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JOHN ADAMS
THE STATESMAN OF THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION
WITH OTHER ESS A YS AND ADDRESSES
HISTORICAL AND LITERARY

MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN, LL.D.
Formerly Librarian of tfie Boston Public Library

BOSTON AND NEW YOEK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
(Srfje mioecgiiit fze^0, Cambtibge
1898

COPyniGHT, 1898, BY MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN
ALL BIGHTS EESEEVED

ce-^.z33

PREFACE
Having come to that time of life when one does
not readily assume new cares, the author of these
papers has asked me to arrange them, to make such
slight modifications as seemed needful, and to answer
for their safe conduct through the press.
Aside from the pleasure of serving Judge Cham
berlain, if I may, it gives me great satisfaction to be
instrumental in bringing this volume to the light.
The least among many persistent friends, I have
long thought that these scattered fragments should
be sheaved in some permanent and accessible form.
In this case the " solicitations of others " is no empty
expression, behind which timorous authorship is often
glad to protect itself. It would be easy, if it were
desirable, to produce from letters, written by men of
eminence, urgent requests that a larger public might
be given the opportunity to become acquainted with
material heretofore only available to the few through
limited editions. Of one review, here reprinted, an
historian of note, writing to an editor, says that it is
the best piece of criticism made in this country " in
our time ; " and a well-known statesman, in express
ing his regret that Judge Chamberlain had not earlier
devoted himself to historical effort, announces his

iv PREFACE
belief that an adequate interpretation of the history
of New England would have been the sure result.
Without an exception the contents of this volume
were written by one who, up to his sixtieth year, had
been mainly engrossed in professional cares at the
bar and on the bench. He had, however, studied and
thought wholly for himself, wbere most men talk
and print the thoughts of other people. As a result,
when he came to express himself for the first time
in print in his full maturity, he had learned to dis
card all irrelevaneies, and to view men and events
without prejudice and violence. I do not readily
recall another instance of so long a reticence on the
part of one naturally inclined to forcible expression.
I especially desire to call attention to the unusual
substance of these essays — since essays they really
are ; for although most of them are nominally ad
dresses, they are not the addresses of an orator who
merely graces an occasion. To have forced the recog
nition within a decade of a fresh hypothesis in Amer
ican history, beset as our estimates of that history
are with reserves and mannerisms, is no slight achieve
ment. To-day, however, historians, when they cast
up their balances, have to, reckon in Judge Cham
berlain's opinions on ecclesiasticism as a factor in
pre-revolutionary affairs. I cite this as one only of
several important contributions to historical thought.
Another side of Judge Chamberlain's life and
charactei" is seen in the papers standing toward the
end of the volume, in which he has expressed his

PREFACE V
views on literature and on the aesthetic and poetic
considerations of life. His defense of imaginative
literature is in gracious contrast to the severity of
his attitude toward emotional and merely popular
views of history.
It is quite possible that the literary reviewer will
find in these pages repetitions of cherished theories ;
but that is almost inevitably incidental to papers of
such a character, and it has not seemed necessary to
bring everything to the gauge of consistency and per
fect form.
My task has hardly been more than that of select
ing these papers, presumably of greatest general in
terest, from among numerous others, and of grouping
these efforts in what I have supposed to be the most
effective way ; but in doing this there has revived
within me a sense of obligation to a man who insensi
bly steered me away from unsubstantial methods and
showed me the value of moderation, candor, and entire
independence of judgment.
No attempt is made to give citations to many recent
articles and replies to some of the more controversial
papers, as, for instance, the "Authentication of the
Declaration of Independence."
Four of the articles have been printed, one each in
the "Andover Review," the "Dartmouth Literary
Monthly," the "Century Magazine" and the "Na
tion," and appear in this volume by the courtesy of
the editors.
" The Revolution Impending," a paper of the first

VI PREFACE
importance, is here reluctantly omitted ; but it may
be found in vol. vi. of the " Narrative and Critical
History of America." It has even been thought the
strongest of Judge Chamberlain's writings. Charles
Borgeaud, in his " Etablissement et Revision des
Constitutions en Amerique et en Europe," says of a
passage which he quotes at length, " It would be
difficult to indicate more clearly the real character
of the American Revolution."
Lindsay Swift.

CONTENTS
PASS
John Adams, the Statesman op the American Eevolu-
TION  1
Authentication op the Declaration of Independence , 97
Constitutional Relations or the American Colonies to
THE English Government  135
Eemarks on the new Historical School  167
Genesis op the ]\1assachusetts Town  187
Political Maxims  229
Remarks before the Sons op the American Revolu
tion, Concord, April 19, 1894  243
Palfrey's People of New England  258
McMasteb's History op the People op the United
States  269
Josiah Quincy, the Great Mayor  297
Daniel Webster as an Orator  329
Remarks at the Dedication op a Statue of Daniel
Webster, Concord, N, H,, June 17, 1886  343
A Glance at Daniel Webster  357
Landscape in Life and in Poetry  369
The Scope op a College Library, Address at the Dedi
cation OP Wilson Hall, Dartmouth College Library. 389
The Old and the New Order in New England Life
AND Letters, Address at the Dedication op the
Brooks Library Building, Brattleborough .... 427
Imaginative Literature in Public Libraries, Address
at the Dedication op the Woods Memorial Library
Building, Babre  467

