England knew that America PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 57 needed her woollens. America stopped eating Iamb, and ate very little mutton, that she might raise more wool and make woollens of her own. Had England's bitterest enemy dictated her policy at this critical juncture, he could not have pre- scribed a course better adapted to train the Colo- nists to resistance, and familiarize them betimes with the sacrifices which successful resistance re- quired. Events followed rapidly. It soon became evi- dent that force must be employed ; and Boston being the chief sinner, a British garrison was sent to overawe Boston. But all that ministers gained by their garrison was to bring on a collision be- tween the citizens and the soldiers, which embit- tered the public mind, and prepared it for further resistance. The act of indirect taxation — Charles Townshend's act — was modified on commercial principles ; the duties on glass, paper, and painters' colors were repealed ; a small duty on tea alone being left, like the declaratory clause in the repeal of the Stamp Act, to establish the right. Minis- ters could not see that what they were treating as a question of money, America treated as a ques- tion of principle. The tea ships came. Some were sent back with their cargoes. Some were allowed to unload, and the tea stored in cellars and other places, where it presently became worthless from damp. Boston went a step further, and threw it into the bay. Never had King George 3* 58 LECTURE II. been so insulted before ; and, glowing all over with royal indignation, came the Boston Port Bill, and the bill for altering the charter of Massachusetts. But already the minds and hearts of the Colo- nists had been brought into close communication by the estabhshment of Committees of Correspond- ence ; " the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpents that ever issued from the egg of sedition," says a royalist ; "• the great invention for organiz- ing the Revolution," says an historian of the United States ; first organized in Massachusetts in 1764, but not felt in all their strength till their reorganization there in 1772, as a Provin- cial measure,"* and in Virginia in 1773, as a Colo- nial measure. The chain was now complete in all its links. Every pulse-beat of Massachusetts throbbed through the Colonies ; every fiery word of the great orator of Viro-inia was felt from New Hampshire to Georgia ; and every bold resolve, every wise counsel, every budding aspiration, was transmitted from Colony to Colony for examination and approval. Tlie foundations of the Union were laid. The Revolution entered upon its last phase ; and it was henceforth but a question of a year more or a year less, how soon a new Congress * " These last [Committees of Correspondence] were engines which operated with more energy and consistency than any others which were put in motion in the commencement of our opposition : they may be called the corner-stone of our revolu- tion or new empire." — Mr. Dana to Mr. Gerry, Austin's Life of Gerry, Vol L pp. 299, 390. PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 59 sTiould gather up the rich inheritance of the Con- gress of 1765, and declare the independence of the Colonies. We, with the whole of this past before us, with all its scattered elements wrought into an harmoni ous series, can see this necessity plainly enough But it was by no means so easy to see it then Many Americans, who loved their own country de- votedly, still clung with lingering affection to the country of their forefathers ; watching with sad- dened eyes each cherished tie as it snapped asunder, and hoping- in hope's despite that some one among them might yet prove strong enough to liold parent and child together. Of those who thus hoped to the last was Washington himself. It may well be doubted whether reconciliation was any longer pos- sible. Bat the great Congress of 1774 did not doubt it, and gave their hopes utterance in a new memorial and new addresses, which led to no other result than to show how completely they had over- rated the heart of the Kino; and the intelligence of his ministers. Meanwhile, the country was arming. Old soldiers, the veterans of the old French war, furbished up their arms. Young men met to learn the drill and go through their evolutions together. On the 19th of April, 1775, the collision between British soldiers and American citizens, which had already occurred in the streets of New York and Boston, was renewed in the fields of Lexington. Too much blood was shed on that holy 60 LECTURE II. day to be forgotten, either by those who shed it or those who gave it so freely. On the lOtli of May the second Congress met ; and at the dawn of tliat same day, before they were yet organized, Ethan Allen took possession, in their name, of Ticon- deroga, the key of the Canadas. Thirteen anxious months, twenty-fonr feverish days, were yet to pass befoi"e the irrevocable step was taken. But independence had alivady been toreseen as a necessity before it was accepted as a boon ; and when the solemn declaration was sent forth on its errand of justice and meivy, the last lingvring hope of ivconciliation had long been ex- tinguished in the heart of "Washington. The Rev- olution was accomplished ; the AVar of Indepen- dence began. A war which, at tirst, neither party was pre- pared for; of which neither party had compi>?- hended tlie magnitude, nor foreseen the duration. England had nited the courage of the Colonists too low to call out her strength for a serious con- test. America had rated her patriotism too high to take advantage, as she might and ought to have done, of the tirst fervor of popular zeal. Lexing- ton and Bunker Hill taught the English to respect irivgular tivops. But they respected them too much. They taught the Americans to rely upon imdisciplined ardor ; but they carried their reliance too far. In a few months, the men who had for- saken their fields and fiivsides for the camp before PHASES OF THE REVOLUTIOX. 61 Boston forsook tlie camp as tlieir terms of service expired, and tliev began to think liow profitless their fields and lunv lonely their firesides mnst be withoiit them. New men came in ^•erv slowly to take their places, and the work of instrnction and discipline was to be begmi anew at the beginning of each campaign. The first period of the war covers a series of reverses and hnmiliations, imperfectly redeemed by occasional success. Washington was firmly taking his place as the controlling mind ; but there were still some who thought themselves his equiils, and a few who tancied themselves his superiors. The sm'prise of Trenton, the brilliant winter march into the Jerseys, tore away the scales from most eyes. Yet more than one still wilfullv turned away from tlie light ; men who, having read of Caesar and Cromwell, forgot, or failed to see, that America was neither corrupt Rome nor aristocratic England, — that there were neither the elements of a monarchy in her institutions, nor of a usurper in her pure-minded leader. And thus new obsta- cles were wantonly thro"\%Ti in his wav ; even a rival brought forward to divide the public mind, and supplant him, if possible, in the pubhc heart. The spring, summer, and autumn of 1777 were critical moments. England was meditating a fear- ful blow ; nothing less than the severing of the Eastern from the ^liddle States, by seizing the line of the Hudson and opening communication with 62 LECTURE II. Canada by Lake George and Lake Champlain. Burgojne was coming down, with his English and German veterans, and their Indian alhes. Howe was going up, with his ships on the river, and his troops on its banks. Severed from her Southern sisters, would New England have fallen ? Cut off from New England, "with their principal city al- ready in the hands of the enemy, their second city defenceless, and their long seaboard exposed to hourly invasion, could the Middle and Southern States have persevered ? Thank God, we need not seek to penetrate these recesses of a once possible future. It is enough for us to know that His mercy spared us the trial, and averted the blow when it seemed to be already descending upon otir heads. We now know by what human ministry it was done. We now know that Charles Lee, then a prisoner in New York, brooding over the failure of his own schemes of selfish aggrandizement, pre- pared for the Howes a plan of operations in the South, which, if vigorously carried out, would have been no less fatal to our cause than the invasion that was threatening us from the North. We know that the English General, without accepting it in its full extent, accepted it so far as to re- nounce his plan of co-operation with Bm'goyne, and turn his arms against Philadelphia. Thus Schuy- ler was left free to heap up obstacle upon obstacle in the path of Burgoyne, and Gates to reap the finiit of Schuyler's labors. PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 63 This, too, was the time when Washington's per- sonal enemies were busiest and fullest of hope ; when his prudence was condemned as sloth, his caution as irresolution ; when his wisest measures were mis- represented, and failures, which he had not the means to prevent, boldly laid to his charge, be- cause it was well known that he would never re- veal the secret of his country's weakness to his country's enemies in order to shield himself from the calumnies of his own. And thus, through cal- umny and reproach, the great, good man went firmly forward in the path of duty, and cast the bold attack of Germantown into the scale which, turning wholly towards us by the capitulation of Saratoga, gave us the long-coveted alliance with France. From that time, Washington's superiority Avas scarcely disputed. He became the representative of the Revolution ; towering above all others in America, as Franklin towered above all others in Europe. The army looked up to him with rever- ence, warmed by love. Citizens acknowledged that his virtue was as exalted as his wisdom. And Congress, which — no longer the Congress of the "Declaration" — had lost much of its hold upon the public mind, was mainly indebted to the re- spectful deference with which he continued to treat it, for that portion of public confidence which it still retained. The autumn of 1777 and the winter that fol- 64 LECTURE 11. lowed it were the turning points in the war. The establishment of Washington's supremacy gave a more decided character of unity to our civil as well as to our mihtary councils. The moral effect of the military successes of the autumn was confirmed by the introduction of a miiform system of disci- plme and manoeuvre, under the direction of Baron Steuben. And Congress had formed the plan of a general government under the title of Confedera- tion, wliich, with all its imperfections, corrected some mistakes, supplied some deficiencies, and pos- sessed some of the elements of legislative strength. As we look back upon these events fi'om our present point of view, with the results as well as the causes before us, it is difficult for us to un- derstand how anybody could still have doubted the success of the Americans. They had a skil- ful leader ; they had a powerful ally ; they had the early hope of an organized government; they had resources which industry, judiciously directed, would soon multiply many fold. But to their eyes the horizon was still dark with many clouds. Their army was half clad, imperfectly equipped, badly fed, inadequately paid ; their agriculture was ex- posed to the inroads of the enemy, their commerce to the enemy's cruisers ; their credit, already low, was daily sinking lower ; their currency was chief- ly a depreciated and depreciating paper ; and even of that there was not enough to meet the daily de- mands of the civil and military service. We won- PHASES OF THE REVOLUTION. 65 der less that some should have doubted, than that so many should have continued to hope. Month after month wore slowly away. Campaign fol- lowed campaign, with a loss here and a gain there, a small victory to-day, a small defeat to-morrow ; things little changed in the North, but the South nearly lost ; and thus we reach the winter of 1780-81. Then began the brilliant period of the war : first, that brilliant campaign of a Northern general in the Carolinas, — a campaign in which skill sup- plied the place of strength, judgment and energy created resources, and a leader, who never won a decisive victory, never fought a battle by which he did not compel his enemy to retreat. Thus Guil- ford drove Cornwallis back upon Wilnungton; Hobkirk's Hill compelled Lord Rawdon to evacu- ate Camden ; the repulse before " Ninety-six " was followed by the immediate withdrawal of the Brit- ish garrison ; and Eutaw sent the British army, in swift retreat, upon Charleston. The year which, in Carolina, had opened so auspiciously for the British arms, left them nothing at its close but an insecure foothold on a narrow strip of coast. Equally rapid and equally fatal to their hopes was the progress of the campaign in Virginia. First Arnold's invasion ; then Cornwallis's ; and opposed to them, Lafayette and Steuben, — the gay young representative of France, and the gallant German who had followed Frederic through the 6G LECTURE 11. Seven Years' War ; and last, that miraculous march of the whole Northern army upon Yorktown ; so boldly conceived, so judiciously planned, so skilful- ly executed, so wonderfully concealed, while con- cealment was necessary, and which burst at last upon the astonished enemy like a thunder-storm at midnight, when the peal and the flash are the first that men know of its approach. And making possible this triumph of the sword, the appointment of Robert Morris as financier, who saved his country from bankruptcy, and barely es- caped dying in the debtor's prison. The infatuation of the King;, the intrioues of placemen and men who wanted places, protracted the war through another year; adding a few rills to the torrents of blood that had already been shed, a few broken hearts to the hearts that had already been broken ; but independence was secure, and the Peace that was formally signed in Paris in 1783 had been virtually signed in 1781, on the plains of Carolina and in the trenches of Yorktown. LECTURE III. THE CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. WE have followed tlie Revolution thi'ougli all its phases, from the sowing of the seed to the gathering in of the abundant harvest. We have seen that it began with the Navigation Act of 1660 ; that it worked slowly and surely, silently too for the most part, though not without occasional indi- cations of its progress, till the Congress of 1754 ; that it received a new impulse from the old French war; and thenceforward, with the mind of New England prepared for the reception of its doctrines by the contest between monopoly and free labor, more persistently waged there than in the sister Colonies, it broke out in legal resistance to the writs of assistance, in forcible resistance to the Stamp Act, and, spreading through the whole country, re- ceived a definite direction from the Congress of 1765 ; an effective organization in the Committees of Correspondence ; deliberate expression in the tea-question ; and a natural termination in the Declaration of Independence. We have traced the war rapidly from the camp 68 LECTURE III. before Boston to the French alHance, and the gen- eral acceptance of the supremacy of Washing- ton, — its period of real doubt and real uncertamty, though not the period of greatest suffering, nor, except for a few weeks, of deepest depression ; and thence to the immortal campaign of 1781 and the peace of 1783. In going over a subject of such extent, I have necessarily taken many things for granted ; have often been compelled to trust to your pre\'ious reading for my justilication, and may sometimes have appeared obscure where I studied to be con- cise. I foresee the same difficulty, though not to the same degree, in the remainder of our course. Our subject this evening is the Congress of the Revolution ; and by tlie Revolution, as you have already seen, I mean not only the War of Inde- pendence, but the change of public sentiment, the alteration in the relations between England and the Colonies, which produced that war. In both of these, Congress bore an important part. The first Congress, as well as the first essay of union, belong to early colonial history. The first union, as I have already said, was that of New Euiiland in 1643. The first Cono-ress Avas that of New York, in 1690. The suggestion came from Massachusetts, and the place first indicated for the meetino; was Rhode Island. But this was subse- quently changed to New York ; and there, upon a call of the General Court of Massachusetts by CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 69 circular letters, delegates from Massachusetts, Ply- mouth, Connecticut, and New York met to pre- pare a plan of concerted action for the invasion of Canada. And it is worthy of remark that the Massachusetts government, which made the call, was the government which sprang up between the overthow of Andros and the arrival of the new charter, and in which the popular element was more fi'eely mingled ; and the New York govern- ment which accepted it was the government of Leisler, which sprang directly from an uprising of the people. Thus the earliest utterance of the peoj)le's voice was a call for union. Far more important, however, was the Albany Congress of 1754. Seven Colonies, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the four Colonies of New England, stronger by the growth, wiser by the experience of another half-century, met in Congress, ostensibly to renew the treaty with the Six Nations, really, to take counsel together about a plan of union and confederacy. In feeling, Vir- ginia was witli them also ; but the quarrel between her Governor and House of Burgesses rendered it impossible for her to send a legal delegation. The delegates from Massachusetts came with authority to enter at once upon the true subject, and pledge her to the union ; for already the Board of Trade had inclined its ears to the suggestions of the royal Governors ; and salaries, pensions, and sinecures, for wliich nothing but taxation could have supplied 70 LECTURE III. the means, floated in dazzling visions before the eyes of placemen and courtiers. No one doubted the importance of union, — the necessity of concerted action. War was at the door ; war on the sea-board ; war all along their northern and their western frontier. They had men and they had money ; but without union nei- ther their men nor their money could be made subservient to the common welfare. On the 19th of June the delegates met, twenty- five in all, — local celebrities of their day and gen- eration, — earnest and thoughtful men. But wisest of them all, and with a wisdom not of his day and generation alone, but of all ages, that son of a Bos- ton soap-boiler, who was born in ]\:lilk Street, and whose serene face looks down upon us, lifehke, in Greenough's bronze, as we go through School Street. It was impossible that what concerned the welfare of the Colonies so nearly should escape the keen eye of Benjamin Franklin. He had thought of it, indeed, long and deeply and wisely, as was his wont ; drawing, perhaps, some ideas from Penn's plan of 1697, and Coxe's Corolana, first published in 1722, and republished in 1741. But whatever entered his plastic mind came out again with that mind's impress upon it ; and one of the characteristics of that mind was its power of com- jireliendiiig present w^ants, and of meeting them, not by palliatives, but by remedies. A judicious employment of the resources of the Colonies for CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 71 the protection of the Colonies, was the want ; un- ion the remedy. This all saw, all felt. But the conditions under which that remedy could best be applied were imperfectly seen and understood, both in England and in America. Franklin, who cheerfully set his name to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, had no- thought of asking for independence in 1754. That it must some day come, that such Colonies would sooner or later erow bevond the control of a small and distant island, he saw plainly ; — saw it as the historian Robertson saw it, and wished to put the evil day far off; — as the father of political econo- my saw it, and felt that both mother and daughter would gain by it. But he felt that the hour was not yet come, and that the truest-hearted Ameri- can miji'ht still be both loyal to Enjiland and faith- ful to the best interests of America. Therefore the Union that he asked for was a Union in honorable subjection to the crown, leav- ing the royal prerogative untouched, while it put the rights of the Colonies beyond the reach of fui'- ther aggression, — a Union which, leaving to Eng- land an indefinite enjoyment of her supremacy, should accustom the Colonies to concerted action and collective growth, and thus slowly prepare the way for the inevitable hourof separation. But the Provincial Assemblies, to whom, after its acceptance by the Congress, it was referred for approval, condemned it as having " too much of 72 LECTURE III. the prerogative in it" ; while it was condemned in Enijland as havins: " too much of the democratic." And therefore, thought Franklin, when he came to look back upon it from a distance of thirty years, " it was not far from right." The immediate object fiiled ; union was not reached ; but men from different Provinces, men who had never met before, had passed whole days together talking over their common mtercsts and common desires ; saying, perhaps, little about rights, for they were not yet prepared to sa}^ all that they felt about wrongs, but di-awing confi- dence from the communication of hopes, and strength from the interchange of opinions. Un- ion thenceforward became an avowed aspiration, a definite subject of thought, and, as a fact, nearer by half a century than it was before the Congress of Albany met. The next Congress was that of 1765 ; still with Massachusetts for suggester, and New York — not merely the Province this time, but the city itself — for place of meeting. Other actors were now on the stage, with other questions before them ; other ene- mies at the door, to be met on the thifshold and alone. The Massachusetts House of Representa- tives, deliberating in their June session upon the impending Stamp Act, resolved to ask counsel and aid of their sister Colonies ; and in their name, their Speaker, Samuel White, addressed a circular letter to the several assemblies, inviting them " to CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 73 appoint committees to meet in tlie city of New York, on the first Tuesday in October next, to consult together on the present circumstances of the Colonies, and the difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of the acts of Parliament for levying duties on the Colonies, and to consider of a general and united, dutiful, - loyal, and humble representation of their condition to his Majesty and the Parliament, and to implore relief." Eight Colonies answered the call. In Virginia and North Carolina the Assemblies were not in session, and delegates could not be appoint- ed without their authorization. Georgia gave in her adherence through the Speaker of her Assem- bly, but was prevented by her Governor from send- ing delegates. In New Hampshire there was a strong liberal party, but not yet a strong enough one to hazard so decisive a step. On Monday the 7th of October, the delegates met, — twenty-seven men from nine Colonies, the chosen representatives of the representatives of the people, brought together by an imperious neces- sity, with no recognized place in the constitution, and no authority but such as their prudence and their wisdom might give them. Their object was definite, their purpose clearly set forth in the cir- cular letter of the Massachusetts Assembly: they came to consult with each other about their com- mon dangers, and to implore relief of their com- mon sovereign. 