JOHN ADAMS
THE STATESMAN OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
As Address before the Webster Historical Society
January 18, 1884

JOHN ADAMS
THE STATESMAN OF THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION

John Adams entered public life with the first ses
sion of the Continental Congress, which met
at Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, and re- ^^on"""^
mained in the service of the country almost P^iblio
uninterruptedly until the close of his admin
istration, March 4, 1801. Of this period, nine years
were covered by the American Revolution, in which
he took a leading part and held it with undiminished
zeal and constancy until the Treaty of Peace in 1783,
It is this part of his life of which I am to give some
account. His influence during this period of national history
was mainly due to his ability ; but he was fortunate
in the time at which he intervened in public affairs, as
also in the character of the colony from which he was
a delegate to the Congress.
Of his great contemporaries, Franklin was not a
member until the next spring, and after a little more
than a year's service he went abroad on his French
mission ; neither was Jefferson, who in later years, as
a political rival, drew the great body of the people to
his way of thinking on national subjects ; nor until
eight years had passed away was Hamilton, of marvel
ous genius for statesmanship. Washington entered

4 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
the Congress with John Adams, and on his suggestion
a year later was transferred from civil life to the
head of the army.
Of the Congress of 1774, Edward Rutledge and
John Jay were younger than John Adams ; but the
greater part of the delegates were of an age which
brings disqualifications for parliamentary leadership.
John Adams was thirty-nine years old, and in the
prime of his great powers. Peculiarities of temper,
which in later years impaired his influence, at this
time were a help rather than a hindrance. It must
also be counted as his good fortune that he came from
Massachusetts Bay; for though that colony was re
garded with distrust and dislike by the middle and
southern colonies, there were facts in her history, as
well as something in the character of her people, which
gave potency to her voice in the national councils and
weight to John Adams as her leading representative.
Under such circumstances John Adams entered
Congress, which he attended through the sessions of
four years. During this period of revolution, which
was also the period of necessary constitutional recon
struction, he rendered services such as no other states
man rendered, and more widely, more profoundly, and,
unless present indications prove fallacious, more per
manently impressed the political institutions of the
country than any other man who has ever lived in it ;
and by reason of these services he became entitled to
rank as the preeminent statesman of the Revolution.
My object is to show by what endowments, by what
acquisitions, and by what use of his powers, can be
justly claimed for John Adams the first place among
such statesmen as Samuel Adams, John Jay, Thomas
Jefferson, and even Benjamin Franklin.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 5
There were no congressional reporters in those days.
The members were pledged to secrecy. The journals
are neither full nor accurate, and even John Adams's
own diary fails us at some of the most critical and
interesting points ; yet his services in their results
are historically clear and not difficult of estimation.
It is more difficult, however, to estimate the character
of the statesman who rendered these services ; for
though his purposes were single and his methods
simple and direct, his character was complex. In cer
tain aspects it seems to belong to no known type of
the English race, nor can it be described in a phrase.
Here was a man born and bred in a narrow, pro
vincial sphere, remote from the centres of
liberal thought, untraveled, and separated oharao-
by the ocean from those movements which so *®"^*i°^-
powerfully affected European society in the middle of
the eighteenth century ; and yet, in rare combination
and large measure, he included in his character, and
exhibited by his life and action, the best influences of
the Reformation, in which those movements had their
remote origin. Acknowledging the supremacy of con
science, and yielding implicit obedience to the claims
of natural and revealed religion, he recognized its es
sential unity under all its varied forms of manifesta^
tion, and was free from the slightest trace of bigotry
or sectarian narrowness. He believed in civil and
religious liberty as inherent rights of the people, but
under subjection, as are the forces of nature, to an
intelligent and ever-active principle of law, which is
Milton's idea of liberty. He was a provincial, with
all the traditions of provincialism ; and yet, undenia
bly, he was the foremost advocate and most efficient
promoter of nationality. Before the colonies had de-

6 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
clared themselves independent, and for the purpose of
promoting that measure, he advocated the formation
of state constitutions, and the severing of one tie
which bound them to the mother country ; and later,
when the great Declaration had gone forth, he strove
for a closer union and the semblance, at least, of a
national government under the Articles of Confedera
tion. Finally, when the war had closed and the terms
of peace were under discussion, he, more than any
other, secured to the nation the old colonial rights in
the fisheries of Newfoundland, opened to navigation
the mouth of the Mississippi when under doubtful
jurisdiction, pushed the national boundaries from the
AUeghanies to the great river, from the Ohio to the
central line of the northern lakes, from the Kennebec
to the St. Croix, and yielded the Canadas only to the
necessities of peace.
It is an original, not an acquired, character we
have to consider. His breadth of understanding and
liberal views were not exhibited for the first time after
he had left his native province for the wider theatre
of national activity, nor when he had been in con
tact with speculative thought in Europe, but while
yet a boy musing upon life and his possible relations
to it.
John Adams possessed two faculties in a degree
which distinguished him among his countrymen, and
made him preeminently serviceable In a period of
revolution, — the historic imagination which devel
ops nationality from Its germ, and clear intuitions of
organic constitutional law. In these faculties he has
never been surpassed by any American statesman, nor
equaled save by him whose name needs no mention in
this presence. There Is evidence that from his youth