4 74 [LECTURE III. If we would fonn a just estimate of the impor- tance of this Congress, we must go back to 1765 ; we must rub out all the railroads from our maps ; we must imagine sloops instead of steamboats on Narragansctt Bay, and Long Island Sound, and the broad bosom of the Hudson ; we must see them lying at anchor close under the shore, wait- ins: for the tide to turn before they vcntui-e to fiice the terrors of Hell-Gate or the perils of the High- lands ; we must look on that Jersey shore, which six ferry-boats an hour have made a part of New York city, as separated from it by a body of deep and rapid water, which turned woman's cheek pale and often made stout men hesitate ; we must see a weekly mail slowly creeping along roads, which, none too good even in summer, in winter were often impassable ; we must remember that men had not yet got over wondering that electricity and lightning were the same thing, — that even the wooden telegraph was not yet invented, — and that people, in great emergencies, talked from a dis- tance by beacon fires, and sent expresses which made folks stare when, by killing a horse or two, they succeeded in conveying in twenty-four hours intellio-ence that we can send alono; the wires in half a minute. We must recall all this, if we would understand how those twenty-seven men felt when they found themselves in the streets of the New York of those days, a busy, bustling town, lying comfortably be- CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 75 low the Park, with Wall Street for the seat of fashion, and no crowd to prevent strange faces from becoming immediate objects of attention. Then James Otis first took John Dickinson by the hand ; the fiery denunciator of the writs of assist- ance grasping close and binding himself by such firm links to the polished reasoner of the Farm- er's Letters, that forty years later, long, long after that spirit which shone so brightly in the opening scenes of the Revolution had passed, through madness, to the grave, the gentler-souled Pennsylvanian still loved to dwell on these days as a pleasing recollection, and " soothe his mind " on the brink of his own grave by bearing " pure testimony " to the worth of his departed friend. Then Lynch and Gadsden and John Rutledge of South Carolina first sat on the same bench with Thomas McKean and Cesar Rodney of the counties that were to become Delaware, and Philip Livingston of New York, and Dyer of Con- necticut, to compare feelings and wishes, as, ten years later, Avhen the horizon, now so dark, was al- ready glowing with the swift a])proach of day, they were to meet and compare them again. If the Congress of '65 had done nothing more than bring such men together, it would still have rendered in- estimable service to the common cause. But it did far more. They met to petition for relief, and they did pe- tition ; but in language so firm, with such a strong 76 LECTURE III. sense of their rights, such a perfect understanding of their position, sucli a clear perception of their claim to be heard, for England's sake as well as their own, that their petition became a manifesto. They reminded the King that they had grown up under governments of their OAvn, governments framed in the spirit of the English constitution; that nurtured by this spirit, and freely spending their blood and treasure, they had added vast domains to the British empire ; that they held their connection with Great Britain to be their greatest happiness ; but that liberty and justice were the best means of preserving that connection, and that the public faith was pledged for the pres- ervation of their rights. Seldom have such mo- mentous truths been compressed within so narrow a compass as the paragraph in which they remon- strate against the Stamp Act and Admiralty Act, contrasting, with a skill the ablest rhetorician might have envied, the advantages which England might draw from her Colonies properly governed, with the loss she would incur by governing them as Parliament had undertaken to govern them ; and characterizing the assumption by the House of Commons " of the right to dispose of the property of their fellow-citizens in America without their consent," in a few grave words whose very calm- ness gives them all the bitterness of satii'e, and which furnished Chatham with the substance of one of his most striking bursts of eloquence. Sim- CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 77 pie, earnest, and almost pathetic in the close, they appeal to the King's paternal love and benevolent desires for the ha])piness of all his people, and invoke his interposition for their relief. That George the Third should have read this petition unni()vt'(l sliows how partially they had judged the royal heart, and how imperfectly he had read the heart of the people. The substance of the memorial to the House of Lords is the same as that of the petition to the King ; the language equally sober and simple, but the tone somewhat more elevated, as became the subjects of a constitutional monarchy in addressing their fellow-subjects. In the petition to the Com- mons they enter more fully into the various bear- ings of the question, and with a passage or two which, with a very little emphasis on prominent words, would sound wonderfully like deliberate irony. Both in the petition and the memorial they ask to be heard by counsel. This much for King and Parliament. For the people, telling the English people what they must be prepared to grant and the American people what they must be prepared to assert and defend, they sent foi-th a declaration of rights and griev- ances in thirteen clauses, claiming the right of taxing themselves, either personally or by repre- sentatives of their own choosing, the right of trial by jury, and the right of petition. Each clause forms part of a continuous chain ; each leads to the 78 LECTURE III. other as its logical conclusion ; there is not a clause too much, not a word too much. Never had state papers spoken a language more decent, more direct, more firm, — freer from conventional forms, profes- sional subtleties, and rhetorical embellishment. And having done this, the Congress dissolved. The members returned to their homes with minds and hearts strengthened by common deliberations and common labor ; with a better knowledge than they had ever had before of the wishes and feel- ings of their fellow-Colonists, for it was the result of personal intercourse ; and a firmer resolution to stand by each other in the impending contest, for they had thrown down the gauntlet together, and pledged themselves to abide the issue. And now comes the Congress of 1774, the first Continental Congress, not merely to tell England wherein America felt herself wronged, but to tell America what it behooved her to do in order to obtain redress for her wrongs. So strong a hold had the idea of Congress and Union taken of the general mind, that the call came almost simultane- ously from different Provinces ; Virginia, Pennsyl- vania, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Mas- sachusetts, taking up the subject within a few days of each other, and acting with a unanimity which, if statesmen had been at the head of affliirs in England, would have been accepted as proof that forbearance was fast yielding to indignation. Rhode Island went even a step beyond her sisters, assert- CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 79 ing the necessity of a firm and inviolable Union of all the Colonies in counsels and measures foi the pi'eservation of their rights and liberties, and proposing annual meetings of Congress as a means of enforcing it. Nor was the idea of a Congress confined to Americans at home, living and acting under the immediate influence of the feelings and passions of the hour. Americans abroad saw the necessity of it, and already, as early as the 2d of April, Arthur Lee had urged it in a letter from London to his brother in Virginia. Thus, under auspicious influences, and at a mo- ment that called for such a measure of prudence, forecast, firmness, and self-control as has rarely been granted to mortals, did these great men come to- gether. Of their deliberations and individual opinions, we unfortunately know little. They dehberated with closed doors, and, passing over processes, published only results. There was no gallery of watchful reporters there, to catch every burning word that fell from the lips of Henry, or Adams, or Lee; to tell how cunningly Joseph Galloway strove to mould them to his will ; how restless John Adams grew under the sober reasonings of John Dickinson ; how George Washington sat, thought- ful, grave, calmly biding his time, prepared for remonstrance, for resistance, for everything but the splendor of his own immortality. We know that there were many doubts, many hesitations, many 80 LECTURE III. waiin discussions ; but we know also that the spirit of an exalted patriotism prevailed over them all, and that Avhen at last their voice was heard it came forth as the utterance of a calm, deep- rooted, and unanimous conviction. It was Monday morning on the 5th of Septem- ber that they first met in Carpenter's Hall, Phil- adelphia ; forty-four at the opening, soon to be fifty-two when all the delegates were come in. Like the Congress of 1765, they were still a body unknown to the constitution, and depending solely upon the wisdom of their acts for the confirmation of them. Part of them had been appointed by their Provincial Assemblies, part by County Commit- tees, part by Committees of Correspondence; — a diversity of origin characteristic of the times — for the royal Governors and the Provincial Assemblies were necessarily at variance upon these grave ques- tions — and illustrative also of the readiness with which the people applied the forms of government to measures which government refused to sanction. Familiar with legislation, they proceeded at once to organize ; complimenting, on the motion of Lynch of South Carolina, the first official appear- ance of the powex'ful Colony of Virginia among her sisters, by making Peyton Randolph their President ; complimenting Pennsylvania, by choos- ing for Secretary Charles Thompson, formerly a schoolmaster, now a rich man by marriage, — thin, wrinkled, with deep-set, sparkling eyes, and CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 81 straight, gray hair, not long enough to reach his ears, — "the Hfe of the cause of hberty," Phila- delphians said, and Avhose name, in his own firm, clear hand, looks so familiar, even at this distance of almost a hundred years. Thus far all ran smoothly, although there had been a slight hesitation about the Secretary on the part of two New-Yorkers, Jay and Duane. But now came the fiery ordeal, for, as they proceeded to make their rules, the question, " How shall we vote ? " met them full in the foce. There was no avoiding it, no putting it off; for it contained the fundamental principle of their Union, of all unions of unequal elements, — how to jireserve the rights of the smaller members without encroaching upon those of the larger members. " Government is dissolved," said Patrick Henry, in those tones which had often thrilled the Vir- ginia Burgesses. " Where are your landmarks, your boundaries of Colonies ? We are in a state of nature, sir. The distinctions between Virgini- ans, Pennsylvanians, New-Yorkers, and New-Eng- landers are no more. I am not a Viro-inian, but an American ! " And renouncino; his first intention of insisting upon a vote by numbers, he declared himself ready to submit, if overruled, and give all the satisfaction in his power. Others, too, had their opinions, — the result of long and earnest meditation ; but they knew how to distinguish be- tween the surrender of a principle and the post- 4* F 82 LECTURE III. ponement of a discussion ; and, making an entry on their journal that the rule was not to be drawn into precedent, they agreed to vote by Colonies, and give each Colony an equal vote. Then Gushing of Massachusetts moved that Congress should be opened by prayer ; and when Jay and Rutledge opposed it, because " they were too much divided in religious sentiment to unite in one form of prayer," the Congregationalist Samuel Adams arose, and, saying that piety, virtue, and love of covmtry were his only tests, moved that the Episcopalian Duch^ should be asked to read prayers the next morning according to the Episco- pal form. And when morning came, Duche, ar- rayed in his canonical robes, was introduced to the assembly ; and read the solemn morning service of the Church, while his clerk gave the responses, and Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Congregationalists, and Quakers, some kneeling, and some standing up, but all mingled and confounded together, lis- tened with decent reverence. When he came to the psalm of the day, the thirty-fifth psalm, David's heart-cry to God for deliverance from his enemies, a sudden thrill went through the assembly ; for they called to mind the tidings which had reached them the day before, that the British troops were firing upon Boston, and felt as if God's own finger had pointed out to them the appropriate language of supplication. Then, too, a sudden inspiration warmed the timid heart of the clergyman, and, CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 83 closing his prayer-book, he broke forth into an ex- temporaneous prayer for Congress, for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and especially for the poor devoted town of Boston ; and in words so earnest, in such thrilling and pathetic tones, that every heart was stirred, and every eye was wet. The appointment of the committees followed next ; one composed of two delegates from each Province, to draft a Bill of Rights ; and another of one delegate from each Province, to report upon the statutes that affected the trade and manufac- tures of the Colonies. A great concession had already been made by the larger Colonies, and now, as they met with equal voices upon the com- mon ground which they had made for themselves, all knew that in the question before them all other questions were involved. For the enumeration of their rights was the proclamation of their wrongs ; and great was the need of Aveighing well their words, and making their foundations sure. Hard- est of all was the part of the delegates from Mas- sachusetts. The sympathy with Boston was uni- versal. Their journey to Philadelphia had seemed more like a royal progress than the journey of the representatives of an oppressed people going to ask for sympathy and succor. Committees from the principal towns met them on their way, and their entrance was hailed by the ringing of bells and firing of cannon. They were invited to lodge in private houses, and feasted with the fat of the land. 84 LECTURE III. But as they drew nigh to their journey's end, they were admonished that doubts of their intentions had gone before them, that they were accused of aiming directly at independence, and that their words would be weighed in a nicer bakmce than the words of those who had suffered less. Then John Adams reined in his fiery spirit, and Samuel Adams, constrainiuo- his nature, was content for a while to follow where he had been accustomed to lead. But fortunately there were other men there pre- pared to go resolutely forward, and without at- tempting to deceive themselves as to whither the path might lead them. " Our rights are built on a fourfold foundation," said Richard Henry Lee ; " on nature, on tlic British Constitution, on char- ters, and on immemorial usage. The Navigation Act is a capital violation of them "; and he could not see Avhy they should not lay their rights on the broadest bottom, — the law of nature. " There is no allegiance without protection ! " said John Jay, " and emigrants have a right to erect what government they please. I have always withheld my assent from the position tliat every man dis- covering land does it for the state to which he be- longs." " The Colonies," said Roger Sherman, " ai'e not bound to the King or crown by the act of set- tlement, but by their consent to it. There is no otlier legislature over them but their respective as- CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 85 semblies. They adopt the common law, not as the common law, but as the highest reason." But Rutledjio thouo;ht that the British constltu- tion gave them a sufficient foundation ; and Duane, that the law of nature would be a feeble support. Joseph Galloway talked learnedly of Greece and Rome, of Saxons and Normans, and tried to look bold as he said : " I have ever thought we might reduce our rights to one, an exemption from all laws made by British Parliament since the emigra- tion of our ancestors. It follows, therefore, that all the acts made since are violations of our rights." Adding, — and how his cheeks must have burned as he said it, — "I am well aware that my remarks tend to independency." "A most ingenious, interesting debate," wrote John Adams in his diary on the evening of the first day. But he soon grew anxious for a conclu- sion ; which, however, was not reached till after many discussions, and in the form of a partial com- promise. Still, the great end was attained. The men of twelve Colonies — Georgia was not rep- resented in this Congress — had talked together freely about their obligations and their rights ; had brought their duties as subjects to the standard of their rights as men ; had counted, one by one, the links in the chain of their allegiance, and found that it did not reach far enough to make them slaves. There was :>ne grave moment in the general de- 86 LECTURE UL bate, — the moment wlien Joseph Galloway intro- duced his insidious plan for a union between Great Britain and the Colonies ; a plan so specious and so ingeniously defended, that even the clear-headed Jay was " led to adopt it," and that upon the final trial it failed by only one vote, — but a plan which, like all temporizing with principle, would have merely })ut off upon the children the work that Heaven had appointed for the fathers ; and what such puttings-off lead to, we, not as the children of those brave men of 1776, but as the heirs of the first generation of compromisers, have seen and felt, — have seen with eyes dimmed by tears that will not be stayed, have felt with hearts that can- not be comforted. God forbid that we should en- tail the curse upon future generations! By the 26th of October their work was completed. They had prepared a Bill of Rights, and an enu- meration of the acts whereby those rights had been violated. They had prepared an address to the King, an address to the people of Great Britain, a memorial to the inhabitants of the British Prov- inces, an address to the inhabitants of the Prov- ince of Quebec, and an association for non-impor- tation. The Bill of Rights, covering the same ground with the Bill of Rights of the first Congress, starts from a higher point, the imnuitable laws of nature, and shows, by its fuller development of the princi- ples common to both, that the seed sown in 1765 CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 87 had not fallen on stony ground. Nothing could be firmer, more manly, or more explicit, than the language of the addresses and memorials ; dutiful, respectful, solemnly earnest, to the King; clear, firm, direct, with a mixture of grave exhortation and sober remonstrance, to their fellow-subjects. " When your Lordships look at the papers trans- mitted to us from America," said Lord Chatham in one of those attempts to awaken his colleagues to a sense of their injustice, which have made his name so dear to Americans, " when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect the cause and wish to make it your own." The agreement of non-importation, non- exportation, and non-consumption was the same in principle with that which had been tried so suc- cessfully against the Stamp Act ; although it had proved ineffectual against the later encroachments of England. Like the question of voting, it was a severe test of the sincerity of the desire for union. But many looked to it with full confidence ; and with an exception in favor of rice, to propitiate South Carolina, it received the official signature of every member. " Negotiation, suspension of com- merce, and war, are the only three things," said John Jay. "War is, by general consent, to be waived at present. I am for negotiation and sus- pension of commerce." Then, having also taken care to recommend the calling of a second Congress, the First Continental 88 LECTURE III. Congress dissolved, and John Dickinson could con- gratulate Josiali Quincy on the hearty union of all America, from Nova Scotia to Georgia, in the common cause. And when the report of their pro- ceedings reached London, Josiah Quincy wrote to his friends : " Permit me to congratulate my coun- tx'ymen upon the integrity and wisdom with which the Congress have conducted. Their policy, spirit, and union have confounded their foes and inspired their friends." To crown the triumph of patriotism, it was known that large sums had been sent to New York to bribe the delegates ; that this infamous attempt at corruption was openly avowed and vindicated ; and that the partisans of the ministers had boasted loudly of their success. But how did calm and thoughtful men feel as they endeavored to look into the fiiture ? how did John Dickinson feel, that sober-minded, sincere, but not sanguine man, who had done so much to- wards diffusing correct opinions upon the question of taxation by Parliament ? "I wish for peace ardently," said he, " but must say, delightful as it is, it will come more grateful by being unexpect- ed. The Colonists have now taken such ground? that Great Britain must i-elax, or inevitably involve herself in a civil war." Some hoped that she would relax. " Conviction," wrote James Level, " must be the consequence of a bare admission of light." CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 89 It was soon seen that light was not to reach the eyes of the King, nor to be permitted to reach the ejes of the people ; and therefore, on the 10th of May, 1775, a new Congress convened. Already the battle of Lexington had been fought ; already an indignant yeomanry had gathered to the siege of the British army in Boston ; already defences were risino;, men were enrollins; throughout the land. Twice had the representatives of the people come together to remonstrate and petition, to appeal to the reason of their fellow-subjects, and invoke the protection of their King. They now met for ac- tion ; to appeal, if needs be, to the sword, and invoke the protection of their God. Independence lay in their path, and, thick set as that path was with obstacles and dangers, they were not the men to falter or turn aside when the only alternative was slavery. This time they assembled, not in Carpenter's Hall, the gathering-place of a private association, but, as beseemed the acknowledged representa- tives of a great people, in the State-House, in that fine old hall which Philadelphia, with a wise grat- itude, has carefully preserved from desecration ; to which the chairs and tables which they used have been brought back with pious care, and on whose walls, thick-clustering with holy associations, hang the portraits of the founders of our Union, — of the men who, by the great things which they did there, and the wise things that they said there, have 90 LECTURE III. made it a temple on whose altars the profoundest statesman may humbly lay down his laurels, and from whose oracles faltering patriots may learn to put their trust in God. It is impossible to conceive a situation more be- set witli dilhculties, a path more absolutely hedged in with thorns and bi'iers, than that of the Congress which met in riiiladelphia on the 10th of May, 1775, and proclaimed the birth of a new nation on the 4th of July, 1776. Builders like to begin on clear ground, where they can see their way from the first, lay their foundations surely, and put ev- ery stone in its place, from the corner-stone to the key-stone of the arch. But our builders found themselves in the midst of ruins ; and it was only by a careful clearing away of the rubbish that they could roach those solid I'oundations which still lay unimpaired under the dust and fragments of a tran- sient superstructure. Out of the ruins of royal and parliamentary authority they had to frame a supreme legislature ; in place of that dependence upon England which had so long bound them to the fortunes of a single country, they had alliances to form wherever their interests required it. The Act of Navigation was to be thrown aside, and their ports opened to all comers. To protect the com- merce which they hoped soon to see growing rap- idly up imder auspicious influences, they had to build, arm, and man a navy, and provide for its support ; and to protect themselves, to protect their CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 91 cities and their fiirms, from the wanton violence of a ruthless soldiery, they had to organize an army, and place at its head a man who cotild guide and control its energy without abusing their confi- dence. And all this had to be done by general consent, in spite of open and covert opposition, with a powerful enemy all ready to crush them, and an insidious enemy constantly on the watch to turn against them every error of haste, or im- providence, or oversight. When they first met, fresh from the people, and with vivid recollections of Avhat their own eyes had seen in their own homes, there was an ajipearance of harmony among them which promised firm, prom})t, and united action. But every act on their part was a step towards independence. Which- ever way tliey turned, independence still seemed to meet them at the end of the path. Every road led equally to it. It formed a part of every ques- tion, entered directly or indirectly, either as a prin- ciple or as an illustration, into every discussion, warming some minds with visions of wealth, and power, and glory, and striking terror into others by images of confiscation and the scaffold. Some would have begun by assuming all the powers of government, and proceeded at once to open their ports, organize an army, build a navy, prepare themselves to meet the enemy at every point, and thus discuss the question of reconcilia- tion with arms in their hands. Others were will- 92 LECTURE III. ing to arm in order to repel aggression, but they would have carefully avoided every act and every expression which wore the appearance of an inten- tion to change self-defence into attack. Many still continued to flatter themselves with the same hopes by which they had already been so often de- luded. They hoped that the King would relent. They hoped that the English people would rise against an oppressive ministry. They hoped that there mio;ht still be streno-th enoufrli in the ties of blood, intelligence enough in the instinct of in- terest, to bring them all once more together as the children of comnu)n ancestors, and members of one great and glorious association. These hopes were continually fanned by the par- tisans of England, — ever ready with pretexts and excuses, skilled in all the dangerous arts of retard- ment, knowing well Avhen to promise and when to threaten. Of especial use to them were the tidings of the appointment of English commission- ers, who were speedily to come with an olive- branch in their hands, heal all dissensions, and reinstate the colonies in all their rights. And this gave to the councils of Congress an appearance of fluctuation which was attended Avith serious inconveniences. " One day," wrote Sam- uel Ward, one of the calmest and wisest among them, " measures for carrying on the war were adopted; the next, nothing must be done which would widen the unhappy breach between Great CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 93 Britain and the Colonics." Some were seen to turn pale when John Adams, carried away by his ardent temperament and deep convictions, pro- posed measui'es that would have brought things to an immediate crisis. How could it be otherwise with the question of trade before them? for in this question more than in any other were comprehended the question of Independence, and the question of that Union without which independence could neither be won nor worth the winning. To throw open their ports to other nations was to annul the Act of Naviga- tion, a step little short of a declaration of inde- pendence, and which must be promptly followed by the organization of State governments and of a central government. John Adams saw this, and urged it expressly with tliis view. His opponents saw it, and resisted it with equal persistency. Then, too, men were far from seeing clearly into the economical principles involved in the regula- tion of trade. The father of political economy had just put the manuscript of his great work into the hands of the printer, and truths which he has made familiar to school-boys had not yet dawned upon the minds of statesmen. " We ought," said Lee, " to stop our own ex- ports, and invite foreign nations to come and export for us. The provisions of America are needed, and foreigners must come for them." But Wil- ling, a Philadelphia merchant, could not be for in- 94 LECTURE III. viting foreigners to become their carriers. " Car- riage is an amazing revenue. Holland and England have derived their maritime power from it." Liv- ingston, from commercial New York, was for doing away with the non-exportation agreement entirely, except in the articles of lumber and tobacco. Chase was sure that the nation must soon grow rich which exports more than it imports. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina w^as equally sure that men could be taken from the plough and engaged in man- ufactures. The Swiss Zubly, who represented Georgia, and who, as he said, having been famil- iar with a republican government ever since he was six years old, knew that it was little better than a " government of devils," was " for using American virtue as sparingly as possible lest they should wear it out." Livingston's proposition to except lumber and tobacco — the chief staples of three important Colonies — was met by the assertion that it would lead to disunion. Gads- den was for confining the question to one point, — "Shall we shut up our ports and be all on a footing ? Mankind act by their feelings ; distinc- tions will divide us ; one Colony will be jealous of another." Equally embarrassing Avas the question started by the proposal to recommend to the Provincial governments " to arrest and secm'e every person in then' respective Colonies whose going at large might, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the Colony, or the liberties of America." CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 95 This was war indeed. Could it be done ? "Was the time for such a step yet come ? Johnson of Virginia confessed that he " saw less and less pros- pect of a reconciliation each day ; still he would not render it impossible." The assistance of France and Spain was mentioned. Zubly fired up : " Some men were for breaking off with Great Britain ; men who should propose to his constitu- ents to apply to France and Spain, would be torn in pieces like De Witt." Rhode Island, which from the beginning had looked upon prompt action as the wisest course, de- liberately threw another apple of discord into the assembly ; nothing less than a proposition to build a navy. It was received almost with derision. Nobody out of the little phalanx of far-seeing and resolute men, who felt too sure of the future to hes- itate about the present, would hsten to it. A few were for taking it into consideration as a mark of re- spect to an independent Province, and then killing it with parliamentary decency. It was put off, by resolve, fr^om week to week, with a fatal loss of time in the actual condition of our military sup- plies, which could come only by sea. At last, a committee was appointed, and out of the delibera- tions of that committee grew our glorious Ameri- can navy, the protector of our commerce, the de- fender of our flag, the best mediator in our differ- ences with foreign powers, the sight of whose frowning batteries on a distant coast fills the heart 96 LECTURE III. of the American traveller with such emotions of confidence and pride, — so honorable, throughout the whole course of its history, to our skill, our enterprise, our daring, to everything but our gratitude. There was less difficulty in agreeing upon meas- ures for the encouragement of manufactures, ag- riculture, the arts and sciences ; and no serious difficulty, as far as the records show, in forming boards for the administration of the different de- partments. But should they again petition the King, whom they had already petitioned in vain ? Even this was conceded to the timid, to John Dickinson more especially, whose fluent pen was employed in repeating the thrice-told tale. And the American olive-branch, America's last appeal to the royal heart, was intrusted to John Penn, a grandson of the founder of Pennsylvania. Thus slowly and cautiously they moved, but still onward. And before many months were passed, they had assumed full authority, executive, legisla- tive, and in some instances even judicial. They had solemnly laid at England's door the guilt of the first bloodshed. They had met the royal proclamation of the 23d of August, declar- ing them rebels, and threatening them with the punishment of rebels, by an indignant denial of the accusation, and a bold resolve to meet the punishment by retaliation. They had formed a CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 97 committee for corresponding with their friends in Europe, and sent Silas Deane to open negotiations for obtaining supplies of arms from France, and preparing the way for commercial intercourse. They had resolved that no supplies should be furnished the British army or navy, no bills of ex- change negotiated for British officers ; that no Co- lonial ships should transport British troops. They had taken the army before Boston into the service of the United Colonies, had made provision for its pay and support, and had given it Washington for commander-in-chief. Every day seemed to make the path of duty clearer. England herself appeared resolved to leave them no pretext for hesitation. It was of the last importance that Congress should not go too fast for the people ; that the people should not weaken the influence of Congress by putting themselves in the advance. " The novelty of the thing deters some," wrote Franklin in April, "the doubt of success others, the vain hope of conciliation many. But our enemies take con tinually every proper measure to remove these obstacles, and their endeavors are attended with success, since every day furnishes us with new causes of increasing enmity, and new reasons for wishing an eternal separation ; so that there is a rapid increase of the formerly small party who were for an independent government." " My countrymen," wrote Washington in the same month, and speaking of Virginia, "I know, from 5 o 98 LECTURE III. their form of government, and steady attachment heretofore to royalty, will come reluctantly into the idea of independence ; but time and persecu- tion bring many wonderful things to pass." John Adams, as he tried to curb his impatience, had likened the country to " a large fleet sailing under convoy ; the fleetest sailors must wait for the dull- est and slowest." At last, in that same month of April, while Franklin, on his way to Canada as a Congress com- missioner, wrote from Saratoga the lines I have read you, and Washington his liopes from Cam- bridge, John Adams Avas enabled to write from Philadelphia : " The ports are opened wide enough at last, and privateers are allowed to prey upon British trade. This is not independency, you know. What is? Why, governments in every Colony, a confederation among them all, and trea- ties with foreiorn nations to acknowledfje us a sov- ereign, and all that. When these things will be done, or any of them, time must discover. Per- haps the time is near ; perhaps a great way oif." And a fortnight afterward, for the signs were hourly brightening : " As to declarations of independency, be patient. Read our privateering laws and our commercial laws. What signifies a word ? " At length he saw that the hour was come, and on the 6th of INIay introduced his resolution for the institution of State governments. On the 10th it was passed, in these most pregnant words : " That CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 99 it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, where no gov- ernment sufficient to the exigence of their affairs hath been hitherto established, to adopt such gov- ernment as shall, in the opinion of the represent- atives of the people, best conduce to the happiness of their constituents in particular and America in general." On the 15tli, a preamble was added, stating, as the grounds of their resolve, their exclu- sion, by act of Parliament, from the protection of the crown ; the King's refusal to answer their pe- tition ; the warlike preparations against them, and the consequent necessity of suppressing the exer- cise of every kind of authority under the crown. " When I consider the great events which are passed," wrote John Adams, two days afterwards, " and those greater which are rapidly advancing, ^nd that I may have been instrumental in touch- ing some springs and turning some small wheels, I feel an awe upon my mind which is not easily described. Great Britain has at last driven Amer- ica to the last step, a complete separation from her ; a total, absolute independence, not only of her Par- liament, but of her crown ; for such is the amount of the resolve of the 15th. There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thou- sand leacfues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men wiU fight." 100 LECTURE III. Five Colonies had already expressly authorized their delegates to vote for independence ; and while on that memorable 15th of May, twin birth- day of our nation, John Adams was reporting to Congress the compi-ehensive and energetic pream- ble to the resolve of the 10th, Virginia was voting instructions to her delegates to unite with their col- leagues in the decisive act of separation. On the 7th of June, says the Journal of Con- gress, " Certain resolutions respecting indepen- dency being moved and seconded, Resolved, that the consideration of them be referred till to-morrow morning, and that the members be ordered to at- tend punctually at ten o'clock, in order to take the same into their consideration." On that morrow they were discussed in committee of the whole, and a second sitting ordered for Monday the 10th, when, after full discussion, it was resolved, " That the discussion of the first resolution be postponed to Monday, the first day of July next ; and in the mean while, that no time be lost, in case the Con- gress agree thereto, that a committee be appointed to prepare the declaration to the effect of the said first resolution, which is in these words : That these United Colonies are, and of rio-ht oug-ht to be, free and independent States ; that they are ab- solved from all allegiance to the British crown ; and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be to- tally dissolved." Congress transacted no further business that day. CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 101 On the following day the committee was cho- sen : Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. And immediately after it was resolved, " That a committee be appointed to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between these Colonies " ; and, " That a committee be appointed to prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers." The 1st of July came. All the delegates but those of New York had now^ received the instruc- tions of their constituents, and all been authorized to vote for independence. One voice was raised against it, as yet premature ; the persuasive voice of John Dickinson, always heard with respect. One voice was raised in its defence, the vehement voice of John Adams. But no discussion was needed. At the request of South Carolina the final vote was postponed to the next day ; and then, on Tuesday, the 2d of July, twelve Colonies united in the resolve, " That these United Colo- nies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde- pendent States." The Declaration of Independence had already been reported from the committee. Another day — the 3d — was partly employed in discussing it. And on the 4th, authenticated by the sig- natures of John Hancock as President, and Charles Thompson as Secretary, it was sent to the printer. On the 2d of August, fairly engrossed on parch- ment and made unanimous by the adhesion of 102 LECTURE III. New York, it received the signatures of all the members present as the unanimous " Declaration " of the thirteen United States of America. And a jojHful shout went up from all the land ; fi'om inland hamlet and sea-side town ; from work- shop and field, where fathers could henceforth eat their bread cheerfully, even in the sweat of their brows, — for they knew that their children would inherit tlie fi'uit of their labors, and receive and transmit unimpau'ed the precious birthright of freedom. Tlie solemn words were read at the head of the army drawn out in full array, and welcomed by the waving of banners and the booming of can- non. They were read from the pulpit while heads were bowed reverently in prayer, and hearts glowed as at a visible manifestation of the will of God. They crossed the ocean, waking strange fears in palaces, Avhispering soothing hopes in hovv4s, tell- ing the poor and oppressed and down-tfodd^n of every land that an asylum had been opened for them in fertile regions bevond the ocean, where industry was unfettered and thought was uncon- trolled. And still, as we look back to that auspicious day, we bless God that he imparted to our fathers so large a measure of his own wisdom ; that he breatlied into their councils such a spirit of calm, resolute, and hopeful zeal ; that he put uito their mouths words of such comprehensive truth that through all time, as each successive generation CONGRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 103 draws nearer to the law of universal brotherhood, it will but develop more fullj the principle by which these United States first took their place among the nations, — "that all men are eqviallj entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness." LECTURE IV. CONGRESS AND THE STATE GOVERNMENTS OF THE REVOLUTION. WE have seen that in the history of our coun- try Congress and Union have always gone hand in hand together. We have seen that the Congress of 1690 was convened in order to give a common direction to the energies of the Northern Colonies in an attack upon Canada ; that the Al- bany Congress of 1754 came together with the wish for a more lasting union upon its lips ; that the New York Congress of 1765 built its hopes of redress upon the common sense of wrong as ex- pressed in a common remonstrance and appeal ; that the Congress of 1774 assumed openly the title of Continental Congress, and spoke as with authority in the name of all the Colonies. We have seen this deliberative body coming directly fi'om the people and with no recognized place in the Constitution, acting in all things in harmony with public sentiment, and assuming, in 1775, ex- ecutive, legislative, and sometimes even judicial authority, organizing a government and declar- THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 105 ing independence. This evening I shall return briefly to the Congress, and endeavor to complete our view of the elements of the civil government of the Revolution by a sketch of the characteris- tic features of the State governments. Congress had now accomplished one part of its task, and with a calmness, judgment, and wisdom that confirmed men in their persuasion of its capa- city to deal with these delicate questions and bear these grave responsibilities. To the world, too, there was an appearance of unanimity in its coun- sels which added materially to its authority ; for it still deliberated with closed doors, and, publish- ing its acts, passed silently over its discussions. It was known, however, even then, that there were differences of opinion among its members, though few out of Congress knew their nature or their extent. Shall we, at this distant day, seek to remove the veil and lay bare the dissensions and personal jeal- ousies which disturbed, although they did not destroy its harmony of resolve, — retarded, al- though they did not prevent its harmony of ac- tion? It seems an invidious and ungrateful task to tell how John Dickinson gave John Adams the cut direct in the streets of Philadelphia ; how, one day, as several members were walking together in the lobby. Jay took Richard Henry Lee by the button, and, drawing him towards Jefferson, made him declare he had never denied that Jay wrote the 5* 106 LECTURE IV. address to the people of England ; how Samuel Adams — for though chronologically it comes two years later, yet it belongs in spirit full as much to tliis as to any other period — how then Samuel Adams turned short upon poor Duponceau, who had addressed him as John Adams, and said, " I would have you to know, sir, that there is a great difference between Samuel Adams and John Ad- ams." Such things are sad, very sad ; and it is far pleasanter to think of the author of the " Farm- er's Letters " as grasping cordially the hand of the author of " Novanglus " wherever he met him, and the eloquent Lee as rejoicing with a brother's joy in the eloquence of Jay. But these things are history; stern, impartial, truth-loving history ; and it is a wilful rejecting of the most instiiictive of her lessons ai'bitrarily to blot the page which reminds us that even the greatest and wisest of men are not altogether ex- empt from the weaknesses of humanity. I would not dwell upon such things, for they sadden and mortifv me. But when I look upon the men of mv own day, and hear and read what is said of their errors and weaknesses, I find it a gentle per- suasive to charity to remember that weakness and greatness have so often dwelt side by side in the noblest intellects and truest hearts. Fortunately there was no Horace Walpole in our Congress to distort the picture by bestowing all his finest *ouches and richest tuits upon the THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 107 worst parts of it. The little that has been pre- served in letters and diaries, the little that has crept out through avenues which, however closely guarded, could never be so completely closed but that some secrets would find their way through them, are sufficient for the truth of history ; and I gladly turn from them to the contemplation of that pure wisdom and exalted patriotism, in the splen- dor of whose rays these spots on the bright orbs of our political system are wellnigh lost. You have already seen that on the 11th of June, immediately after appointing the committee for drafting a " Declaration of Independence," Congress resolved " that a committee be appointed to prepare and digest the form of a Confedei*ation to be entered into between these Colonies," and another to " prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers." The first of these resolves gave us tlie Confederation ; the second I shall re- turn to in a future lecture.* As we look back upon tlie Confederation, we are apt to dwell too exclusively upon its errors and de- ficiencies ; to foro-et that we see it in the lio-ht of history, — in the light of the Constitution ; that some of its errors were such as time only could reveal, some of its deficiencies were such as noth- ing but a stern experience could induce us to sup- * The first movement towards a confederation had been made in July, 1775, by Franklin, ever foremost in the just appreciap tion of circumstarces. 108 LECTCRE IT. ply. For to stip^>Ir them required sacrifices, and, iu some insiances, the sacririo^ of habits and prvjii- dices which the popular mind clings to with sin- gular tenacity. A correct estimate ot* it wtwld r^uire an examuiation» which we have not time for now, of the ideas which the publicists and statesmen of that day entertained concerning the nature and oJfice of a confederation. A glance, however, I must give, though it will necessarily be a hasty one. Alliances tor particular piirp<>rvl of minute stipolatioas made only to be brv>ken. and perpetual friendships diat harvlly outlived the year of their formation. You ha>-e all read to satiety of £uuily compacts. ai\d quadruple alliances, anvl hvJy alliances. Of cvmi- lederatioits, too. ther>^ have been notable e:»unp]es in ancient aiul UKxiem times; the Amphictyiniic Coimcil and Ach«an League in Greece, ^miliar to the men of our Re\-v>Iutiv>n thrvxigh RoUin and MUlot and Mably : in mo«,lem Eurv^^v the Ger- manic s\-sten\, the United Xetherlauvis. the Hans^ atie League, something of cvMxfevieraoy in Ft^landv in Switierland much more ; all of them, when our Confederution was formed, stUl object? of living in- terest, lull of suggestions, especially full of warn- ings. But we must not forget that there were fimduaental distinctkns between Americans — THE STATE GO}'EIi:S\\fEXTS. 109 eveii the Americans of that day — and the j>eople ©f these confederacies, especially at the ancient contevleraoies. In ancient society the citizen was absorbed in the state. The le^cislators of antiquity treated the indi- viduiU as an element in that collective dignity, pow- er, and grandeur which was called Sjv^rta, or Ath- ens, or Rome. It was not from any consciousness of the dignity of his individutd natmv, of the digni- ty of humanity, tliat the citizen of the victorious Republic repelled insult and injury. But to indict stripes upon him was to insult tlie majestic city; to put tetters on his limbs was to bind limbs that ouglit alwiiA-s to be fn?e tor the service of the state. With Christianity came individuid rights, as the necessary consequence of individual ivsponsibUi- ties : the right of deciding and acting for self in civil sooietv, as a necessary consequence of the ob- ligation to answer for self at the bar of God. In the Italian Republics of the Middle Ages, the two ideas stood side by side ; the citizen Kxiked upon himself as individually merged in the state ; but at brief and reguhir intervals that state had to be made over again, and he had an equal voice, and an equal hand, in doing it. And thus was estab- Kshed the dependence of the state upon its indi- vidual members ; the responsibility of every citizen that held office to the citizens by whose votes and for whose protection he held it. The regular re- tnm of authority to the soiuve whence it came. 110 LECTURE IV. tlie idea of office as a duty to ihe state and a trust from the individual, was the contribution of those briUiant republics to the cause of poHtical tmth. Yon can have no difficulty in recognizing this idea, for it is the idea familiar to you all as the sovereignty of the people. Years were still to pass, and a new world to be opened to it, before it ob- tained solemn acceptance as the corner-stone of all legitimate authority. But that acceptance it found at last in the municipal institutions of New Eng- land. To us it is so familiar an axiom that all our political reasonings start from it, all our political theories bring us back to it as their test. In our colonial history, though ever active below the sur- face, it did not appear so constantly above the sur- face. But when the Colonies threw off the author- ity of the King in the name of the people, and asked themselves and one another what and whom they should put in his stead, they were met from the beginning by the fact that the sovereign people was already represented in thirteen distinct indi- vidualities ; that each State was already an empire in itself. Thus — and it was a natural error — it was not the people that they bound together, but the States ; framing a confederacy of collective in- dividuals, with whose elements their common rep- resentative had no means of contact ; to whose opinions it might appeal, but over whose action it had no control. And thus, instead of commanding, FHE STATE GOVERNMENTS. HI it could only recommend ; instead of guiding, it could only advise. It might make the wisest laws, the most advantageous treaties, the most ju- dicious appropriations of the public resources ; but it could neither enforce a law, nor guard a treaty from infraction, nor draw out the resources of the country, without the direct and voluntary concur- rence of each individual State. " It could declare everything, could do nothing." It was not till the 15th of November, 1777, that the Articles of Confederation were accepted by Congress, and not till the 1st of March, 1781, that, after many alterations and amendments, they re- ceived tlie adhesion of Maryland, the last of all the States to hesitate upon the brink of Union. During this period Congress continued to exercise the supreme power as it had done in the beginning, governing the army, the navy, tlie finances, the foreign relations, by committees under the name of Boards ; and relying for confirmation upon the con- fidence of the people. From a deliberative it had become an executive assembly ; and when the first impulse of popular enthusiasm was passed, it Avas exposed to all the searching criticisms with which a free people visits the depositaries of its power and rewards the executors of its will. Without altogether losing its hold upon tlie popular mind, it lost much of that veneration which had been the chief source of its original streno-th. King Cong. became a common expression as early as 1777, if 112 LECTURE IV. not as a term of reproach, still not altogether as a mark of affection. Men felt the presence of the enemy ; they saw the distress of the army ; but they heard of Congress as living luxuriously in comfortable quarters, wliile their soldiers and offi- cers were freezing and starving on a bleak hillside. It was accused, and not always unjustly, of pro- crastination and negligence ; of unnecessary delays of decision which led to fatal delays of action. The Commander-in-chief would prepare his plan of campaign ; the Quartermaster-General would prepare his estimates ; but Congress would put off from day to day and from week to week the con- current action, without which neither Washington nor Greene could take a step. It was accused, not only of withholding from Washington that full confidence which was essential to the efficient ex- ercise of his authority, but even of opening the door for the misrepresentations of his enemies, and of taking, through several of its members, an ac- tive part in the disgraceflil cabal for setting up a Gates as his rival, a half-formed Pom})ey against an impossible CfBsar ; the first great