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 7
he was accustomed to trace the growth and develop
ment of nationality In the great epochs of Saxon and
English history and to project It under new conditions
in America ; and that from the earliest days of the
Revolution he saw In the determining force of race
tendencies, united with free, independent government,
the Inevitable greatness of his country. This gave
unity and consistency to his whole public career, In
which respect he stands nearly alone among public
men of equal rank. It also gave him faith when oth
ers doubted, courage when they quailed in the face
of danger, and constancy when they lost heart from
disasters. In the gloomy days which succeeded the
defeats at Brandywine and Germantown, when Wash
ington and his army escaped destruction only by the
unaccountable remissness of Howe, John Adams said,
" These disasters will hurt us, but not ruin us." He
had unshaken confidence in the course of free em
pire.^ If we now look at some of those moral characteris
tics which marked him as a statesman, we shall find
certain race traits which he seems to have inherited
immediately from his British ancestry, rather than by
transmission through his colonial progenitors. He
possessed the pluck, courage, and bull-dog tenacity
which we ascribe to the English, and which all
through their history has stood them In such stead In
desperate civil and military encounters, often chang
ing lost fields to fields of victory ; and, on the other
1 At a meeting of the American Academy in 1807, at the request of
Dr, Abiel Holmes, John Adams wrote on a slip of paper, now in my
possession, the foUowing Hnes which he had seen inscribed iu some
forgotten place : —
" The eastern nations sink ; their glory ends.
And Empire rises where the sun descends,"

8 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
hand, there was no trace in his composition of the
craft, cunning, or selfishness which narrow circum
stances and a hundred years of contest with a
treacherous and skulking foe are supposed, justly or
unjustly, to have engrafted on the New England
character of his day.
There was no strategy In his nature. His path led
straight to his object, and his movements in it were
simple and direct, though not always free from osten
tation and self-assertion, not easily understood in so
great a man. In his victories we perceive no special
skill In plan or science of battle ; but his eye was
quick to detect the stress of the engagement, and
there his honest blows fell fast and heavy. How
clearly he saw the inevltableness of the Issue, and
how plucklly for more than a twelvemonth, in Con
gress, he fought the fight of the Declaration ; and
against what odds — for nothing Is now more clear
than this, that neither the Congress nor the people
as a whole were quite ripe for It. He carried the
measure by sheer force and persistence ; and he was
right. Yet it was one of those almost hopeless strug
gles in which victory forms an epoch In the history of
human progress.
This directness of aim and impetuosity of move
ment were not the conventional methods, either in
the legislation or the diplomacy of his day, and they
subjected him to some animadversion from those
who respected his honesty and ability. While on his
Dutch mission, in 1781, to procure a recognition of
our independence and to effect a loan, he shocked the
old diplomatists by his memorial to their High Mighti
nesses and the Prince of Orange. This was issued
against the advice, and even remonstrance, of our

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 9
French allies.^ But it led to ultimate success. I
think It will be found that John Adams was always
right in his well-considered judgments, and usually so
in his measures ; if any part of his conduct was open
to criticism, it was his manner.^
When the cause of independence and nationality
demanded an orator, — not brilliant declalmers like
Henry, Lee, and Rutledge, but one who, with capacity
for affairs, could bring powerful and Intrepid advo
cacy into council and passionate appeals to patriotic
sentiment, — such an orator was found in John Ad
ams, the Colossus of debate.^
These special gifts were made effective by a vigor
ous and comprehensive intellect and high courage.
All his powers were trained, and every opportunity
for improvement embraced, with an assiduity not
common in America at that day.
John Adams at his best was always a statesman ;
as a politician he made a very indifferent figure. In
his country's ends he always succeeded — always ;
and In his own quite likely would always have failed,
1 When copies of it reached America, Madison, writing to Pendle
ton, said, " I enclose a copy of Mr, Adams's memorial to the States
General, I wish I could have informed you of its being lodged in
the archives of their High Mightinesses, instead of presenting it to
you in print," — Madison's Letters, i, 54,
2 The memorial above referred to was not promulgated without
mature consideration of the whole case. Writing a year later to
Francis Dana, our then unaccredited minister to St, Petersburg, Adams
said, " I see no objection against your attempt, as you propose, to find
out the real disposition of the Empress, or her ministers. You cannot
take any noisy measures like those I have taken here. The form of
the government forbids it," — 'Works, vii, 544,
* The present estimate of Adams does not differ widely from Ban
croft's ; but it was formed by a study of Adams's history and writings
without reference to Bancroft, who has, it seems to me, overlooked
Adams's most marked characteristic, — his historic imagination.