blot in our united annals, and which nothing but the more open treason of Arnold could have deprived of its historical prominence as a combination of baseness, cowardice, and treachery. And however gx'eat the embarrassments and difficulties of its situation may have been, history will not acquit it of many crave and some wilful errors. THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 113 But many of the men who had breathed into its counsels the wise caution and sober courage of 1775 and 1776 were no longer there to foster that rare spirit by their advice and example. As the war advanced, the army became tlie chief object of at- tention, upon whose movements men waited with anxious expectation, for all knew that there was no longer any alternative between absolute victory or absolute submission. And that army had found a leader whose character from the first inspu'ed confidence as well as admiration, reverence as well as love. Already known as the hero of Brad- dock's disastrous campaign, as the man who, when British courage had faltered and British skill was at fault, had saved the remnants of a noble army by prodigies of American courage and skill ; known, too, as a man who had sacrificed the enjoyments of a cherished home, and staked a princely fortune upon the issue ; he seemed to fill the popular im- agination by a happy mixture of the marvellous and the common in his history, of the grave and the im]:)etuous in his character. At the side of such a man no body of men could hold an equal place, for man's inherent love of unity leads him to concentrate his strongest affections upon single objects ; and when that object is a worthy one, when judgment approves and goes hand in hand with feeling, those affections become too strong to* bear the presence of a rival. Even the Congress of 1776 would have lost somewhat of its halo by lU LECTURE IV. the side of the "Washington of Trenton and Ger- mantown and jNIonmoutli, — the Washington who had braA-ed the ice of the Delaware, and hved in a log hut amid the snows of Valley Forge. Still less could it keep its hold upon the popular mind when reduced in number and shifting about from place to place ; from Philadelphia to Baltimore, to get out of the reach of the Tories ; fi'om Philadel- phia to Lancaster, to get out of the Avay of the Brit- ish army ; then farther on, to York ; and at last back again to Philadelphia when Washington had opened the way ; next to Princeton, threatened by mutineers ; and finally to Annapolis, where Wash- ington came once more before it to resign his commission, and perform in its presence what he fondly regarded as the last act of liis public life. Franklin, with the weight of seventy years upon him, had again crossed the ocean in 1776 to plead for his country at the court of France, as he had long pleaded for her at the court of her own sovereign. John Adams had followed him in 1778 ; Jefferson had turned all his energies to- wards a reform in the civil legislation of his native Province. Others of the original members were also gone ; some called away to the more attrac- tive field of State government ; some, by private interests ; and some, too, to make way for new men. The attendance was often imperfect, some- times barely sufiicient for the transaction of busi- ness ; and its discussions not being reported, it was THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 115 shut out from that path to public applause which skill in debate and popular eloquence might still have kept open for it. Yet there were great and good men in it to the last ; — still a Morris, a Sullivan, a Schuyler, to impart energy to its counsels ; a Jay and a Laurens, to sustain the dignity of the Presidential chair. And although- it failed where large bodies must always fail, in executive promptness, decision, and skill, it is none the less entitled to the grateful remembrance of every true American, as the guardian and pre- server of civil government through the perilous convulsions of a long and bloody Avar ; receiving its authority from the hands of the people in the midst of a revolution which threatened all the ex- isting forms of society with subversion, and ren- dering it back to the people untainted when the revolution was completed and new or newly mod- ified forms had everywhere taken the place of the old. Let those who would learn wisdom by exam- ple ponder well the history of the Congress of the American Revolution ; its merits and its defects ; its frailties and its virtues ; the much that it ac- complished of what it attempted, the little that it left undone of what large assemblies can do. From the first establishment of the American Colonies the Colonial governments were divided into Provincial governments, directly dependent upon the King ; Proprietary governments, imme- diately dependent upon the proprietary and medi- 116 LECTURE IV. ately upon the King as the lord pai'amount ; and Charter governments, in Avhich certain definite rights and privileges were secured to the Colonj by letters patent from the King. Tluis in eveiy Colony the King was equally the original source of authority ; for every Colony was equally founded upon the principle, that the first discoverer of a country not occupied by a civilized or a Christian people discovered for the sovereign to whom he owed allegiance ; and thus the sovereign became lord of the soil, with tiill power to divide and gi'iuit it at will, and attach such conditions as he saw fit to the grant. But, fortunately for our founders, this enormous power was met by another principle peculiar to English law, and no less a cleai'ly settled principle. Every Englishman, carrying his allegiance with him, carried also his rights. The moment that he took possession of a new tract in the name of the crown, English law took possession of it in the name of the Constitution. Thus, wherever Eng- lishmen went, Jliujna Charta went with them. Every right which had been defined in England before they left its shores, was defined for them and their children. Every law which had been made for tlioir government in their old home re- tained, as far as the ditference of ciivumstances would permit, full control over tliem in their new home. No longer part and parcel of the realm of Great Britain, thoy were still, as before, subjects fHE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 117 of the crown, bound to such duties as it could con- stitutionally impose, and possessed of all the rights and immunities "which the subject could constitu- tionally claim. And fortunately, too, these rights and immuni- ties were of the largest kind ; so large, indeed, that their natiu'al development, that development which fundamental principles, whether good or bad, al- ways receive at the hand of time, led by a logical necessity to that full measure of liberty which we ourselves enjoy. And at the same time they were so reasonable, so just, they entered so directly into the domestic life of the people while they acted with such a regular and constant action upon its public life, that they were looked upon as equally essential to the peace of the one and the prosperity of the other. The first of these rights was the right to partici- pate directly in the government ; to have a voice in the making of their laws, in the spending of then' money ; and, as a guaranty that it would be spent properly, the right of sa^Hing when, how, and how much of it they would give. No less important nor less Avatchfully guarded was the right of trial by jury ; an institution to which Englishmen and the descendants of Eng- lishmen cling so tenaciously, that they are hardly able to conceive of justice in any other form. And side by side with these the right of petition. Men who carried such rights with them would 118 LECTURE IV. necessarily establisli a free government wherever they Avent ; a government which, whatever name they might see lit to give it, wliatever external form it might bear, would still be essentially free. The absorption of the individual by the state was irreconcilable with such miaranties ao;ainst the en- croachments of the sovereign. The vio-orous and healthy life of the state was secured by the con- stant infusion of vigor and health from every hearth-stone, from every workshop, from every field. And among our fathers the jealous Avatch- fulness of the individual was kept alive by the exi- gencies of their position ; rapid growth constantly calling for new provisions, and starting questions which carried them daily back to fundamental principles. One form, however, had acquired from early as- sociations a hold upon their affecfions. They had always been familiar with the idea of a division of powers. They had long been accustomed to see a King, and a House of Lords, and a House of Com- mons, acting Avith harmonious interdependence for the common Aveal. They Avould have found it difficult to conceive of good laAvs as emanating from an executive poAver, or a good executive poAver as residing in a legislative body. Still less could they have reconciled their conce})tions of the due administration of justice Avith the miion of legisla- tive and judicial authority. And as practical free- dom consisted for them in the preservation of their THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 119 civil as well as tlieir political rights, so the forms of freedom consisted in the radical division of the three m-eat functions of government. Therefore in all the Colonies, in the Provincial and Proprietary as well as in those that were gov- erned by charter, the outlines of the English con- stitution were more or less accurately preserved.' There was a Governor to represent the King, a Council to represent the House of Lords, an elec- tive Assembly to represent the House of Commons. Local peculiarities introduced modifications. A royal Governor in Massachusetts was not in every respect upon the same footing as a royal Governor in Virginia. The Governor of Rhode Island, called from the plough, the workshop, or the count- ing-room to the executive chair, and going back to his plough, or workshop, or counting-room again, whenever his fellow-citizens thought that another man could serve them better, was a very different person from the needy courtiers wdio were often sent from the antechambers of royalty to fill their pockets in rich New York. But still in all mate- rial things the fundamental distinctions of the Eng- lish constitution were preserved ; the executive, the legislative, and the judicial functions were carefully kept apart. Hence, when the Revolution came to snap the bands which had so long bound the Colonies to the mother country, it found a people familiar with the functions of government, and strongly attached to 120 LECTURE IV. certain forms as the best security for their hber- ties. The Provincial and Proprietary systems, as far as they depended for sanction upon the King, fell of themselves when the King declared the Col- onies out of his protection, and they accepted the position ; but tliis was merely a falling of the scaf- folding, — the foundations of the great edifice, which a century and a half had been consolidating, re- mained unshaken. The power returned to whence it came, — tlie people ; and the people were pre- pared to build vip a stronger and more harmonious edifice upon the original foundations. In the Char- ter governments the change was even less ; for the charters were virtually written constitutions, and so much in harmony with public opinion that it was only some twenty years ago that Rhode Isl- and dropped from her statute-book the charter of Charles the Second. There was, indeed, a critical moment in the pas- sage from the old forms to the new. >' O Mr. Adams ! " said one of the eager statesman's for- mer clients, a notorious horse-jockey, " what great things have you and your colleagues done for us ! We can never be grateful enough to you. There are no courts of justice now in this Province, and I hope there never will be another." John Ad- ams looked grave. It was an interpretation of his iconoclastic labors which had not occurred to him. Other men looked grave, and felt anxious too. They saw that the hour of pulling down was past, THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 121 and that, if they would build up again, they must begin quickly. Massachusetts was the first to ask Congress what she should put in the place of the charter which the King and his ministers had tried to force upon her. It was an inconvenient question, for Congress was still talking about loyalty and filial love ; and to advise Massachusetts to set up a government of her own would be neither loyal nor filial. But it was a question that must be met. To hesitate would be like casting doubts on its own author- ity. To refuse an answer would be exposing an important Colony to the perils of anarchy, when circumstances imperiously required the concentrat- ed energy of organized government. She was advised, therefore, to go back as neai'ly as possible to her old charter. In October of the same year (1775), New Hampshire came to Congress with the same ques- tion. Meanwhile, events had been quickening their motion ; the whole fleet, dullest and swiftest alike, were within signal distance, moving fairly on with a wind that promised to blow, like that pro- pitious wind which Apollo sent the Greeks, "full in the middle of their sails." And accordingly Congress spoke out more directly than ever before, advising them, by its resolve of the 3d of Novem- ber, " to call a full and free representation of the people, and that the representatives, if they think it necessary, establish such a form of government 6 122 LECTURE IV. as, in tlieir judgment, will best produce the happi- ness of the people, and most effectually secure peace and good order in the Province during the continuance of the present dispute between Great Britain and the Colonies." In January the resolve was acted upon, and a new constitution hastily formed. South Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey also gave themselves, through their conventions, new constitutions before independence was declared ; all of them bearhig evident marks of haste. North Carolina was busy early in 1776 with the same questions. All felt alike the necessity of a regular, effective, and le- gitimate government. In some of these constitutions grave defects soon became apparent. Massachusetts tired early of lier resuscitated charter, and, calling a conven- tion, formed a new constitution in 1780. South Carolina revised hers in 1778. New York, chiefly through the counsels of John Jay, was far more successful in her first effort. Maryland, also, went carefully and deliberately to the Avork. And thus, with more or less haste, with more or less skill, but all equally earnest and equally bent upon estab- lishing all their rights upon a solid foundation, the thirteen dependent Provinces prepared themselves to enter upon a new career of progress and devel- opment as independent States. And now, in bringing these constitutions to- gether for a collective view, the first cii'cumstance THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 123 which strikes us is their explicit recognition of the sovereignty of the people. As the Declaration of Independence derived all its authority from the consent of the people, expressed by their accept- ance of the new position in which it placed them, so the new constitutions derived all their authority from the consent of the people as expressed by a direct vote of ratification. They accepted them, they chose the representatives who framed them, they named the officers who carried them into ex- ecvxtion. In all cases the decision lay with them. The arguments were addressed to their under- standings ; the appeal was made to their feelings. Familiarity with these things has blunted our sense of their magnitude. History in all her annals has no brighter page, rto record so ftill of promise for ev- ery lover of humanity, as that which tells us how, without discord or anarchy, these thirteen Prov- inces passed through a revolution, and laid anew the foundations of their political existence on the broad basis of the rights, the interest, and the hap- piness of all. Another common feature is the preservation in all but two — Pennsylvania and Georgia — of a legislature composed of two Houses, and invested with extensive authority, — an authority reaching in some even to the power of revising the consti- tution. Thus far we see the influence of English ideas and early associations. But nowhere did the body which took the place of the Colonial Coun- 124 LECTURE /F. cils come nearer to the House of Lords than by a longer term of office in some instances; and in some instances, also, a different mode of election. They were still the representatives of the people, invested for a stated term with specific powers, which, when that term expired, returned again to the people. The idea of hereditary rights to make laws, like that of hereditary rights to enforce them, took no root in American soil. Another common feature was the jealousy with which they all looked upon the third element in their government, — the Governor, or, as he was called in some Provinces, the President. If we are to take this as a result of experience, it is a bitter satire upon the Colonial Governors whom they received from the King ; if as a speculative conclusion, it shows more circumspection than con- fidence, a keen perception of possible dangers rath- er than a just sense of the degree of power which is essential to the usefulness as well as to the dig;- nity of a chief magistrate. Everywhere his hands were tied by a Council, and sometimes tied so tight that it seems wonderful any one should have cared for so powerless a symbol of power. In their views of religious toleration, also, there were some general features indicative of the point which the struggle between the rights of conscience and the responsibilities of religious conviction had generally reached. The old laws for the keeping of Sunday were retained in every constitution. In THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 125 some cases, the narrow system of religious tests re- appeared. In Delaware, no Unitarian was allowed to hold office. The test of eligibility in Massa- chusetts and Maryland was belief in the Christian religion, — the inheritors of the land planted by Puritans and the inheritors of the land planted by Catholics meeting upon a common stand-point of intolerance. South Carolina went ostensibly a step further, and declared that no man was fit for the discharge of civil functions who did not believe in a future state of rewards and punishments. Con- gregationalism still continued to hold the chief place in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Con- necticut ; and, like her sister sects, was still willing to strengthen her hold, and reserve for herself the rewards as well as the duties of the ministry. But Episcopalianism, as if anxious to revei'se the terms of James's adage, had shown so decided a leaning towards the royal cause, that her strong hold, Vir- ginia, fell from her, although in New York and New Jersey she still retained the extensive land grants which had been given to her in the day of higher hopes, as earnests of what her well-wishers were ready to do for the extension of her suprem- acy. In only five constitutions was education men- tioned ; and in only two, that of Massachusetts and the second constitution of New Hampshire, were the provisions for schools for general instruction of any practical value. 126 LECTURE IV. The question of suffrage, important as it must always be, had not yet attained that degree of im- portance which it soon attained wlien the flood- gates of emigration were thrown open and a hetero- geneous mass of different nations poured in upon our shores. Distinctions had been made at an early period between those to whom the right was extended, and those from whom it was withheld. But here, as elsewhere, the fundamental distinction was a property distinction ; and where enormous fortunes were unknown, it was not likely to be great. The highest point was a freehold estate of $ 250 ; the lowest, a freehold of $ 50 ; and in sev- eral States personal property gave the same privi- leges as real estate. A tribute to primogeniture was paid in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, the eldest son enjoying a right to vote as the eldest son of a freeholder. In some Colonies voting depend- ed upon the payment of taxes, and every tax-payer was a voter. Suffrage had not yet taken its place as a natural right. Stronijer evidence of interest in the public welfare than the mere fact of resi- dence was still required to enable men to say to whom they chose to confide the trust of making and executing their laws. In only one constitution was there any mention of laws for the transmission of real estate. Geor- gia abolished entails, and provided for an equal di- vision of property among the children. Nowhere else was the question touched in the beginning ; THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 127 and in the other States invidious distinctions, de- rived for the most part from EngHsh law, continued to hold their place on the statute-book a few years longer. It is evident from this brief sketch, that the only- material alteration which the Revolution made in the municipal aspect of the Colonies was in the substitution of the people for the King as the visi- ble source of power ; for we must still bear in mind that the doctrine of popular sovereignty had been hitherto a revolutionary doctrine, — a principle held in reserve for great emergencies, and never brought prominently forward when any other way of action remained open. But henceforth it be- came the fundamental principle, the common start- ing-point, the only basis upon which the builders could construct an edifice fit to stand in the place of that which they had thrown down. And thus every constitution was the production of men es- pecially chosen to make it, — everywhere the work of the people through the delegates of their choice. It was natural that men should love this work of their own hands. And unfortunately it was equally natural that, in the fervor of this love, they should look suspiciously upon everything which seemed to throw any portion of it into the shade. A good part of their histoiy thus far had been made up of disputes with the crown and the offi- cers of the crown ; and they had grown into a sen- sitive jealousy of possible encroachments, which led 128 LECTURE IV. them to scrutinize closely every act of their sover- eign beyond the ocean. And thus when it be- came necessary to create another power to act for them all, and confide some of the functions of sover- eignty to a sovereign at their own doors, the ques- tion that they proposed to themselves was not how much power the common good required them to delegate, but how much it was possible to withhold. Even with that little, the sovereign was an object of jealousy and suspicion. They neither loved nor venerated him, and yet he inspired them with in- definite and unwelcome fears. How (iould they heartily love and trust King Cong., — they who had wasted so much unrequited aifection upon King George ? This jealousy was not long in finding open ex- pression. Even the Congress of 1775, strong in the first glow of patriotic faith fi^om which it sprang, had thought it necessary to explain and apologize to the New York Convention for its resolves against New York Tories. Congress called, but the States did not hear. The whole course of the war is marked by hesitations, doubtings, delays, produced by the consciousness that its authority was an ob- ject of suspicion even when its Aveakness was an object of contempt. In South Carolina, where the State authority had for a season been entirely overthrown, where the legislature could only come together when the Continental army had opened the way for it, the commanding general found it THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 129 necessary to deal very tenderly with untimely sus- ceptibilities. You all know how important it is in war to obtain early information of the enemy's plans and movements. Through Colonel Laurens, General Greene had succeeded in securing, within the ene- my's lines, the services of some Americans, who, having been prevailed upon in an evil hour to take out protections from the British, were now anxious to make their peace with their countrymen. The information that they gave was important, a full equivalent for the stipulated reward, — pardon and the restoration of their estates. Laurens was killed. General Greene continued to avail himself of the sources of correspondence which Laurens had opened ; and, when the proper moment came, felt himself bound to exert all his influence with the legislature in order to obtain for his agents the pardon and restitution that had been promised them. But his representations were received with strong tokens of dissatisfaction. The war was nearly over, and he was no longer needed to stand between the State government and the enemy. But unfortunately he was soon compelled to re- turn to this delicate ground. Congress had voted a five per cent duty on importations ; but the con- sent of the States was necessary before it could be collected. Eleven States had agreed to it ; two had refused, and one of. these, I am sorry to say, was Rhode Island. Virginia, after giving her con- 6* I 130 LECTURE IV. sent, had withdrawn it. South Carohna, it was feared, was about to follow her example. Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, who had counted upon this duty, ami built all his hopes of meeting his engagements upon it, was greatly embarrassed. But General Greene, with a victori- ous, but half-starved, half-naked, and unpaid army dejjending on him, felt that the question was very grave. Throughout all his Southern campaigns he had kept up a regular correspondence with the Governors of the States comprised in his command ; a serious addition to his labors, but essential for keeping the wants of the army and the nature of their own dangers constantly before them. Ear- nest as his representations had sometimes been, they had always been well received, and by no one more readily than by Thomas Jefferson, when that father of democracy filled the executive chair of Virginia. Rutledge, too, South Carolina's own Governor, had passed weeks in Greene's camp, taking counsel of him, and preparing, with his aid, the measures necessary for the reinstatement of civil government. And now, although a new Governor held the chair, Greene was unwilling to believe that the candid representations which had always been wel- come in the day of trial would be misinterpreted in the day of prosperity. His letter to Governor Guerard was full, earnest, and respectful. He spoke of the embarrassments under which Congress THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 131 labored ; of the little ground that it gave for appre- hension ; and frankly avowed that he was one of those who thought that independence could only prove a blessing under Congressional influence. He spoke of the army, of the noble proofs whicli it had given of virtue and patriotism .under almost every species of distress and privation. It had done it in the full persuasion that justice would be rendered it in due time. And now that it was in the power of government to take a step towards providing for the fulfilment of its obligations, it was dangerous to drive such men to despair. Many other things he said, and in the same wise and earnest spirit. The Governor laid the letter before the Assem- bly, as he was requested to do, but added a letter of his own, strongly dissuading the measures which Greene had advised. As Greene's letter was a- reading, the members could scarcely restrain their impatience. " A Cromwell was dictating to free men, threatening them with a mutinied army, — trying to build up the power of Congress upon the ruin of State rights." But there was still a step further which this un- reasonable jealousy of Congress and their general could go, and Governor Guerard was prepared to take it. The enemy was gone, the State was free ; the Governor had once more set up his resi- dence in Charle&ton. But peace was not yet de- clared, the army was not yet disbanded, the laws 132 LECTURE IV. and forms of war were still observed and still necessary. During the occupation of Charleston by the British, a British officer, Captain Kerr, had married an American lady ; and now Governor Tonyn of East Florida, having occasion to commu- nicate with General Greene, sent Captain Kerr to Charleston with a flag addressed as usage required to the Commander of the Southern Department. Governor Guerard insisted that the flag should have been addressed to • him as Commander-in- chief of the State, and, not satisfied with asserting it, sent the sheriff to seize the vessel which bore the flag, and put the whole party in prison. The astonished Englishman appealed to General Greene. General Greene made a representation of the case to the Governor ; Kerr was released, but the crew were detained in custody. It was a clear case, though a delicate one. Gen- eral Greene might justly have felt that something was due to him. But he plainly saw what was due to Congress, and he was resolved that the due should be paid. He was not fond of councils of war. AVliere fighting was to be done, he never called them. But this was a case manifestly with- in their competency ; and, calling his officers to- gether, he told them the story, showed them the letters, and asked them if in their opinion the Brit- ish officer had violated any of the laws of a flag. They unanimously answered no. Greene instantly took possession of the passes to the city, and or- THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 133 dered that no flag should be admitted without per- mission from head-quarters. His reputation for thinking before he acted, and holding firmly to his resolutions when he had begun to act, was too well established to admit of any doubt as to what he would do now ; and reluctantly, and with very bad grace, the Governor released the men, order- ing Captain Kerr, as a salvo for his wounded dig- nity, to leave the city at once, and the State within three days. Captain Kerr again called upon Gen- eral Greene for protection. " The order sent you by tlie Governor," was the reply, "you will pay no attention to. When I am ready to discharge your flag, I will inform you. The time and man- ner of your leaving the State shall be made as agreeable as possible I am exceedingly un- happy at this additional instance of indelicate treat- ment you have met with Nothing but my wishes to preserve the tranquillity of the people, and the respect and regard I have for their peace and quiet, could have prevailed on me to suffer your flag to be treated in the manner it has been." And reporting the case to General Lmcoln, Sec- retary of War, with a request to him to lay it be- fore Congress, he says that "pi'ecedents for such encroachments upon United States authority shall not be founded upon his failure to resist them. Tills," he adds, " is not one of those cases where the right is doubtful, or public safety the object ; 134 LECTURE IV. but appears to be a matter of temper, and pursued without regard to either." And thus ended the first conflict between the government of Soutli Carolina and the government of the United States. It would be easy to add proof to proof of the feeling with Avhich the ncAV State governments entered u^^on the possession of their authority. Experience had taught them the value of their municipal institutions, but it had not yet taught them the value of that central institution upon whose preservation they all depended. They had learnt the necessity of combining as States for the protection of their common interests ; but they had not learnt the equal necessity of uniting as a peo- ple in order to make the union of States firm, ef- fective, and lasting. A short but perilous road was still to be trod before they reached those serene heiolits whence Washinoton and Franklin and Hamilton were yet to look hopefully forth upon the fliture of the country they had loved and served so well. Yet the men who indulged these untimely jeal- ousies were the men who had displayed so much famiharity with practical government, and so just a comprehension of the principles of theoretical government ; men who, knowing that no govern- ment can perform its functions without a machin- ery of its own, had made their State machinery as perfect as they knew how to make it, but had de- THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. 135 liberately clogged every wheel and weakened every spring which could give efficiency and vigor to their united strength. And thus must it ever be with individuals and with States, who, accepting a principle, refuse to accept its consequences. For it is no less sure that every general law of being will sooner or later work itself fully out, than that all society is founded upon law. The law of union is eminent- ly a law of sacrifice. The sacrifice of something that you might freely do while living alone, be- comes an imperative condition the moment that you undertake to live with another. And as, in every State, each town, while performing some of the functions of government for itself, and possess- ing all the machinery which the performance of them required, looked to the State government for the pei'formance of other functions, and cheerfully submitted to the curtailment of municipal authority and the partial subordination which such relations towards the State required ; so was it only by the sacrifice of certain rights that the States could build up a central power strong enough to perform for them those indispensable acts of general gov- ernment which they could not perform for them- selves. Manifest as this truth may now appear to every understanding, the history of the civil government of the Revolution is in a great measure the history of a persistent and bitter struggle with it in almost 136 THE STATE GOVERNMENTS. all its practical applications. Step by step the ground was contested, — step by step the ground was won. Yet how many steps were still required to bring our fathers to the Constitution which made us a powerful nation ! How many more must yet be taken, before we reach the full consequences of that sublime Declaration which made us an inde- pendent people I LECTURE V. FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. JN the sketches which formed the subject of my last two Lectures, you doubtless observed that I confined myself to general views and statements, without attempting to enter into a full study of any of the various classes of acts which statesmen are called upon to perform. This evening I propose to give you a fuller view of Congress in action ; and in action upon one of the most complex and difficult subjects of legislation. Resistance once resolved on, it became necessary to provide the means of rendering it effective. There were men enough in the country to fill up the army, there was money enough in the country to feed, pay, and clothe them ; but how were these men and that money to be reached? We shall see hereafter what was done to bring out the physical resources of the country, and how unwisely it was done. This evening I shall confine myself to a review of the efforts which were made earnestly and persist- ently, from the beginning of the war to the end of it, to bring out its pecuniary resources. 138 LECTURE V. And here, on the threshold, let me remind you that, in all historical studies, you should still bear in mind the difference between the point of view fi'om which you look at events, and that from which they were seen by the actors themselves. We all act under the influence of ideas. Even those who speak of theories with contempt are none the less the unconscious disciples of some theory, none the less busied in working out some problems of the great theory of life. Much as they fancy that they dif- fer from the speculative man, they differ from him only in contenting themselves with seeing the path as it lies at their feet, while he strives to embrace it all, starting-point and end, in one comprehensive view. And thus in looking back upon the past we are irresistibly led to arrange the events of history, as we arrange the facts of a science, in their ap- propriate classes and under their respective laws. And thus, too, these events give us the true meas- ure of the intellectual and moral culture of the times, of the extent to which just ideas prevailed therein upon all the duties and functions of private and public life. Tried by the standard of absolute truth and right, grievously would they all fall short, and we, too, with them. Judged by the human standard of progressive development and gradual growth, — the only standard to which the man of the beam can venture, unrebuked, to bring the man of the mote, — we shall find much in them all to sadden us, and much also in* which we can sin- cerely rejoice. FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 139 In judging, therefore, the political acts of our ancestors, we have a right to bring them to the standard of the political science of their own age, but we have no right to bring them to the higher standard of ours. Montesquieu could give them but an imperfect clew to the labyrinth in which they found themselves involved ; and yet no one had seen farther into the mysteries of social and political organization than Montesquieu. Hume had scattered brilliant rays on dark places, and started ideas which, once at work in the mind, could never rest till they had evolved momentous truths and overthrown long-standing errors. But no one had yet seen (Adam Smith's great work was just going to the press), that labor was the original source of every form of wealth, — that the farmer, the merchant, the manufacturer, were all equally the instruments of national prosperity, — or demonstrated as Smith does, that nations grow rich and powerful by giving as they receive, and that the good of one is the good of all. The world had not yet seen that fierce conflict between antag- onistic principles which she was soon to see in the French Revolution ; nor had political science yet recorded those daring experiments in remoulding society, those constitutions framed in closets, dis- cussed in clubs, accepted and overthrown with equal demonstrations of popular zeal, and which, expressing in their terrible energy the universal dissatisfaction with past and present, the universal 140 LECTURE V. grasping at a brighter future, have met and an- swered so many grave questions, neither pro- pounded nor solved in any of the two hundred constitutions which Aristotle studied in order to prepare himself for the composition of his " Poli- tics." The world had not yet seen a powerful nation tottering on the brink of anai'chy, with all the elements of prosperity in her bosom, — nor a bankrupt state sustaining a war that demanded an- nual millions, and growing daily in wealth and strength, — nor the economical phenomena which followed the reopening of Continental commerce in 1814, — nor the still more startling phenomena which a few years later attended England's return to specie-payments and a specie-currenc}^ — nor statesmen seating themselves gravely before the map of Europe to distribute its kingdoms and peoples according to their own conceptions of the balance of power, but finding all the results of their combined wisdom set at nought by the inex- orable development of the fundamental principle which they had refused to recognize. But we have seen these things, and, having seen them, unconsciously fipply the knowledge derived from them to events to which Ave have no right to apply it. We condemn errors which w^e should never have detected without the aid of a light wdiich was hidden from our fathers, and Avill still be dwelling upon shortcomings which nothing could have avoided but a general diffusion of that FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 141 wisdom which Pro%adence never vouchsafes except as a gift to a few exalted minds. Every school- boy has his text-book of political economy now ; but many can remember when these books first made their appearance in schools ; and so late as 1820 the Professor of History in English Cambridge publicly lamented that there was no work upon this vital subject which he could give to his classes. When, therefore, our fathers found themselves face to face with the complex questions of finance, they naturally fell back upon the experience and devices of their past history ; they did as in such emergencies men always do, — they tried to meet the present difficulty without weighing ma- turely the fature difficulty. The present was at the door, palpable, stern, urgent, relentless ; and as they looked at it, they could see nothing beyond half so full of perplexity and danger. They hoped, as in the face of all history and all experience men will ever hope, that out of those depths which their feeble eyes were unable to penetrate, some- thing might yet arise in their hour of need to avert the peril and snatch them from the precipice. Their past history had its lessons of encourage- ment, some thought, and, some thought, of warn- ing. They seized the example, but the admoni- tion passed unheeded. Short as the chronological record of American history then was, that exchange of the products of labor which so speedily grows up into commerce 142 LECTURE V. had already passed through all its phases, from di- rect barter to bank-notes and bills of exchange. Men gave what they wanted less to get what they wanted more; the products of industry without doors for the products of industry within doors ; and it was only when they wished to add to their stock of luxuries or conveniences from a distance that they felt the want of money. Prices natural- ly found theu' own level, — were what, when left to themselves they always are, the natural expres- sion of the relations between demand and supply. Tobacco stood the Virginian instead of money long after money had become abundant, procuring him corn, meat, raiment. More than once, too, it pro- cured him something still better. In the very same year in which the Pilgrims landed at Pljon- outh, history tells us, ninety maidens of " virtuous education and demeanor " landed in Virginia ; the next year brought sixty more ; and, provident in- dustry reaping its own reward, he whose busy hands had raised the largest crop of tobacco was enabled to make the first choice of a wife. And it must have been an edifying and pleasant specta- cle to see each stalwart Virginian pressing eagei'ly on towards the landing, with his bundle of tobacco on his back, and walking deliberately home again with an affectionate wife under liis arm. But already there was a pernicious principle at work, — protested against by experience wherever tried, and still repeatedly tried anew, — the as- FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 143 sumption by government of the power to regulate the prices of goods. The first instance carries us back to 1618, and thinking men still believed it possible in 1777. The right to regulate the prices of labor was its natural corollary, bringing with it the power of creating legal tenders, and the vari- ous representatives of value, without any corre- spondent measvu'es for creating the value itself, or, in simpler words, paper-money without capital. And thus, logically as well as historically, we reach the first issue of paper-money in 1690, that year so memorable as the year of the first Congress. New England, encoiuraged by a successful expe- dition against Port Royal, made an attempt upon Quebec. Confident of success, she sent forth her little army without providing the means of paying it. The soldiers came back som'ed by disaster and fatigue, and, not yet up to the standard of 1776, were upon the point of mutinying for their pay. To escape the immediate danger, Massachusetts bethought her of bills of credit. They were is- sued, accepted, and redeemed, although the first holders suffered great losses, and the last holders, or the speculators, were the only ones that found them faithftil pledges. The flood-gates once opened, the water poured in amain. Every press- ing emergency afforded a pretext for a new issue. Other Colonies followed the seductive example. Paper was soon issued to make money plenty. Men's minds became familiar with the idea, as 144 LECTURE V. they saw the convenient substitute passing freely from hand to hand. Accepted at market, accept- ed at the retail store, accepted in the counting- room, accepted for taxes, everywhere a legal ten- der, it seemed adequate to all the demands of domestic trade. But erelong came imdue fluctua- tions of prices, depreciations, failures, — all the well-known indications of an unsound currency. England interposed to protect her own merchants, to whom American paper-money was utterly worth- less ; and Parliament stripped it of its value as a legal tender. Men's minds were divided. They had never before been called upon to discuss such questions upon such a scale or in such a form. They were at a loss for the principle, still envel- oped in the multitude and variety of conflicting theories and obstinate facts. One fact, however, was clearly established, — that a government could, in great need, make pa- per fulfil, for a while, the ofiice of money ; and if a regular government, why not also a revolution- ary government, sustained and accepted by the people ? Here, then, begins the history of Conti- nental money, — the principal chapter in the finan- cial history of the Revolution, — leading us, like all such histories, over ground thick-strown with unheeded admonitions and neglected warnings, through a round of constantly recurring phenome- na, varied only here and there by modifications in the circumstances under which they appear. FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 145 It is much to bo rojiretted that we luive no rec- oxA of the discussions through which Cono-ress reached the resolves of June 22, 1775 : '' Tluit a smn not exceeding two niilhons of Spanish nulled dollars be emitted by the Congress in bills of credit tor the defence of America. That the twelve con- federated Colonies " (Georgia, it will be remem- bered, had not yet sent delegates) " bo pledged for the redemption of the bills of credit now to be emitted." We do not know positively that there was any discussion. If there was, it is not difHcult to conceive how some of the reasoning ran, — how each delegate had arguments and examples from his own C\)lony ; how contidently Pennsyhanians would speak of the security which they had given to their paper ; how contidently Virginians would assert that even the greatest straits might be passed without having recourse to so dangerous a medi- um ; how all the facts in the history of paper- money would be brought forward to prove both sides of the question, but how the underlying prin- ciple, subtile, aiid impalpable, might still elude them all, as it long still contiiuied to elude wise statesmen and thoughtful economists; how, at last, some impatient spirit, breaking through the un- timely delay, sternly asked them what else they proposed to do. By what alchemy would they create gold aiul silver? By what magic would they fill the coffers which their non-exportation resolutions had kept empty, or bring in the sup- 146 LECTURE V. plies which their non-importation resolutions had cut off? What arguments of their devisino; would induce a people in arms against taxation to sub- mit to tenfold heavier taxes than those which they had indignantly repelled ? Necessity, inexora- ble necessity, was now their lawgiver; they had adopted an army, they must support it ; they had voted to pay their officers, they must secure the means of giving their vote effect ; arms, ammuni- tion, camp-equipage, everything was to be provid- ed for. The people were full of ai'dor, glowing with fiery zeal ; your promise to pay will be re- ceived like payment ; your commands will be in- stantly obeyed. Every hour's delay imperils the sacred cause, chills the holy enthusiasm ; action, prompt, energetic, resolute action, is what the crisis demands. Men must see that we are in earnest ; the enemy must see it; nothing else will bring them to terms ; nothing else will give us a lasting peace ; and in such a peace how easily, how cheer- fully, shall we all unite in paying the debt by which so inestimable a blessing was won ! It would have been difficult to deny the force of such an appeal. There were doubtless men in Congress who believed firmly in the virtue of the people, — who thought that after the proof which the people had given of their readiness to sacrifice the interests of the present moment to the interests of a day and a posterity that they might not live to see, it would be worse than scepticism FINA^^CES OF THE REVOLUTION. 147 to call it in question. But even they niiglit hesi- tate about the form of the sacrifice they called for, for they knew how often the -world is governed by names, and that men's minds might revolt at the idea of a formal tax, although they would submit to pay it fifty-fold under the name of depreciation. Even at this day, with all our additional light, — the combined light of science and of experience, — it is difficult to see what else they could have done without strengthening dangerously the hands of their domestic enemies. Nor let this be taken as a proof that they engaged rashly in an unequal contest, even though it was necessarily in part a war of paper against gold. They have been* ac- cused of this by their fi'iends as well as by their enemies ; they have been accused of sacrificing a positive good to an uncertain hope, — of suffering their passions to hurry them into a war for which they had made no adequate preparation, and had not the means of making any ; that they wilfully, ahnost wantonly, incuri'ed the fearful responsibility of staking the lives and fortunes of those who were looking to them for guidance upon the chances of a single cast. But the accusation is unjust. As far as human foresight could reach, they had calculat- ed these chances carefully. They knew the tenure by which they held their authority, and that, if they ran counter to the popular will, the people would fall fi.-om them, — that, if they should fail in making their position good, they would be the first, 148 LECTURE V. almost the only victims, — that, then as ever, " the thunderbolts on highest mountains lifrht." Charles Carroll added " of Carrollton " to his name, so that, if the Declaration he was setting it to should bring forfeiture and confiscation, there might be no mistake about the victim. Nor was it without a touch of sober earnestness that Harrison, bulky and fat, said to the lean and shadowy Gerry, as he laid down his pen, — " When hanging-time comes, I shall have the advantage of you. I shall be dead in a second, while you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I am gone." But they knew also, that, if there are dangers which we do not perceive till we come full upon them, there are likewise helps which we do not see till we find our- selves face to face with them, — and that in the life of nations, as in the life of individuals, there are moments when all that the wisest and most conscientious can do is to see that everything is in its place, every man at his post, and resolutely bide the shock. While this subject was pressing upon Congress, it was occupying no less seriously leading minds in the different Colonies. All felt that the success of the experiment must chiefly depend upon the de- gree of security that could be given to the bills. But how to reach that necessary degree was a per- plexing question. Three ways were suggested in the New York Convention : that Congress should fix upon a sum, assign each Colony its proportion, FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 149 and the issue be made by the Colony upon its own responsibility ; or that the United Colonies should make the issue, each Colony pledging itself to re- deem the part that fell to it ; or, lastly, that, Con- gress issuing the sum, and each Colony assuming its proportionate responsibility, the Colonies should still be bound as a whole to make up for the fail- ure of any individual Colony to redeem its share. The latter was proposed by the Convention as oflfering greater chances of security, and tending at the same time to strenothen the bond of union. It was in nearly this form, also, that it came from Congress. No time was now lost in carrying the resolution into effect. The next day, Tuesday, June 23, the number, denomination, and form of the bills were decided in a Committee of the Whole. It was resolved to make bills of eight denominations, from one to eight, and issue forty-nine thousand of each, completing the two millions by eleven thousand eight hundred of twenty dollars each. The form of the bill was to be, — Continental Currency. No. Dollars. This hill entitles the hearer to receive Spanish milled dollars or the value thereof in gold or silver^ according to the resolutions of the Con- gress held at Philadelphia on the lOifA day of May^ A. D. 1775. 