10 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
had he sought any that were merely personal. HIs^
much-derided administration, though conducted under
great embarrassments, was useful to the country, and
not without its period of national glory ; and the
measure which threw his cabinet into confusion was
a bold stroke of statesmanship, conceived and per
sisted In without regard to party or personal interests.
Ambitious, vain, egotistical, self-confident, and jealous,
— for he was aU these, as no one knew better or has
oftener told us than himself, — these qualities, on a
superficial view, detract from the perfection of his
character, and have cruelly interfered with his just
fame. But they were mere exaggerations of harmless
qualities. Beneath them all we can perceive a com
plete and well-rounded character, — large, powerful,
active, and f uU of humanities, — with more of individ
uality than that of any other public man of his day.
His_/br^e was action. " I never shall shine," he said,
" till some animating occasion calls forth all my
powers." When side-tracked In the vice-presidency,
or finally ditched at Braintree, the engine puffed and
snorted and let off steam in a very unedlfying man
ner ; but on a clear course, no matter what the load
or what the grades, it moved with the swiftness and
verve of the lightning-train — and. It maybe added,
with something of its racket.
In respect to a man endowed with such rich and
varied gifts, we have a rational curiosity to know
something of the processes of education and special
training by which they were so supplemented that In
due time this native of an obscure provincial town
came to be regarded as the ablest constitutional law
yer of his day and the consummate orator and states
man of the Revolution. Nor are we without the
means.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 11
John Adams evidently was not unconscious of his
powers, nor without ambition to make them
servient to the interests of his country and uou^foT'
his own honorable fame. In his youth he public
divined the coming empire of America, and
formed himself, I think not without prescience, for a
distinguished part In Its affairs. His self-examina
tion was critical and unsparing. He carefully con
sidered his life-work, as well as his own powers. To
what had been given him he added much by reading,
reflection, and conversation with those more mature
than himself. Of his college life we know little ; but
on his graduation he entered upon a wide course of
study with commendable diligence. His diary tells
us that he made himself acquainted with the great
poets of antiquity : with Homer, Virgil, Horace, and
Ovid. He knew Shakespeare, Milton, Baxter, and
Pope, and apparently understood and enjoyed them.
Before the adoption of the law as his profession, and
for the purpose of determining his choice, he read
with attention the works of the great divines, the
political and philosophical writers then in vogue, and
the authoritative treatises in medical science. When
fairly engaged In the study of the law, he pursued
It with such success that before the age of thirty he
became one of the best-equipped lawyers in America.
" The study and practice of law, I am sure, does
not dissolve the obligations of morality or of reli
gion," so he wrote at the age of twenty, as he was en
tering on his course of study ; nor did he ever forget
this conviction of his unhurt youth. His work was
honest throughout, and he prepared himself honestly
for it. He did not gauge his legal studies to the
requirements of his native Braintree, where he began

12 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
to practice, nor by those of the metropolis In which he
was at one time settled. He aimed, he said, to dis
tinguish himself among his fellow-students " by the
study of the civil law in its native tongues." With
Bracton, Britton, Fleta, GlanvIUe, Coke, and Lord
Hale he became familiar, as also with Justinian and
the great commentators on the civil law. To these
must be added Montesquieu, Blackstone (then re
cently published), Voltaire's " Louis XIV.," and, in
fine, whatever was within his reach that could en
large, enrich, or ' strengthen his understanding for
grasping the principles of law and constitutional gov
ernment. Following the advice of Gridley, the Nes
tor of the bar, " to pursue the study of the law rather
than the gain of It," he " labored to get distinct Ideas
of law, right, wrong, justice, equity ; to search for
them in his own mind, in Roman, Grecian, French,
English treatises of natural, civil, common, statute
law ; to aim at an exact knowledge of the nature, end,
and means of government ; to compare the different
forms of It with each other, and each of them with
their effects on public and private happiness for the
advancement of right ; to assert and maintain liberty
and virtue ; to discourage and abolish tyranny and
vice." With these added extracts from his diary we
have the whole scheme of his life : " Let little ob
jects be neglected and forgot, and great ones engross,
arouse, and exalt my soul." " I was born for busi
ness, for both activity and study. I have little appe
tite or relish for anything else. I must double and
redouble my diligence." The recorded lives of great
statesmen have sometimes made us familiar with the
aspirations and purposes of their youth ; but I recall
few instances where these were fixed so high, so unde-

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 13
viatingly pursued, and so fully attained by achieve
ments which have indelibly Impressed themselves on
the happy fortunes of a continent. These principles,
made efficient by an intellect of extraordinary power,
placed him foremost among the lawyers of his day ;
and as we read the history of the country, we learn
without surprise that John Adams was also foremost
among those who established the freedom and nation
ality of America and laid the foundation of its gov
ernment.^ When he entered public life, In 1774, he
was probably well qualified to conduct causes and ar
gue questions of public law before any tribunal sitting
at Westminster, and to represent with distinction any
English constituency in the House of Commons.
Such was the man to whom came his hour ; and he
made It an epoch In history.
John Adams was too conspicuous to be overlooked
among the great men of the country, and the value of
his services was acknowledged by his contemporaries ;
but I think they were not estimated at their true
value. We are in a far better position than they
were to do him complete justice. We understand the
Revolution Itself In its causes and its progress much
more fully than those who were actors In It. The
century of the national existence just closed was to
them the dark, uncertain future ; to us it has joined
the historic past. In it we see events in their rela
tions and proportions which to thera appeared Incom
plete and sometimes unrelated.
1 John Adams's legal erudition does not, as is so often the case
among great lawyers, rest merely upon tradition. His dissertation
on the canon and feudal law, written at the age of twenty-nine, is still
extant, and may be read with profit even in the light of later studies.
It was erroneously attributed to Gridley, and pronounced by Hollis,
in England, where it was more than once reprinted, to be " one of the
very finest productions from North America,"