150 LECTURE V. In the same sitting a committee of five was appointed " to get proper plates engraved, to pro- vide paper, and to agree with printers to print the above bills." Both Franklin and John Adams were on this committee. Had they lived in 1862 instead of 1775, how would their doors have been beset by engravers and paper-dealers and printers ! What baskets of let- ters would have been poured upon their tables ! How would they have dreaded the sound of the knocker or the cry of the postman ! But, alas ! paper was so far from abundant that generals were often reduced to hard straits for enough of it to write their reports and despatches on ; and that Congressmen were not much better off will be believed when we find John Adams sending his wife a sheet or two at a time under the same en- velope with his own letters. Printers there were, as many, perhaps, as the business required, but not enough for the eager contention which the an- nouncement of government work to be done ex- cites among us in these days. And of engravers there were but four between Maine and Georgia. Of these four, one was Paul Revere of the mid- night ride,* the Boston boy of Huguenot blood, whose self-taught graver had celebrated the repeal * A name sure, henceforth, of its true place in our liistory ; foi, thanks to Longfellow, it has taken a firm place in our poetry. Would that others' names equally deserving might be equally fortunate. FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 151 of the Stamp Act, condemned to perpetual derision the rescinders of 1768, and told the story of the Boston Massacre, — who, when the first grand jury under the new organization was drawn, had met the judge with, " I refuse to sarwe," — a sci- entific mechanic, — a leader at the Tea-party, — a soldier of the old war, — prepared to serve in this war, too, with sword, or graver, or science, — fitting carriages, at Washington's command, to the cannon from which tlie retreating English had knocked off the trunnions, learning how to make powder at the command of the Provincial Con- gress, and setting up the first powder-mill ever built in Massachusetts. No mere engraver's task for him, this engravmg the first bill-plates of Continental Currency ! How must lie have warmed over the design ! how carefully must he have chosen his copper ! how buoyantly must he have plied his graver, harassed by no doubts, disturbed by no misgivings of the double mission which those little plates were to perform, — the good one first, thank God ! but ah ! how fatal a one afterward ! but resolved and hope- ful as % that April night when he spurred his horse fi'om cottage to hamlet, rousing the sleepers with the cry, long unheard in the sweet valleys of New England, " Up ! up ! the enemy is coming !" The paper of these bills was thick, so thick that the enemy called it the pasteboard money of the rebels. Plate, paper, and printing, all had little 152 LECTURE V. in common witli the elaborate finish and delicate texture of a modern bank-note. To sio-n them was too hard a tax upon Congressmen ah'eady taxed to the full measiu'e of their working-time by committees and protracted daily sessions ; and therefore a committee of twenty-eight gentlemen not in Congress was employed to sign and number them, receiving in compensation one dollar and a third for every thousand bills. Meanwhile loud calls for money were daily reaching the doors of Congress. Everywhere money was wanted, — money to buy guns, money to buy powder, money to buy provisions, money to send officers to their posts, money to march troops to their stations, money to speed messengers to and fro, money for the wants of to-day, money to pay for what had already been done, and still more money to insure the right doing of what was yet to do : Washington wanted it ; Lee wanted it ; Schuyler wanted it ; from north to south, from sea-board to inland, came one deep, monotonous, menacing cry, — " Money, or our hands are pow- erless ! " How long would these two millions stand such a drain ? Spent before they were received, hard- ly touching the Treasury-chest as a starting-place before they flew on "the wings of all the winds" to gladden thousands of expectant hearts with a brief respite from one of their many cares. Relief there ^rtainly was; neither long, indeed, nor lasting. FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 153 but still relief. Good Whigs received the bills, as they did everything that came from Congress, with unquestioning confidence. Tories turned from them in derision, and refused to give their goods for them. Whereupon Congress took the matter in hand, and told them that they must. It was soon seen that another million would be wanted, and in July a second issue was resolved on. All-devouring war had soon swallowed this also. Three more millions were ordered in No- vember. But the war, men said, w^as to end soon, — by June, '76, at the latest. All expenditures were calculated upon this supposition ; and wealth flowing in under the auspices of a just and equa- ble accommodation with their reconciled mother, these millions which had served them so well in the hour of need would soon be repaid by a happy and grateful people from an abundant ti*easury. But early in 1776 reports came of English ne- gotiations for foreign mercenaries to help put dow^n the rebellion, — reports which soon took the shape of positive information. It was evident that no immediate end of the war was to be looked for now ; already, too, independence was looming up on the turbid horizon ; already the current was bearing them onward, deep, swift, irresistible ; and thus seizing still more eagerly upon the future, they poured out other four millions in February, five millions in May, five millions in July. The Confederacy was not yet formed ; the Declaration 7* ^54 LECTURE V. of Independence had nothing yet to authenticate it but the signatui'es of John Hancock and Charles Thompson ; and the republic that was to be was already solemnly pledged to the payment of twen- ty millions of dollars. Thus far men's faith had not faltered. They saw the necessity and accepted it, giving their goods and then' labor unhesitatingly for a slip of paper which derived all its value from the resolves of a body of men who might, upon a reverse, be thrown down as rapidly as they had been set up. And then whom were they to look to for indemni- fication ? But now began a sensible depreciation, — slight, indeed, at first, but ominous. Congress took the alarm and resolved upon a loan, — re- solved to borrow directly what it had hitherto borrowed indirectly, the goods and the labor of its constituents. Accordingly, on the 3d of Octo- ber, a resolve was passed for raising five millions of dollars at four per cent ; and in order to make it convenient to lenders, loan-offices were estab- lished in every Colony, with a commissioner for each. Money came in slowly, but ran out so fast that, in November, Congress ordered weekly returns from the Treasury, not of sums on hand, but of what parts of the last emission remained unex- pended. The campaign of 1777 was at hand; now the campaign of 177C would end was uncer- tain. The same impenetrable veil that as yet hid FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 155 Trenton and Princeton fi'om all eyes concealed also the disasters of Fort Washington and the Jer- seys. Men still looked hopefully to the lower hne of the Hudson. It was resolved, therefore, to make an immediate effort to supply the Treas- ury by a lottery to be drawn at Philadelphia. A lottery, — does not the word carry you back, a great many years back, to other times and other manners ? The Articles of War were now on the table of Congress for revision ; and in the second and thu'd of those articles, officers and soldiers had been earnestly recommended to attend divine ser- vice diligently, and to refrain, under gi'ave penal- ties, from profane cursing or swearing. And here legislators deliberately set themselves to raise money by means which we have deliberately con- demned as gambling. But years were yet to pass before statesmen, or the people rather, were brought to feel that the lottery-office and the gaming-table stand side by side on the same broad highway. No such thoughts troubled the minds of our fore- fathers, well stored as those minds were with hu- man and divine lore ; but, going to work without a scruple, they prepared an elaborate scheme, and fixed the 1st of March for the day of di-awing, — "or sooner, if sooner full." It was not full, how- ever, nor was it ftill when the subject next came up. Tickets were sold ; committees sat ; Congress returned to the subject from time to time ; but what with the incipient depreciation of the bills of 156 LECTURE V. credit, the rising prices of goods and provisions, and the incessant calls upon every purse for public and private purposes, the lottery failed to commend itself either to speculators or to the bulk of the peo- ple. Some good Whigs bought tickets firom prin- ciple, and, like many of the good Whigs who took the bills of credit for the same reason, lost their money. In the same November, the Treasury was di- rected to make preparations for a new issue ; and in order to meet the wants of the retail trade, it was also resolved to issue five hundred thousand dollars in bills of two thirds, one tliird, one sixth, and one ninth of a dollar. Evident as it ought now to have been that nothing but taxation could save pubHc credit, jnen could not bend their minds to the necessity. " Do you think, gentlemen," said a member of Congi'ess, " that I will consent to load my constituents with taxes, when we can send to our printer and get a wagon-load of money, one quire of which will pay for the whole ? " It was so easy a way of making money, that men seemed to be getting into the humor of it. The campaign of 1777, like the campaign of 1776, M'as fought upon paper-money "n-ithout any material depreciation. The bills could never be signed as fast as they were called for. But this could not last. Tlie public mind was growing anxious. Extensive interests, in some cases whole fortunes, were becoming involved in the question FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 157 of ultimate payment. The alarm gained upon Congress. Burgoyne, indeed, was conquered ; but a more powerful, a more insidious enemy, one to whom Congress itself had opened the gate, was already within the Avorks and fast advancing to- wards the heart of the citadel. The depreciation had reached four for one, and there was but one way to prevent it from going lower. The delib- erations were long and anxious. Thus far the public faith had supported the war. But, it was said, the quantity of the money for which this faith stood pledged already exceeded the demands of commerce, and hence its value was proportionably reduced. Add to this the arts of open and secret enemies, the avidity of professed fi'iends, and the scai'city of foreign commodities, and it seemed easy to account for the depreciation. " The conse- quences were equally obvious and alarming," — " depravity of morals, decay of public virtue, a precarious supply for the war, debasement of the public faith, injustice to individuals, and the de- struction of the safety, honor, and independence of the United States." But " a reasonable and ef- fectual remedy" was still within reach; and there- fore, " with mature deliberation and the most ear- nest solicitude," Congress recommended the rais- ing by taxes on the different States, in proportion to their population, five millions of dollars in quar- terly payments, for the service of 1778. But having explained, justified, and recommend- 158 LECTURE V. ed, its power ceased. Like the Confederation, it had no right of coercion, no machinery of its own for acting upon the States. And, unhappily, the States, pressed by their individual wants, feeling keenly their individual sacrifices and dangers, failed to see that the nearest road to relief lay through the odious portal of taxation. Had the mysterious words that Dante read on the gates of hell been written on it, they could not have shrunk from it with a more instinctive feeling : — " Lasciate ogni spcranza voi ch' entrate." " All hope abandon^ ye who enter in ! " Some States paid, some did not pay. The sums that came in were wholly insufficient to relieve the actual pressure ; and that pressure, unrelieved, grew daily more severe. Congress had tried the regulating of prices, — it had. tried loans, — it had tried a lottery ; and now it was forced back again to its earliest and most dangerous expedient, paper- money. New floods poured forth, and the parched earth drank them greedily up. One may almost fancy, as he looks at the tables, that he sees the shadowy form of a sickly Credit tottering feebly forth to catch a gleam of sunsliine, a breath of pure air, while myriads of little sprites, each bearing in his hand an emblazoned scroll with " Deprecia- tion " written upon it m big yellow letters, dance merrily around him, thrusting the bitter record in liis face, whichev ?r way he turns, with gibes and FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 159 taunts and demoniac laughter. But his course was almost ended ; the grave was nigh, an unhon- ored grave ; and as eager hands heaped the earth upon his faded form, a stern voice bade men re- member that they who strayed from the path as he had done, must sooner or later find a grave like his. It was not without a desperate struggle that Congress saw the rapid decline and shameful death of its currency. The ground was fought manfully, foot by foot, inch by inch. The idea that money derived its value from acts of government seemed to have taken deep hold of men's minds, and theu' policy was in perfect harmony with their belief. In January, 1776, it had been solemnly resolved that everybody who refused to accept the Conti- nental bills, or did anything to obstruct the circu- lation of them, should, upon duo conviction, " be deemed, published, and treated as an enemy of his country, and be precluded from all trade or in- tercourse with the inhabitants of these Colonies." And to enforce it, there were Committees of In- spection, whose power seldom lay idle in their hands, whose eyes were never sealed in slumber-. In this work, which seemed good in their eyes, the State Assemblies, and Conventions, and Commit- tees of Safety, joined heart and hand with Con- gress. Tender-laws were tried, and the relentless hunt of creditor after debtor became a flight of the recusant creditor from the debtor eager to wipe out his responsibility for gold or silver with a ream 160 LECTURE V. or two of paper. Limitation of prices was tried, and produced its natural results, — discontent, in- sufficient supplies, heavy losses. Threatening re- solves were renewed, and fell powerless. It was hoped that some i-elief might come fi'om the sales of confiscated property ; but property changed hands, and the Treasury was none the better off; just as in France, a few years later, the whole landed property of the kingdom changed hands, and left the government assignats what it found them, — bits of waste paper. Meanwhile speculation ran riot. Every form of wastefulness and extravagance prevailed in town and country ; nowhere more than at Philadelphia, under the very eyes of Congress ; luxury of dress, luxiuy of equipage, luxury of the table. We are told of one entertainment at which eight hundred pounds were spent in pastry. As I read the pri- vate letters of those days, I sometimes feel as a man might feel if permitted to look down upon a foundering ship whose crew were preparing for death by breaking open the steward's room and drinkino; themselves into madness. An earnest appeal was made to the States. The sober eloquence and profound statesmanship of John Jay were employed to bring the subject be- fore the country in its tnie light and manifold bearings ; the state of the Treasury, the results of loans and of taxes, and the nature and amount of the obligations incurred. The natural value and FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 161 ■wealth of the country were held up to view as the foundations on which Congress had undertaken to construct a system of public finances, beginning with bills of credit, because there was no nation they could have borrowed of, coming next to loans, and thus "unavoidably creating a public debt; a debt of 1159,948,880,' in emissions; $7,545,196|^, in money borrowed before the 1st of March, 1778, with the interest payable in France ; $26,188,909, money borrowed since the 1st of March, 1778, with interest due in America; about $4,000,000, of money due abroad." The taxes had brought in only 13,027,560 ; so that all the money supplied to Congress by the people was but $36,761,665||. " Judge, then, of the necessity of emissions, and learn from whom and from whence that neces- sity arose. We are also to inform you that on Wednesday, the first day of September instant, we resolved that we would on no account whatever emit more bills of credit than to make the whole amount of such bills two hundred million dol lars ; and as the sum emitted and in circulation amounted to $ 159,948,880, and the sum of $40,051,120 remained to complete the two hun- dred million above mentioned, we, on the third day of September instant, further resolved that we would emit such part only of the said sum as should be absolutely necessary for public exigen- cies before adequate supplies could otherwise be 162 LECTURE V. Obtained, relying for sucli supplies on the exertions of the several States." Coming to the depreciation, he reduces the causes to three kinds : natural, or artificial, or both. The natural cause was the excess of the supply over the demands of commerce ; the artificial cause was a distrust of the ability or inclination of the United States to redeem their bills ; and assuming that both causes have combined in producing the depreciation of the Continental money, he proceeds to prove that there can be no doubt of the ability of the United States to pay their debt, and none of their inclination. Under the head of inclmatiori he divides his argument into three parts : — First, Whether, and in what manner, the faith of the United States has been pledged for the re- demption of their bills. Second, Whether they have put themselves in a political capacity to redeem them. Third, Whether, admitting the two former pro- positions, there is any reason to apprehend a wan- ton violation of the public faith. The idea that Congress can destroy the money, because Congress made it, is treated with scorn. " 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 purposes these emissions were made, and have repeatedly plighted their faith for the re- demption of them ; they are to be found in every FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 163 man's possession, and every man is interested in their being redeemed Provide for continu- ing your armies in the field till victory and peace shall lead them home, and avoid the reproach of permitting the currency to depreciate in your hands, when by yielding a part to taxes and loans, the whole might have been appreciated and pre- served. Humanity as well as justice makes this demand upon you ; the complaints of ruined wid- ows and the cries of fatherless children, whose whole support has been placed in your hands and melted away, have doubtless reached you ; take care that they ascend no higher! . . . Determine to finish the contest as you began it, honestly and gloriously. Let it never be said that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent." But it was not only the Continental money that was blocking up the channels through which a sound currency would have carried vigor and health. The States had their debts and their pa- per-money too, — wheel within wheel of compli- cated, desperate insolvency. The two hundred millions had been issued and spent. There was no money to send to Washington for his army, and he was compelled for a while to support them by seizing the articles he needed, and giving certifi- cates in return. The States were called upon for specific supplies, beef, pork, and flour, — a method so expensive, irregular, and partial, that it was 164 LECTURE V. soon abandoned. One chance remained: to call in the old money by taxes, and bnrn it as soon as it was in ; then to issnc a new paper, — one of the new for CA^ery twenty of the old ; and when the whole of the old was cancelled, to issue only ten millions of the new, — loin- millions of it subject to the order of Cono;ress, and the remaining six to be divided among the States: the whole redeemable in specie within six years, and bearing till then an interest of five per cent, payable in specie aimu- ally, or on redemption, at the option of the holder. By this skiliid change of base it was hoped that a bold front could still be ]MVsented to the enemy, and the field, which had been so long and so obsti- nately contested, be finally won. But the day of expedients was past. The zeal which had blazed forth with such enei'gy at the beginning of the war was fast sinking to a fitful, smouldering flame. Individual interests were again taking the precedence of general interests. The moral sense of the people had contracted a deadly taint from daily contact with corruption.. The spirit of gambling, confined in the beginning and lost to the eye, like Le Sage's Devil, had swollen to its full ])roportions, and, in the garb of sj)ecula- tion, was luidennining the Ibundations of society. Rogues were grt)wing rich ; the honest men, who were not already })oor, Avere daily growing poor. The laws that had been made in the view of prop- ping the currency, had served only to countenance FINANCES OF THE llEVOIAJTION. IGo unscrupulous men in paying their delfts at a dis- count ruinous to the creditor. The laAvs against forestallers and engrossers, who, it was currently beUeved, were leagued against botli army and country, were powerless, as such laws always arc. Even Washington wished for a gallows as high as Haman's to hang tliem on ; but the army was kept starving none the less. The seasons themselves — God's visible agents — seemed to combine against our cause. The years 1779 and 1780 were years of smrdl crops. The winter of 1780 was severe far beyond the common severity even of a northern winter. Pro- visions were scarce, suffering universal. Farmers, as if forgetting their dependence on rain and sun- shine, had planted less than usual, — some from disaffection, some because they were irritated at having to give up their corn and cattle for worth- less bills, and certificates which might prove equal- ly wortliless. Some, who were within reach of the enemy, preferred to sell to them, for they paid in silver and gold. Tliere were riots in Pliiladel- phia, and tliey were put down at the point of the sword. There was mutiny in the army, and this, too, was put down by the strong hand, — though the fearful sufferings which had caused it almost justified it in the eye of sober reason. It is easy to see why farmers should have been loath to raise more tlian tln^y needed for their own use, and wliy merchants sliould have been unwill- IGG LECTURE V. ing to lay in stores wliicli tlioy might be compelled to sell at prices so truly nominal that the money which they received would often sink to half they had taken it for before they were able to pass it. But it is not so easy to see why this wretched sub- stitute for values should have circulated so freely to the very last. Even at two hundred for one, with the knowledge that the next twenty-four hours might make that two hundred two hundred and fifty, or even more, without the slightest hope that it Avould ever be redeemed at its nominal value, it would still buy everything that was to be bought, — provisions, goods, houses, lands, even hard money itself. Down to its last gasp there were speculations afoot to take advantage of the differences in the degree of its worthlessness at dif- ferent places, and buy it up in one place to sell it at another, — to buy it in Philadelphia at two hun- dred and twenty-five for one, and sell it in Boston at seventy-five for one. It Avas possible, if the ball passed quickly from hand to hand, that some might gain ; it was very manifest that some must lose ; and here outcrops that pernicious doctrine, that true, life-giving, health-diffusing commerce consists in stripping one to clothe another. And thus Ave reach the memorable year 1781, the great, decisive year of the Avar. While Greene was fighting CoruAvallis and RaAvdon, and Wash- ington Avas Avatching eagerly for an opportunity to strike at Clinton, Congress Avas busy making up its FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 1G7 accounts. One circumstance told for it. Tliere was no longer the same dearth of gold and silver which had embarrassed commerce so much at the becinnino; of the war. A gainful intercourse was now opened with the West Indies. The Frencli army and the French fleet were here, and hard money with them. Louis-d'ors and livres, and Spanish dollars, — how welcome must their pleas- ant faces have looked, after this long, long absence 1 With what a thrill must the hand which for years had touched nothing but Continental bills have closed u})on solid gold and silver ! It is easy to con- ceive that a new spirit must soon have manifested itself in the wide circle of contractors and agents, — that shopkeepers must speedily have discovered that their business was shifting its ground as they obtained a reliable standard for counting their losses and gains, — that every branch of trade must have felt a new vigor diffusine; itself through its veins. But it is equally evident, that, while the gold and silver which flowed in upon them from these sources strengthened the people for the work they were to do and the burdens they were to bear, the comparisons they were daily making be- tween fluctuating paper and steadfast metal were not of a nature to strengthen their faith in money that could be made by a turn of the printing-press and a few strokes of the pen. Another circumstance told for Congress, too. The accession of Maryland had fulfilled the condi- 168 LECTURE V. tions for the acceptance of the Confederation so long held in abeyance, and the finances were taken from a board, and intrusted to the hands of a skil- ful and energetic financier. Robert Morris, who had protested energetically against the tender-laws, made specie payments the condition of his accept- ance of office ; and on the 22d of May, though not without a struggle, Congress resolved " that the whole debts already due by the United States be liquidated as soon as may be to their specie value, and funded, if agreeable to the creditors, as a loan upon interest; that the States be severally informed tliat the calculations of the expenses of the present campaign are made in solid coin, and therefore that the requisitions from them respectively, being gi'ounded on those calculations, must be complied with in such manner as effectually to answer the purpose designed ; that, experience having evinced the inefficacy of all attempts to support the credit of pajjcr money by compulsory acts, it is recom- mended to such States, where laws making paper bills a tender yet exist, to repeal the same." Another public body, the Supreme Executive Council of Penrfsylvania, dealt paper another blow, fixing the ratio at which it was to be received in public payments at one hiindred and seventy-five for one. Circulation ceased. In a short time the money that had been carted to and fro in reams disappeared from the shop, the counting-room, the market. All dealings were in hard money. Gold FINANCES OF TUB REVOLUTION. 