14 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
But I venture to think that we shall not reach
these desirable results unless we unlearn
ofThe"'^"^ some things we have been taught, and clear
Eevoiu- away some prejudices which have proved so
fatal to successful historical research. We
seem now far enough removed from the Revolution to
study it historically, and not as partisans ; to be per
mitted to learn that then, as now, when people divide
into parties, not facts, nor right, nor conscience, are
wholly on one side.-' Nor does it seem longer neces
sary to conceal those facts which do not stand for
national honor, or to be compelled to guess them from
ambiguous and often disingenuous apologies. It Is
hardly exaggeration, however, to say that we can more
dispassionately discuss the causes of the late Civil
War, and lay bare the motives and conduct of the
men and parties engaged In It on either side, than the
motives and conduct of men and parties at the begin
ning of the Revolution, the intrigues In the Congress,
or the convention at Saratoga In 1777.
The result of this state of things, growing out of
undue solicitude for the reputation of individuals and
a patriotic disposition to exalt the successful party, is
that we have much history that is neither truthful nor
profitable for reproof. Instruction, or guidance.
John Adams's fame as a statesman grew out of his
services during the American Revolution. In the
endeavor to form a just estimate of those services, I
have been led to consider that event In Its Inception,
progress, and results, and to discover, If possible, the
exact relations of John Adams to It. In the prosecu
tion of this purpose I have observed some facts which
do not appear to me to be sufficiently emphasized, to
1 See Dawson's 'Handbook for the Dominion of Canada. 103, 104,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 15
say the least, in the histories of that period ; and I
have reached some conclusions which require a fuller
statement of the grounds on which they rest than Is
ordinarily found in an address of this description.
It seems to me that we shall fail to appreciate the
true character of the Revolution If we restrict Its
entirety to the events which transpired between the
Stamp Act of 1765 and the Peace of 1783 ; for, thus
limited, I am unable to find adequate causes In those
events when regarded In their necessary political se
quence, or when referred In historical parallelism to
other movements of society which have resulted In
the disruption of governments. The causes of revo
lution are usually remote from the event. No matter
on what soil they are planted, the seeds of a new
order of government germinate slowly, and only
children's children are permitted to repose beneath
its branches.! For the history of the Revolution we
must go back to the planting of the seeds. John
Adams is authority for this view of the subject.
" The principles and feelings which contributed to
produce the Revolution ought to be traced back for
two hundred years, and sought In the history of the
country from the first plantations In America." Sel
dom, If ever, are revolutions the spontaneous action
of an entire community. Their interests may be the
same, they may suffer from a common grievance, but
people will not think alike. Divergences of opinions
are sure to arise, and out of these parties are formed.
A contest ensues with vicissitudes of fortune, but ulti
mately terminating in accordance with the movement
of society out of which It springs. The American
Revolution was no exception to this general rule,
^ H. B. Adams's Life and Writings of Jared Sparks, i, 494.

16 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
though one might infer otherwise from much which
passes for history.
To understand the services which John Adams ren
dered to the country in the Revolution, it is essential
to understand the attitude of the parties wbicb brought
it on, and, with great exactness, the questions which
divided them in their inception, progress, and urgency,
at the time when he engaged in public affairs ; and
especially so in his case, since, to a profound know
ledge of these questions, and the formative influence
of this knowledge on his mind and character, was due
in no small degree his success in giving direction and
happy issue to the movement.
The commonly received notion Is that the passage
of the Stamp Act so clearly contravened the rights of
the colonists as British subjects, that they with one
accord rose in resistance, and after eight years of
strife finally achieved their independence. I venture
to think that this is the apparent, rather than the real,
state of the case. I think that those who accept It fail
to perceive the true nature of this demonstration, and
wholly overlook the vital elements of genuine revo
lution which existed in the antecedent history of the
two colonies whose hearts were earliest engaged In
the cause — Virginia and Massachusetts — and made
revolution possible ; and that of these causes, perhaps
the prime cause, without which the Revolution would
never have begun when it did and where it did was
ecclesiastical rather than political, beginnino- with the
settlement of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and
operating with unbroken succession and efiiciency
down to the commencement of hostilities.
It also overlooks the origin and continuity of that
civil contest which began in Massachusetts with the

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 17
revocation of the first charter In 1684, between the
friends of the royal government and the champions of
popular rights, in which parties arrayed themselves
under the respective and successive lead of Randolph
and Danforth, Dudley and Cooke, Burnett and Wells,
on Issues as sharply defined. Involving the same gen
eral principles, and as hotly contested, as those which
divided Bernard and Hutchinson from James Otis
and Samuel Adams.
Another misconception which belittles the contest
and detracts from the merit of the patriotic party Is
that which regards the Tories as a mere handful of
mallgnants, composed mainly of commercial adven
turers and government officials having no stake in the
community, together with a few old families which, for
personal aggrandizement, set themselves In opposition
to the principles and measures of the patriots, and
sought to compass the subjugation and ruin of the
country In which they were born, and in which their
dearest Interests centred.
The only remaining matter to which I shall allude
relates to the grounds on which the patriotic party
opposed the parliamentary claim of right to tax the
colonists. In reading the histories of those times, one
is likely to receive the Impression that the outburst of
popular indignation which pervaded the colonies on
the news of the passage of the Stamp Act would not
have occurred had the colonists been represented In
Parliament ; but there Is no foundation for this im
pression. Their main objection was commercial, and
not political. It was to the tax, not to non-represen
tation ; still less to any merely theoretical claim of
parliamentary supremacy, as is evident from the quiet
which followed the repeal of the act, though accom-