169 and silver resumed their legitimate sway, and men began to look hopefully forward to a return of economy, frugality, and invigorating commerce. The Superintendent of Finance entered seri- ously upon his task. One great obstacle had been removed ; one great and decisive step had been made towards the restoration of that sense of se- curity without wliicli industry and enterprise are powerless. As a merchant, he was familiar with the resources of the country ; as a member of Con- gress, he was familiar with the wants of govern- ment. His resources were taxes and loans ; his obligations, an old debt and a daily expenditure. Opposed as he was to the irresponsible currency which had brought the country to the brink of ruin, he -was a believer in banks and bills resting on a secure basis. One of his earliest measures was to prepare, with the aid of his Assistant-Super- intendent, Gouverneur Morris, a plan of a bank, ■which soon after, with the sanction of Congress, went into operation as the Bank of North Ameri- ca. Small as the capital with which it started was, — only four hundred thousand dollars, — its influence was immediately felt throughout the coun- try. It gave an impulse to legitimate enterprise which had long been wanting, and a confidence to buyer and seller which they had not felt since the first year of the war. In his public operations the Superintendent used it freely, and, using it at the same time wisely, was enabled to call upon it for 170 LECTURE V. aid to the full extent of its ability without impair- ing its strength. Henceforth the financial history of the Revolu- tion, although it loses none of its importance, loses much of its narrative-interest. No longer a hand- to-hand conflict between coin and paper, — no longer the melancholy spectacle of wise men doing luiwise things, and honorable men doing things which, in any other form, they would have been the first to condemn as dishonorable, — it still con- tinues a long, a wearisome, and often a mortifying struggle ; still presents the sad spectacle of men knowing their duty and refusing to do it ; knowing consequences, and yet blindly shutting their eyes to them. I will give but one example. After a careful estimate for the operations of 1782, Congress had called upon the States for eight millions of dollars. Up to January, 1783, only four hundred and twenty thousand had come into the Treasury. Four hundred thousand Treasury-notes were almost due ; tlie funds in Europe were over- drawn to the amount of five hundred thousand by the sale of drafts. But Morris, waiting only to cover himself by a special authorization of Congress, made fi'esh sales upon the hopes of the Dutch loan and the possibility of a new French loan, and still held on — as cautiously as he could, but ever boldly and skilfully — his anxious way tlu-ough the rocks and shoals that menaced him on every side. He was rewarded, as faithful servants too FINANCES OF THE REVOLUTION. 171 often are, hj calumny and suspicion. But when men came to look closely at his acts, comparing his means with his wants, and the expenditure of the Treasury Board with the expenditure of the Fi- nance Office, it was seen and acknowledged that he had saved the country thu'teen millions a year in hard money. And now, from our stand-point of the Peace of 1783, let us give a parting glance at the ground over which we have passed. We see thirteen Colonies, miited by interest, divided by habits, association, and tradition, engaging in a doubtful contest with one of the most powerful and ener- getic nations that ever existed; we see them begin, as men always do, with very imperfect conceptions of the time it would last, the length to which it would carry them, or the sacrifices it would impose ; we see them boldly adopting some measures, timidly shrinking from others, — reasoning justly about some things, reasoning falsely about things equally important, — endowed at times with singular foresight, visited at times with incomprehensible blindness ; boatmen on a mighty river, strong themselves and resolute and skilful, plying their oars manfully from first to last, but borne onward by a current which no human science could measure, no human strength could resist. They knew that the resources of the country were exhaustless; and they threw themselves ]7'i Ijurniin: v. 14)101) lliiiae ruttuiu'uott in tlio only way hy wliii!li tliuy I'uitli] rutirli tln^iii. Tliiir lulls oCcritilil, wuro the t)irn|iiil)g' III' iMlllillMiii-:!!! iiiiij Inilli. 'i'lii' I'lilliii- tiiiibiii gi'uw I'liill, ilii. liiiili liiil< ij. Willi ii liiilii IlltU'i'- •■nlllllftiilhlll, lllti pL'.(i|i|Li WOlllil r||t:r||||||y ImVii Hiiliiiiilluil III luxiiliwii ; wiiii u liiiKt muri-. liuili, ilitt ClUlgrai:)!:) Wmilll llUVU luXUll tluMll. Ill I hit (-ml, lliL! |(L;n|i|tj ]iiiiil jiii' l.hu ahuiU'iiinhi^a nl' Mniir liiilliiiuiutiiii hy Huvuiily millimia ul' iiiiliit*tioh^ ihu |iiiiioi|ila i^ iStuveri^ ? ].ia:'i [} i< I'] V I. 'nth'. f)irij Tinrnes ftfrtlro/ly i'(rf Ink wilfid ttll ifm phtin^n (A' iha (Urtit^ni »fu\ f^yplrtin (is msulf, Tlifi milUrtry ^t^ruUH i^ W«sfiifi^f/rfi, ^'ring )i«fj^l In \mu({ wit.fi ffie clt'll t,nr^- We h«fj }»««f^l ^1^' '/thftf Ttttrries «tid rrmy fe- mftrnf/w uimp, M' them j fmf, i\mm fl-m ih« ^ly f,w^ w)i'uU hftv© tftken their pla^e Ui his mturufry^ «t the fti^le irt t)i)« is //wirr^ f/r the \wphrttifit(^ wiii''fi nil K,Mr'rj>f«r»s «ttJi/',fi U) fhe Fren<-f» ftllirtri^.e as rosperity of the parent state depended upon the sure and con- stant flow of wealth and strength from this exhaust- less source. Then, too, they first saw that in obe- dience to the same law by which they had grown into strength, these Colonies, in due time, nmst grow into independence ; and in this independence, in this severing of ties which they foresaw English pride would cling to, long after English avidity had stripped them of their natural strength, there was the prospect of full and sweet revenge. Scarce a tAvelvemonth had passed from the sign- ing of the treaty of Paris, when the first French emissary, an ofticer of the French navy, was al- ready at his work in the Colonies. Passing to and fro, travelling here and there, moving fi'om place to place as any common traveller might have done, his eyes and his ears were ever open, his note-book was ever in his hand, and, without awakening the suspicions of England, the first steps in a work to which the Duke of Choiseul looked forward as the DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 179 crowning glory of his administration were wisely and surely taken. They were promptly followed up. The French Ambassador in England estab- lished relations with Colonial agents in London, which enabled him to follow the progress of the growing discontent and anticipate the questions which must soon be brought forward for decision. Franklin's examination before the House of Com- mons became the text of an elaborate despatch, harmonizing with the report of his secret agent, and opening a prospect which even the weary eyes of Louis XV. could not look upon without some return of the spirit that had won for his youth the long forfeited title of the Well-beloved ! It was not the first time that the name of the great phi- losopher had been heard in the council-chamber of Versailles. But among the secret agents of France, we now meet for the first time the name of De Kalb, a name consecrated in American his- tory by the life that he laid down for us on the fatal field of Camden. Scarce a step was taken by the English ministry that was not instantly communi- cated by the Ambassador in London to the French Minister at Versailles, with speculations, always in- genious, often profound, upon its probable results. Scarce a stop was taken in the Colonies without at- tracting the instant attention of the French affent. Never were events more closely studied or their character better understood. When troops were sent to Boston, the English ministry was not with- 180 LECTURE YI. out serious apprehensions of resistance. But when the tidings of their peaceful landing came, Avhile the English were exulting in their success, the French Ambassador rejoiced that the -wisdom of the Colo- nial leaders had withheld them from a form of op- position for which they were not yet ready. The English ministry was pi-eparing to enter ujion a system of coercion at the ])oint of tlie bayonet. " If the Colonists submit under the pressure," said Choiseul, " it will only be in appearance and for a short time." jNIeanwhile his active brain was teeming with projects : the letters of his agents were teeming with suggestions. Frances counsels caution, dreads the effects of hasty measures ; for the Colonists have not yet learnt to look upon France as a friend, and premature action might serve only to bind them more firmly to England. Du Chatelet pro- poses that France and Spain, sacrificing their old colonial system, should open their colonial ports to the products of the English colonies ; thus inflict- ing a fatal blow upon England's commerce, while they supplant her in the aft'ections of the Colonists. A clerk in the department of commerce goes still ftu'ther, advocating a full emancipation of the French colonies, both to throw ofiJ" a useless bui'- den and to increase the irritation of the English colonies by the spectacle of an independence which they were not permitted to share. There is nothing in history more humiliating DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 181 than to see on what small hinges great events sometimes turn. Of all the disgraceful intrigues of a palace filled with intrigues from the day of its foundation, there is none half so disgraceful as the overthrow of the Dnlce of Choiseul in 1770. And yet vile as it was both by its motive and by its agents, it marks an important point in the pro- gress of American independence. A bow more, a sarcasm less, might have confirmed the power of a man, whose deep-rooted hatred of England was fast hastening to its natural termination, an open rupture ; and a premature rupture would have brought the Colonists into the field, either as the subjects of England or as the allies of France. To secure the dependence of the Colonies, England would have been compelled to make large conces- sions ; and timely concessions might have put off the day of separation for another century. To secure the alliance of the Colonies, France would have been compelled to take upon herself the bur- den of the war ; a French general might have led our armies ; French gold might have paid our troops ; we might have been spared the sufferings of Valley Forgo, the humiliation of bankruptcy ; but where would have been the wise discipline of adversity? and, if great examples be as essential to the formation of national as of individual character, what would the name of independence have been to us, without the example of our Washington? French diplomacy had little to do with the 182 LECTURE VI. American events of the next five years. England, unconscious how near she had been to a new wai with her old enemy, held blindly on in her course of irritation and oppression ; the Colonies contin- ued to advance by sure steps from resistance by votes and resolves to resistance by the sword. When Louis XVI. ascended the throne in 1774, and Vergennes received the portfolio of foreign affairs, domestic interests pressed too hard upon them to allow of their resuming at once the vast plans of the fallen minister. Unlike that minister, Vergennes, a diplomatist by profession, preferred watchino; and waiting; events to the hastenino; or anticipating them. But to watch and wait events like those which were then passing in the Colonies without being drawn into the vortex was beyond the power of even his well-trained and sagacious mind. In 1775, a French emissary Avas again taking the measure of American perseverance ; French ambassadors were again bringing forward American questions as the most important ques- tions of their correspondence. That expression which has been put into so many mouths as a sum- ming up of the value of a victory was applied in substance by Vergennes to the battle of Bunker Hill, — "Two more victories of this kind, and the English will have no army left in America." And while thus tempted by this proof of Amer- ican strength, his wavering mind Avas irritated by the apprehension of some sudden outbreak of DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 183 English arrogance ; for the Ambassador wrote that Whigs and Tories might yet unite in a war against France in order to put an end to the troubles in the Colonies, — and no Frenchman had forgotten that England began the war of 1755 by an open violation of international law, by seizing three hun- dred French merchant ships and casting into prison ten thousand French sailors, before the declaration of hostilities. Thus events prepared the way for American diplomacy ; and, more powerful than the prudence of Vergennes or the pacific longings of Louis XVL, compelled them to decide and act, when they would still gladly have discussed and waited. And, moreover, a new element had been intro- duced into the councils of statesmen, or, rather, an element hitherto circumscribed and resisted had begun to act with irresistible force. Public opin- ion speaking through the press by eloquent pens, through coflPee-houses and saloons by eloquent voices, called loudly for action in the name of hu- manity and in the still more exciting name of French honor. Little as most Frenchmen knew about America, they knew enough about England to believe that in her disputes with other nations she was apt to be in the wrong ; and if with other na- tions, why not with her own colonies ? The long- ing for revenge which ever since the treaty of Paris filled some corner of every French heart, grew stronger at the near approach of so abundant a 184 LECTURE VI. harvest ; nor did it lose any of its sweetness fi-oni tlie reflection that their enemy liimself was doing what they could never have done alone to prepare it for them. But humanity, too, was a powerful word. Men could not read Rousseau without being led to think more earnestly, if not always more profoundly, upon the laws of social organization. They could not read Voltaire without a clearer perception of abuses and a more vigorous contempt for the systems which had put the many into the hands of the few to be butchered or butchers at then* will. They could not read Montesquieu without feeling that there was a future in store for them for which the long past had been patiently laboring, and longing, as they read, to hasten its coming. In that future, mankind were to rise higher than they had ever risen before ; rulers and ruled were to act in fruit- ful harmony for their common good ; the brightest virtues of Greece, the purest virtues of Rome, were to revive in some new form of society, not very definitely conceived by the understanding, but wdiicli floated in magnificent visions before the glowing imagination. I hasten reluctantly over this part of my subject ; for the formation of public opinion m France and its action upon government, even while all the forms of an almost absolute monarchy were pre- served, is an important chapter in the history of Eui'opean civilizatioii. But hasten I must, merely VIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 185 calling attention to the existence of this element, and reminding mj readei' that, chronologically, of the two parts which composed this opinion, hatred for England had been at ^york ever since 1763, while sympathy with the Colonists was rather an individual than a public feeling till late in 1776. It was at Versailles and not at Paris that action began. Vergennes's first step was to send another agent, no longer merely to observe and report, but to ascertain, though without compromising the French government, how far the Americans were prepared for French intervention. English suspicions were already awakened. Already the English Minister had informed the French Ambassador, upon the authority of a private letter of General Lee to Gen- eral Burgoyne, that the Americans were sure of French aid. It was not without great difficulty that the new agent, De Bonvouloir, could find a safe conveyance. But by December he was al- ready in Philadelphia, and, though still pretending to be a mere traveller, was soon in full communica- tion with the Committee of Secret Correspondence, The appointment of this committee on the 29th of November, 1775, is the beginning of the his- tory of our foreign relations. Then began our at- tempts to gain admission into the great family of nations as an independent power, — attempts not always judiciously du'ected, attended in some in- stances with disappointment and mortification, but crowned at last with as full a measure of success 186 LECTURE VI. as those who understood monarchy and Europe could have anticipated. Tavo of its members, Franldin and Dickinson, were ah'eady known abroad, where, at a later day, Jay also was to make himself an enduring name. The other two, John- son and Harrison, enjoyed and merited a high Colonial reputation. There can be but little doubt that Franklin's keen eye quickly penetrated the veil under which De Bonvouloir attempted to conceal his real char- acter. It was not the first time that he had been brought into contact with French diplomacy, nor the first proof he had seen that France was watch- ing the contest in the hope of abasing the power of her rival. While agent in London for four. Colo- nies, — a true Ambassador, if to watch events, study character, give timely warning and wise counsel, is the office of an ambassador, — he had lived on a friendly footing with the French legation and profited by it to give them correct views of the character and feelings of the Colonies. And now, reducing the question to these simple heads, he asked, — "How is France disposed towards us? if favor- ably, what assurance will she give us of it ? " Can we have from France two good engineers, and how shall we apply for them ? " Can we have, by direct communication, arms and munitions of war, and free entrance and exit for our vessels in French ports? " DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 187 But whatever reliance they may have placed on the French emissary, the committee were unwill- ing to confine themselves to this as the only means of opening communication with European powers. Durincr a visit to Holland, Franklin had formed the acquaintance of a Swiss gentleman of the name of Dumas : a man of great learning and liberal sentiments, and whose social position gave him access to sure sources of information. To him he now addressed himself with the great question of the moment : " If we throw off our dependence upon Great Britain, will any court enter into alli- ance with us and aid us for the sake of our com- merce ? " Such then, was the starting-point of our diplo- matic history; the end and aim of all our nego- tiations ; alliance and aid for the sake of our com- merce. But we should greatly mistake the character of the times if we suppose that this point was reached without many and warm debates. When the ques- tion was first started in Congress, that body was found to be as much divided upon this as upon any of the other subjects which it was called upon to discuss. With Franklin, one party held that, in- stead of asking for treaties with European powers, we should first conquer our independence, when those powers, allured by our commerce, would come and ask us ; the other, with John Adams, that as our true policy and a mark of respect from a new 188 LECTURE VI. nation to old ones, we ought to send ministers to every gi-eat court of Europe in order to obtain the recognition of our independence and form treaties of amity and commerce. Frankhn, who had al- ready outlived six treaties of " firm and lasting peace " and now saw the seventh swiftly approach- ing its end, might well doubt the efficacy of those acts to which his young and impetuous colleague attached so much importance. But in Congress the majority was with Adams, and for a while there was what Gouverneur Morris called a rage for treaties. The Committee of Secret Correspondence, as I have already said, was formed in November, 1775. One of its first measures was to appoint agents, Arthur Lee for London, Dumas for the Hague, and, early in the following year, Silas Deane for France. Lee immediately opened relations with the French court by means of the French Ambas- sador in London ; and Deane, on his arrival in France in June, followed them up with great intel- ligence and zeal. A million of livres was placed by Vergennes in the hands of Beaumarchais, who assumed the name of Hortalez & Co., and arranged with Deane the measures for transmitting it to America in the shape of arms and supplies. And now the Declaration of Independence came to add the question of i*ecognition to the question of aid. But recognition was a declaration of war, and to bring the French government to this deci DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 189 sive pass required the highest diplomatic skill sup- poi'ted by dignity and weight of character. There was but one man in the new Republic in whom these qualities were combined, and that man was Franklin. The histoiy of diplomacy, with its long record of solemn entrances and brilliant processions, its daz- zling pictures of thrones and courts, which make the head dizzy and the heart sick, has no scene half so grand as the entrance of this unattended, unushered old man into France in December, 1776. No one knew of his comino; until he stood among them : and then, as they looked upon his serene yet grave and thoughtful face, — upon his gray hairs which carried memory back to the fatal year of Ramillies and the waning glories of the great Louis, — on the right hand which had writ- ten words of persuasive wisdom for prince and peasant, which had drawn the lightning from its home in the heavens, and was now stretched forth with such an imperial grasp to strip a sceptre they all hated of its richest jewel, — a feeling of rever- ential awe came over them, and they bowed them- selves before him as, in the secret depths of their hearts, they had never bowed to emperor or king. " He is at Nantes. He is on the road," was whis- pered from mouth to mouth in the saloons of the capital, as his landing became known. Some as- serted confidently that he had already reached Paris, others that he might be hourly expected. Then came the certainty : he had slept at Ver- 190 LECTURE VI. sailles the night of the 21st, had come to Paris at two the next afternoon, and now was at his lodg- ings in the Rue de I'Universite. No one, perhaps, was more surprised than Frank- lin to find himself the object of such universal at- tention. But no one knew better than he how to turn it to account for the accomplishment of his purpose. In a few days he withdrew to the quiet little village of Passy, at easy distance both from the city and the court ; and, without endeavoring to increase the public curiosity by an air of mys- tery or seclusion, kept himself sufficiently in the background to prevent that curiosity from losing its stimulant by too great a familiarity with its object. Where men of science met for the discussion of a new theory or the trial of a new experiment, he was to be seen amongst them with an unpre- tending air of intelligent interest, and wise sug- gestions, never indiscreetly proffered, never indis- creetly withheld. Where humane men met to discuss some question of practical benevolence, or philosophers to debate some principle of social organization, he was always prepared to take his part with apt and far-reaching illustrations from the stores of his meditation and experience. Some- times he was to be seen in places of amusement, and always with a genial smile, as if in his sympathy with the enjoyment of others he had forgotten his own perplexities and cares. In a short time he had drawn around him the best minds of the capi- DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 191 tal, and laid his skilful hand on the public pulse with an unerring accuracy of touch, which told him when to speak and when to be silent, when to urge and when to leave events to their natiu'al progress. Ever active, ever vigilant, no opportunity was suf- fered to escape him, and yet no one whose good- will it was desirable to propitiate