18 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
panied by the express declaration of the right to tax
the colonists. And we are to regard the resolutions
of the Congress of 1765, as well as those of the pro
vincial assemblies in the early stages of the contro
versy, and perhaps as late as 1775, In the nature of
protests, like the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions
of a later day, designed, of course, to Influence par
liamentary legislation, but not as preliminaries of
forcible resistance.
But there came a time — earlier In Massachusetts
than elsewhere, for reasons to be given hereafter —
when all this was changed ; when the colonists came
to understand that there were colonial constitutions as
well as a British constitution, and that both were sub
ject to like laws of growth and development ; that by
the operation of these laws in the direction of natural
rights their own constitutions had come to be the basis
and measure of their rights and immunities ; that in
all cases, especially In Internal affairs, where the im
perial and colonial constitutional maxims conflicted,
the latter were the fundamental rule of right and ac
tion ; and finaUy, that If the validity of this construc
tion involved a reference to the ultima ratio. It would
only be one more Instance, of which English history
is full, of that mode of settling constitutional ques
tions. When the colonists came to this ground, they
had a good fighting position, not before. Here John
Adams stood — stood nearly alone ; altogether alone
in the clearness with which he saw the strength of this
position, and iu the courage and pertinacity with which
he maintained It.^ To this clear constitutional ground
he first led his own colony, and finally the representa-
^ But see George W, Greene's Historical View of the American Rev
olution, 381.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 19
tives of the thirteen colonies in Congress assembled,
in a declaration of their rights in 1774, and of their
independence in 1776. This was his greatest public
service ; and it was the greatest feat of statesmanship
during the revolutionary period. He had able coad
jutors, but to him, more than to any other, the honor
is due. This ground of rights under colonial consti
tution once taken, the strife was no longer rebellion,
but maintenance of constitutional rights. " We are
not exciting a rebellion," exclaimed John Adams.
" Opposition, nay, open, avowed resistance by arms,
against usurpation and lawless violence, is not rebel
lion by the law of God or the land." The colonists
were no longer traitors, but patriots ; and those who
undertook to force their position were justly deemed
public enemies. Final success was no longer doubt
ful. The cause had aligned Itself to the great move
ment of society, which began with the Reformation,
in the direction of nationality, and in its support had
secured the resources of a continent.
These positions must now be referred to their his
toric basis. It was by no accident that the Masaa-
Revolutlon broke out in Massachusetts Bay. phusetts
It could have happened, at that time, no- Kevoiu-
where else upon the continent. Nowhere *^°°-
else had a succession of causes, civil and religious, op
erative through a hundred years, prepared the way for
it. Hither the royal troops had been sent, because
here they were needed to maintain the royal govern
ment ; and to these troops the first armed resistance
in which blood was shed was on the field of Lexing
ton, April 19, 1775.1
I On this point it is scarcely necessary to quote authorities. One

20 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
Starting, then, from that place and hour, and run
ning back on the line of colonial history in search of
adequate causes not connected with antecedent causes,
I find my progress arrested and my historic sense of
cause and effect satisfied only by the events and mo
tives which led to the settlement of the Bay in 1630.
These motives were two : religious and civil liberty.
And the greater of these was religious liberty. It
was also the more efficient. And I find that these
motives, regarded as causes, continued to exist and
operate in clear religious and political sequence, with
only Insignificant Interruptions and with scarcely im
paired vitality, to the treaty of peace In that year of
God of which the last was the happy centennial ; and
that the events which occurred between 1765 and
1783, though dramatically complete In themselves,
yet historically are only the closing act of a drama
which opened In 1630 with the coming of Winthrop
and his Puritans.
Thus the American Revolution began in the colony
of Massachusetts Bay, and in Its vital a-id most po
tent force was religious rather than political. This
character of the Revolution was Impressed upon It by
the circumstances which led to the Puritan hegira
will suffice, " In all the late American disturbances, and in every
attempt against the authority of the British Parliament, the people of
Massachusetts Bay have taken the lead. Every new move towards
independence has been theirs ; and in every fresh mode of resistance
against the law, they have first set the example, and then issued out
admonitory letters to the other colonies to follow it," Mauduit's
Short View of the History of the New England Colonies, 5, An ad
dress to the House, February 7, 1775, and before the events at Lex
ington, proposed by the minister, and carried after great debate,
declared that a, rebellion already existed in Massachusetts, counte
nanced and fomented by unlawful combinations in the other Colonies.
Hildreth, Hist. U. S. iu, 61.

JOHN AdA'mS and the REVOLUTION 21
from England In 1630 ; and those circumstances, only
changed In form but remaining the same in
their essential character, continued to exist ^ooiesi-
.^ . . . asticism
until the events at Lexington In 1775 noti- a cause of
fied the Bishop of London, as well as the 01^^^°^'
King of England, that the descendants of
the Puritans had referred both the polemics of the
hierarchy and the casuistry of parliamentary suprem
acy to the decision of war. The motive which led to
the Puritan emigration was religious rather than civil.
It was from, the crozier rather than the sceptre —
from Laud and the High Commission rather than
Charles the First — that the Puritans fled.^
1 Notwithstanding what I say about " Ecclesiasticism as a cause
of the Revolution," some of my critics have hastUy substituted tJie
for a. I wrote only after careful examination of original authorities
and much reflection. Many historical scholars have written me to
the effect that, while they were pleased to say that much in the
pamphlet was not only "new but also true," that part which treated
of ecclesiasticism was not only true, but had never before been
treated, so far as they had observed, with direct explicitness.
Since I wrote, I have found a large mass of authorities ; hut only
lately have I re id the most remarkable letter of Koger Sherman in his
Life hy L, H, ISoutell, p, 64, I think it confirms all that I have said,
and places the Subject where only one of his abUity could place it,
2 " Independence of English Church and State was the fundamen
tal principle of the first colonization, has been its general principle
for two hundred years, and now, I hope, is past dispute. Who, then,
was the author, inventor, discoverer, of independence ? The only
true answer must be, the first emigrants. When we say that Otis,
Adams, Mayhew, Henry, Lee, Jefferson, etc, were authors of inde
pendence, we ought to say they were only awakeners and revivers of
the original fundamental principle of colonization." — John Adams's
Works, X, 359, " It is certain that civil dominion was but the sec
ondary motive, religious the primary, with our ancestors in coming
hither and settling this land," — President SitWea, American Pulpit,
xxx. This view seems to be adopted by Harry A, Cushing in his
Transition from Provincial to Commonwealth Government in Massa
chusetts, p, 14, as follows : —
"The time of reorganization in Massachusetts is marked hy a

22 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
They came hither to escape the hierarchy of the
Church of England and to set up one of their own.
And it was in defense of this domestic hierarchy —
though civil and religious liberty were indissolubly
connected in their minds — that the clergy of New
England, alone of aU the professional or propertied
classes, arrayed themselves on the popular side.
In the middle and southern colonies, as well as in
New England, there had been political contests with
the representatives of the Crown. All the colonies
were dissatisfied with the Navigation Laws and Acts
of Trade and the exercise of the royal prerogatives ;
but out of New England the colonists, who were
mainly of the Church of England, — certainly not
Puritans, — became quiet as the enforcement of these
laws was relaxed or evaded. But In New England,
and especiaUy In Massachusetts, disquietude prevailed
unceasingly, and tbe Revolutionary cause, when no
other disturbing element was apparent, fluctuated with
the efforts of the Bishop of London to establish Epis
copacy In New England. For the accomplishment
of this end there was the ever present, always active
variety of clear characteristics; it is, as well, divided into distinct
periods. The underlying causes of the change appear in the strong
difference in religious types between the home country and its colony,
in the wholly different social surroundings and influences, in the in
creasing, if not even hostile, divergence of economic interests and
activity, and in the almost antipodal political traditions nourished
and acted upon by the more advanced colonists on the one hand, and,
on the other, by the more conservative Englishmen,"
Elias Boudinot, President of Congress, to Rev, James Caldwell,
June 19, 1770 : " Our Clergy have gone distracted, and have done
us more injury than they will do tis good in a great while , , , we
have been quarreling with the Church of England these forty years
past, about uniting Civil and Ecclesiastical Power ; and now the
moment we have the Power in our hands, we are running into the
same extreme." — LeffingweU's Catalogue, No, 1170.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 23
motive of sectarian zeal for the propagation of religious
faith, and still more of ecclesiastical government. To
this was added a special reason in the dissatisfaction
of the Church of England people in Massachusetts, to
whom Puritanic ways were displeasing. This class,
consisting in the early days chiefly of crown officials
and commercial sojourners, was not large, but increas
ing sufficiently, so as to excite the commiseration of
the Bishop of London as sheep without a shepherd
and wandering In unconsecrated pastures. His efforts
for their relief kept the Puritans in hot water for
more than seventy years, and gave rise to a mutual
dislike which became hereditary. In their resistance
to Episcopacy the Massachusetts people were regarded
in England as bigoted religionists and refractory sub
jects. And so were they by the people of the colonies
out of New England; a fact never to be lost sight
of In tracing the progress of the Revolution. For
the middle and southern colonies had been settled or
become possessed by people In sympathy with the
Church of England, or at least having no special
cause of hostility to it, — as was the case with the
Puritans, — under whose ministrations they were con
tented, with loyalty to the king, to worship God after
the manner of their fathers.
To this grateful privilege of ecclesiastical relation
ship was added a pecuniary advantage, so long as the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts liberally expended the contributions of the
piously disposed churchmen of the mother country In
establishing parishes, erecting church edifices, and
paying the salaries of missionaries In colonial terri
tory. To this the other colonists saw no more objec
tions than occur to the minds of our frontier settlers