was disgusted by injudicious importunity. Even Vergennes, who Ivnew that his comino- was the sio;nal of a new fa- vor to be asked, found in his way of asking it such a cheerful recognition of its true character, so con- siderate an exposition of the necessities which made it urgent, that he never saw him come without pleasure. If he had been a vain man, he would have enjoyed his position too much to make good use of it for the cause he came to serve. If he had been a weak man, he would have fallen under the control of the opinion which it was his office to guide. If he had not possessed a pure and gen- uine sympathy with human nature, he would not have been able, at the age of seventy, to enter into the feelings of a people so different from those among whom he had always lived. And if he had not been stimulated by earnest convictions, and governed by high principles, he would not have been able to withstand the frequent and insidious attempts that were made to shake his fortitude and undermine his fidelity. But in him, as in Wash- ington, there was a rare predominance of that sound common-sense which is man's surest guide 192 LECTURE VI. in his relations with events, and that firm belief in the progress of humanity which is his best reliance in his relations with men. Congi'ess had given him two associates in his commission to France, Silas Deane of Connecti- cut, and Arthur Lee of Virginia. Deane had been a member of Congress, was active, enterpris- ing, and industrious ; but his Judgment was not sound, his knowledge of men not extensive, his ac- quaintance with great interests and his experience of great affairs insufficient for the important posi- tion in which he was placed. Lee had lived long in England, was an accomplished scholar, a good writer, familiar with the character of European statesmen and the politics of European courts ; but vain, jealous, irritable, suspicious ; ambitious of the first honors, and disposed to look upon every one who attracted more attention than himself as his natural enemy- Deane, deeply impressed with the importance of Franklin's social position for the ftdfilment of their common duties, although ener- getic and active, cheerfully yielded the precedence to his more experienced colleague. Lee, conscious of his own accomplishments, regarded the deference paid to Franklin as an insult to liimself, and promptly resumed in Paris the war of petty in- trigue and secret accusation, which, a few years before, he had wajrcd against him in Enoland. In this vile course Congress soon unwittingly gave him a worthy coadjutor, by appointing, as Com- DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 103 missioiier to Tuscany, Ralph Izard of South Car- ohna ; who, without rendering a single service, without even goino; near the court to which be was accredited, continued for two years to draw his sal- ary and abuse Dr. Franklin. "When Franklin reached Paris, he found that Deane had already made himself a respectable po- sition ; and tliat, tlu-ough Caron de Beaumarcliais, the brilliant author of Figaro, the French gov- ernment had begun that system of pecuniary aid which it continued to render throughout the whole course of the war. Vergennes granted the com- missioners an early interview, listened respectfully to their statements, asked them for a memorial to lay before the King, assured them of the personal protection of the French court, promised them every commercial facility not incompatible with treaty obligations with Great Britain, and advised them to seek an interview with the Spanish Am- bassador. The memorial Avas promptly drawn up and presented. A copy of it was given to the Spanish Ambassador to lay before the court of IMadrid. Negotiations were fairly opened. But Franklin soon became convinced that the French government had marked out for itself a line of policy, from which, as it was founded upon a just appreciation of its own interests, it would not sweiwe ; that it wished the Americans success, was prepared to give them secret aid in arms and mon- ey, and by a partial opening of its ports ; but that 9 M 194 LECTURE VI. it was compelled by the obligations of the family compact to time its own movements in a certain measm'e by those of Spain, and was not prepared to involve itself in a war with England by an open acknowledgment of the independence of the Colonies, until they had given fuller proof of the earnestness of their intentions and of their ability to bear their part in the contest. Nor was he long in perceiving that the French government was giv- ing the Colonies money which it sorely needed for paying its own debts and defraying its own ex- penses ; and thus, that however well-disposed it might be, there were certain limits beyond Avhich it was not in its power to go. It was evident, therefore, to his just and sagacious mind, that to accept the actual policy of France as the gage of a more open avowal under more favorable circum- stances, and to recognize the limits which her finan- cial embarrassments set to her pecuniary grants, was the only course that he could pursue without incurrino; the dano;er of defeatino- his own neo;otia- tions by excess of zeal. Meanwhile there was enough to do in strengthening the ground already gained, in counteracting the insidious efforts of English emissaries, in correcting erroneous impres- sions, in awakening just expectations, in keeping up that public interest which had so large a part in the formation of public opinion, and in so regulat- ing the action of that opinion as to make it bear with a firm and consistent and not unwelcome DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 195 pressure upon the action of government. And in doing this he had to contend not only with the lo- cal difficulties of his position, but with the difficul- ty of uncertain communications, months often inter- vening between the sending of a despatch and the receivinof of an answer. Thus newsniono-ers had abundant opportunities for idle reports and un- founded conjectures, and enemies ample scope for malicious falsehoods. It was a happy circumstance for the new state that her chief representative was a man who knew when to wait with dignity, and when to act with energy ; for it was this just appreciation of circum- stances that gave him such a strong hold upon the mind of Vergennes, and imparted such weight to all his applications for aid. No sooner had Con- gress begun to receive money from Europe, than it began to draw bills upon its agents there, and often without any certainty that those agents would be in a condition to meet them. Bills were drawn on Mr. Jay when he was sent to Spain, and his already difficult position made doubly difficult and humiliating. Bills were drawn on Mr. Adams in Holland, and he was unable to pay them. But such was the confidence of the French court in the representations of Dr. Franklin, that he was not only enabled to honor all the drafts which were made upon him directly, but to relieve his less for- tunate colleagues from the embarrassments in which the precipitation of their own government had in- volved them. 196 LECTURE VI. And thus passed the first twelve months of his residence in France, cloudy and anxious months, more especially during the summer of 1777, when it was known that Burgoyne was coming down by Lake Champlain, and Howe preparing for a great expedition to the northward. Then came the tidings that Howe had taken Philadelphia. " Say rather," said Franldin, with that air of conviction which carries conviction with it, " That Philadel- phia has taken Howe." Men paused as they re- peated his words, and suspended their judgment ; and when tlie news of the battle of Germantown and the surrender of Burgoyne followed, they felt deeper reverence for the calm old man who had reasoned so wisely when all others desponded. It was on the 4th of December that these welcome tidings reached Paris, and the commissioners lost no time in communicating them to the court. The second day after, the secretary of the King's Coun- cil came to them with ojfficial congratulations. Ne- gotiations were resumed and carried on rai)idly, nothing but a desire to consult the court of Madrid being allowed to retard them ; and on the 6th of February, 1778, the first treaty between the Unit- ed States and a foreign power was signed with all the formalities which custom has attached to these acts. On the 20th of March, the commissioners were presented to the King. Nor was it mere curiosity which filled the halls of the royal palace with an eager throng on that DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 197 eventful day. These were the halls which had witnessed the gathering of powerful men and of great men to the footstool of the haughtiest of French kings ; which had seen a Cond^ and a Tu- renne lay down their laurels at the royal feet ; a Bossuet and a Boileau check the flow of indepen- dent thought to bask them in the beams of the royal smile ; a Fen^lon retiring with saddened brow to record for posterity the truths which he was not permitted to utter to the royal ear; a Racine, shrinking from the cold glance of the royal eye, and going home to die of a broken heart. Here Louis had signed the decree which sent his dra- goons to force his Protestant subjects to the mass and the confessional. Here he had received with a smile of triumph the tidings that the Pope him- self had been compelled to yield to his arrogant pretensions ; and here he had listened in haughty state when one of the last of the glorious republics of the Middle Ages, the city of Columbus and Andrew Doria, which had once covered the Med- iterranean with her ships, and sent forth her hardy mariners as from a nursery of brave men to impart their skill and communicate their enterprising ge- nius to the rest of Europe, humbled herself before him through her Doge, as, bowing his venerable head, the old man asked pardon in her name, not for the wrongs that she had committed, but for the wrongs that she had borne. And now, up those marble stairs, through those 198 LECTURE VI. tapestried halls, canie three men of humble birth, two of whom had wrought for their daily bread and eaten it in the sweat of their brows, to receive tlieir recognition as the representatives of a power which had taken its place among the nations, not by virtue of the divine right of kings, but in the name of the inalienable rights of the people. Hap- py would it have been for the young King who sat in Louis's seat if he could have understood the full meaning of his act, and recognized at the same moment the claims of his own people to participate in tliat government which, deriving its strength from their labor, could have no security but in their love. Nothing could have demonstrated more clearly the wisdom of Franklin's contidence in the sincer- ity of the French government, than the generous and liberal terms of the treaty. No present ad- vantage was taken of the dependent condition of their now ally ; no prospective advantage was re- served for future contingencies. Only one condi- tion was stipulated, — and that as much in the interest of the Colonies as of France, — that they should never return to their allegiance. Only one reciprocal obligation was assumed, that neither pai'tv should make peace with England without the knowledge and consent of the other. All the rest was full and free reciprocation in the future, and the assurance of efficient aid in the present ; no anibiffuities, no doubtful expressions, no debat- able oround for interpretation to build upon and DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTIOX. 199 weave the mazes of her subtile web ; but clear, distinct, and dotinite ; a mutual specification of mutual duties and mutual rights ; equal could not have treated more tirmly with equal than this new power, as yet unrecognized in the congress of na- tions, treated with the oldest monarchy of Europe. I have already alluded to the rage for treaties which prevailed for a while in Congress. It was tliis that sent William and Arthur Lee upon then* bootless errands to Vienna and Berlin; Francis Dana to St. Petersburg ; John Jay to en- counter embarrassment and mortification at Ma- drid ; and gave Ralph Izard an opportunity to di'aw an unearned salary, through two successive years, from the scanty fmids of the Congressional banker at Paris. Jay's situation was peculiai'ly trying. He had been Chief Justice of New York, President of Congress, had written some of the most eloquent state papers that were issued in the name of that bod}' whose state papers were ranked by Chat- ham among the best that ever were written, and, at a personal sacrifice, had exchanged a position of honor and dignity at home for a doubtful position abroad. A clear-headed, industrious, decided man, he had to contend, for more than two years, with the two qualities most alien to his natui'e, — habit- ual dilatoriness and diplomatic reticence. Spain, hke France, had marked out a path for herself, and it ^vaa impossible to move her fi'om it. 200 LECTURE VI. He obtained some money to help him pay some of the drafts of Congress, but neither treaty nor rec- ognition. " They have taken four years," wrote FrankHn, " to consider whether they would treat with us: I would give them forty, and let us mind our own business." And still viewing the question as he had viewed it in the beginning, he wrote in his diary in May, 1782: "It seems to me that we have, in most instances, hurt our credit and importance by sending all over Europe, begging alliances and soliciting declarations of our independence. The nations, perhaps, from thence seemed to think that our independence is some- thing they have to sell, and that we do not offer enough for it." * The most important European event in its American bearings, after the recognition by France, was the armed neutrality of the Northern powers ; a court intrigue in Russia, though a sober act in Spain, — and which was followed in December, 1780, by the addition of Holland to the open ene- mies of Encrland. Attempts had already been made to form a treaty with Holland ; first through William Lee, with such prospect of success as to induce Congress to send Henry Laurens to the Hague to continue the negotiations. Laurens was captured by an English cruiser, and soon after John Adams was directed to take his place. At Paris, Adams had * Franklin's Works, Vol. IX. p. 284, Sparks's edition. DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 201 failed singularly as a negotiator ; lending a ready- ear to Lee, hardly attempting to disguise his jeal- ousy of Franklin, and enforcing his own opinions in a manner equally offensive to the personal feel- ings of the minister and the traditional usages of the court. But at the Hague he found a field better suited to his ardent temperament, and, backed by the brilliant success of the campaign of 1781, and. the votes of the House of Commons in favor of reconciliation, succeeded in obtaining a public recognition in the spring of 1782, and con- cluding a treaty in the autumn. All these things were more or less upon the sur- face, — done and doing more or less openly. But under the surface the while, and known only to those directly concerned therein, were covert at- tempts on the part of England to open communi- cations with Franklin by means of personal friends. There had been nothing but the recognition of our independence that England would not have given to prevent the alliance with France ; and now there was nothing that she was not ready to do to prevent it from accomplishing its purpose. And it adds wonderfully to our conception of Franklin to think of him as goino; about with this knowledo-e, in addition to the knowledge of so much else in his mind ; this care, in addition to so many other cares, ever weighing upon his heart. Little did jealous, intriguing Lee know of these things ; pet- ulant, waspish Izard still less. A mind less sa- 9* 202 LECTURE VI. gacious than Franklin's might have grown suspi- cions under the influences that were empk\yed to awaken his distrust of Vergennes. And a charac- ter less firmly established would have lost its hold upon Vergennes amid the constant efforts that were made to shake his confidence in the gratitude and ffood faith of America. But Franklin, who believed that timely ftiith was a part of wisdom, went directly to the French Minister with the prop- ositions of the Enghsh emissaries, and frankly tell- ing him all about them, and taking counsel of him as to the manner of meeting them, not only stripped them of their power to harm him, but converted the very measures which his enemies had so insid- iously, and, as they deemed, so skilfully prepared for his ruin, into new sources of strength. Of the proffers of mediation in which first Spain and then Russia and the German Emperor were to take so important a part, as they bore no fruit, they may safely be passed over in silence ; simply observ- incr, as we pass, how little European statesmen un- derstood the business in which they were so ready to intermeddle, and what a curious spectacle Cath- arine and Kaunitz present, seeking to usher into the congress of kings the first true representative of that great principle of popular sovereignty which was to make all their thrones totter and tremble under them. And observing, too, that it furnished that self-dependence of John Adams which too often desenerated into arrogance an occasion to DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 203 manifest itself in a nobler light ; for he refused to take part in the discussions in any other character than as the representative of an independent power. IMeanwhile, events were hastening the inevitable termination. In Europe, England stood alone, without either secret or open sympathy. In June, 1779, a war with Spain had followed the Erench war of 1778. In July, 1780, the " armed neu- trality " had defined the position of the Northern powers adversely to her maritime pretensions. War Avas declaimed with Holland in December of the same year. In America, the campaign of 1781 had stripped her of her Southern conquests, and cffiiced the impression of her early victories. At home her people Avere daily growmg more and more restless under the pressure of taxation ; and even the country gentlemen, who had stood by the ministry so long in the hope of transferring their own burden to the shoulders of their American brethren, began to give evident tokens of discon- tent. It was clear that England must consent to peace. And yet she still stood bravely up, pre- senting a bold front to each new enemy ; a grand spectacle in one light, for there is always some- thins; grand in indomitable coui'ao;e ; but a sad one in the true light, and one from which, a hundred years hence, the philosophic historian will turn with a shudder, when summing up all these events, and asking what all this blood was shed for, he shows that the only principle at stake on her part was 204 LECTURE VI. that pernicious claim to control the industry of the ■world which, had she succeeded, would have dried up the sources of prosperity in America, as it is fast di'ying them up in Ireland and in India.* Nor was jieace less necessary to her rival. The social revolution which the two last reigns had ren- dered inevitable, was movincj with oio-antic strides towards its bloody consummation. The last well- founded hope of reforms that should probe deep enough to anticipate revolution had disappeared with Turgot. The statesmanship of Vergennes had no remedy for social disease. It was a states- manship of alliances, and treaties, and wars, — tra- ditional and sometimes brilliant, — but all on the surface, leaving the wounded heart untouched, the sore spirit unconsoled. The financial skill of Neck- er could not reach the evil. It was mere banking skill, and nothing more ; very respectable in its time and place, filling a few mouths more with bread, but failing to see, although told of it long ago by one who never erred, that " man does not live by bread alone." The finances were in hope- less disorder. The resources of the country were almost exhausted. Public faith had been strained to the utmost. National forbearance had been put to humiliating tests under the last reign by the par- tition of Poland and the peace of Kainardji ; and * I cannot deny myself the pleasure of referring in this con- nection to Mr. Carey's admirable exposition of this fact in his "Principles of Political Science." DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 205 the sense of self-respect had not been flilly restored by the American war. And although no one yet dreamed of what seven swift years were to bring forth, all minds were agitated by a mysterious con- sciousness of the approaching tempest. In 1782, the overtures of England began to as- sume a more definite form. Franklin saw that the time for decisive action was at hand, and prepared himself for it with his wonted calm and deliberate appreciation of circumstances. That France was sincere he could not doubt, after all the proofs she had given of her sincerity ; nor could he doubt that she would concur heartily in preparing the way for a lasting peace. He had the instructions of Congress to guide him in what America would claim ; and his own mind was quickly made up as to what England must yield. Four points were indispensable, — a full recognition of independence ; an immediate withdrawal of her troops ; a just settlement of boundaries, those of Canada beino" confined, at least, to the limits of the act of 1774 ; and the freedom of the fisheries. Without these there could be no treaty. But to make the work of peace sure, he suggested, as equally useful to both parties, four other concessions, the most im- portant of which were the giving up of Canada, and securing equal privileges in English and Irish ports to the ships of both nations. The four ne- cessary articles became the real basis of the treaty. John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurena 20() LECTURE VI. were joined with liiiu in tlie coniniission. Jay was first on the gronnd, reacliing Paris in Jnne ; Adams came in October ; Laurens not till Novem- ber, when the preliminary articles were ready for signature. They all accepted Franklin's four arti- cles as the starting-]'»oint. But unfortunately they did not all share Franklin's well-founded confi- dence in the sincerity of the French government. Jay's mind was embittered by the tergiversations of Spain. Adams had not forgotten his former dis- agreements witli Vergennos, and hated Franklin so bitterly that he could liardly be prevailed upon to treat him with the civility which his age and po- sition demanded, much less with the consideration which the interest of his country demanded. Both Jay and Adams were under the influence of that hostility to France which prevailed as extensively in the Colonies as in the mother country, — a hos- tility which neither of them was at sufficient pains to conceal, although neither of them perhaps was fully conscious of it. It was this feeling that kept them both aloof from the French Minister, and made them so accessible to English influences. And it was a knowledge of this feeling which three years later suggested to George III. that well- known iusiiuiation about Adams's dislike to French manners, which woidd ha^-e been a scathing sar- casm if it had not been an inexcusable imperti- nence. The English agents availed themselves skilfully DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION. 207 of those sentiments ; sowing suspicions, fostering doubts, and not shrinking, there is strong reason to suppose, from gross exaggeration and deliberate falsehood. The discussion of articles, like all such discussions, was protracted by the cftbrts of each party to make the best terms, and the concealing of real intentions in the hope of extorting greater concessions. But England Avas really prepared to yield all that America was really prepared to claim. France, in spite of the suspicions of Adams and Jay, was really sincere ; and on the 30th of No- vember, 1782, the preliminary articles were signed. Franklin's position was difficult and delicate. He knew the importance of peace. He knew that the instructions of Congress required perfect open- ness towards the French Minister. He believed that the Minister deserved, both by his past kind- ness and present good intentions, to be treated with perfect openness. But both his colleagues were against him. What should he do ? Refer the dif- ference to Congress, and meanwhile hold the coun- try in painful and expensive suspense ? What could he do but submit, as he had done through life, to the circumstances which he could not con- trol, and give the appearance of unanimity to an act which the good of his country required to be unanimous ? He signed the preliminaries, and submitted to the reproach of personal and public ingratitude as he had submitted to the taunts of Wedderburn. 208 LECTURE VI. History has justified his confidence ; the most care- ful research having failed to hring to light any con- firmation of the suspicions of his colleagues. And Vergennes, though nettled for the moment, under- stood Franklin's position too -well to lay the act at his door as an expression of a real opinion. Much time and long discussions were still required to convert the preliminaries into a final treaty; for the complicated interests of England, France, and Spain were to be taken into the account. But each party longed for peace ; each party needed it ; and on the 3d of September, 1783, another treaty of Paris gave once more the short-lived though precious boon to Europe and America. During Franklin's residence at the court of France, and mainly through his influence, that court had advanced to Congress three millions of Hvres a year as a loan, had increased it to four millions in 1781, had the same year added six mil- lions as a free gift to the three millions with which she began, and become their security for the regu- lar payment of the interest upon a loan of ten millions to be raised in Holland.* Nor Avill it be inappropriate to add that before he sailed upon his mission to France, he called in all the money he could command in specie (be- tween three and four thousand pounds in all), and put it mto the public treasmy as a loan ; and that * In all, eighteen millions as a loan, and nine millions as a free