24 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
to the benevolent operations of the Home Missionary
Society. But to the Puritans of Massachusetts, scat
tering the seeds of Episcopacy was sowing tares by
the Evil One. To escape from soul-destroying con
formity, their fathers had fled their pleasant homes
in Lincolnshire and set up their altars In a bleak and
sterile wilderness. They had come hither, not so
much to erect a state as a church ; and if after a
time the two became one, that one was the church-
state, not the state-church, between which there is an
Immense difference. They set It up for themselves,
not for others. To the liberality of toleration they
made no pretension, as is so often forgotten. To their
new home came unwelcome Intruders, and with them
came trouble. I am now to trace this history .^ Laud,
^ Some years since, I noticed facts in ecclesiastical history appar
ently of more importance in the Revolutionary struggle than had
been accorded to them by historians ; and later, special study has
confirmed this impression. This reticence on the part of those who
wrote early on the war of the Revolution had been observed by Bou
cher, the Tory clergyman of Virginia, and by him attributed to some
discreditable motive, such as a disposition to conceal the Puritan
narrowness which would exclude Episcopalians from the privileges
of church worship after their form. — View of the Causes of the Revo
lution, 148, Bancroft and Hildreth have treated the subject as fully,
perhaps, as the necessary regard to proportions in a general history
would permit ; but neither, so as to apprise the reader how early and
how continuously, nor, I think, how eificiently, ecclesiasticism oper
ated as a cause of the Revolution, HUdreth, who treats the subject
more fully and more directly than Bancroft, says, " The Congrega
tional ministers of New England, an intelligent and very influential
body, headed at this period by Chauncy and Cooper, of Boston, cher
ished a traditionary sentiment of opposition to British control, — a
sentiment strengthened, of late years, by the attempts of the English
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to build up Episcopacy in
New England by supporting there some thirty Episcopal missionaries.
An unseasonable revival of the scheme for a bishop in the colonies
had recently excited a bitter controversy, in which, since Mayhew's
death, Chauncy had come forward as the Congregational champion ;

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 25
at the head of the High Commission, began the
assault on the expatriated Puritans in 1634, but the
a controversy which could only tend to confirm the Congregational
body in hostility to the extension of English influence," — History
of the United States, iii, 55,
There is a very interesting letter written by John Adams to Dr.
Morse in 1815, the whole of which should be read by those who
would know the views of one most competent to speak on this sub
ject. The following extract will serve to show some foundation at
least for the view I have taken in the text ; and I may add, had
I met with it earlier in my reading, it would have saved me much
research, and the reader some pages of my own : —
" Where is the man to be found at this day, when we see Metho-
distical bishops, bishops of the Church of England, and bishops, arch
bishops, and Jesuits of the Church of Rome, with indifference, who
will believe that the apprehension of Episcopacy contributed fifty
years ago, as much as any other cause, to arouse the attention, not
only of the inquiring mind, but of the common people, and urge them
to close thinking on the constitutional authority of Parliament over
the colonies ? This, nevertheless, was a fact as certain as any in
the history of North America, The objection was not merely to the
office of a bishop, though even that was dreaded, but to the authority
of Parliament, on which it must be founded, , , , If Parliament can
erect dioceses and appoint bishops, they may introduce the whole
hierarchy, establish tithes, forbid marriages and funerals, establish
religions, forbid dissenters." — Works, x. 185,
At an earlier date he had said, " It is true that the people of this
country in general, and of this province in special, have an heredi
tary apprehension of and aversion to lordships, temporal and spirit
ual. Their ancestors fled to this wilderness to avoid them, — they
suffered sufficiently under them in England, And there are few of
the present generation who have not been warned of the danger of
them by their fathers and grandfathers, and enjoined to oppose
them," — Novanglus, February 13, 1775,
The bibliography of this subject is yet to be made. Here follow
some references to works which are incidentally or directly illus
trative of ecclesiasticism in the Colonies, and which may be of service
to future students, though set down at random, Hutchinson's History,
iii, 15 ; W. Gordon's Thanksgiving Discourse, December 15, 1774, 24 n, ;
Gordon's History, i, ; Eddis's Letters from America, 50 ; Joseph Emer
son's Thanksgiving Sermon, July 24, 1766, 12 ; W, Livingston's " Let
ter to John, Bishop of Laudaff ; " Historical Magazine, ser, 2, v, 268 ;
Makemie's Narrative of Imprisonment (Force's Tracts, vol, iv.) ; North

26 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
civil wars prevented further efforts to set up Episco
pacy until the Restoration. The contention, however,
did not cease when Presbyterianism became the state
religion under the Commonwealth, since the adherents
of that ecclesiastical polity sought to Introduce it Into
Massachusetts. This the Puritans resisted as strenu
ously as they had resisted prelacy. They had estab
lished Independent churches, and determined they
should remain such. They agreed with John Mil
ton, — " New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large,''
But the Restoration of Charles II. renewed the
strife under Its old form — resistance to Anglicanism.
For as soon as the domestic affairs of the realm would
permit, royal commissioners were sent over to inquire
into the reports from Massachusetts Bay, " that his
subjects in those parts did not submit to his govern
ment, but looked upon themselves as Independent upon
American Review, April, 1884, cxxxviii, 359 ; Waddington's Congre
gational History, 1700-1800, 459 ; Short Appeal to the People of Great
Britain (1776) ; F, Maseres's Paraphrase on a Passage in a Sermon by
Dr. Markham (1777) ; C, Chauncy's Letter to a Friend (1767) ; Sir J,
Johnson's Orderly Book, xii. ; Bishop White's Memoirs of the Protest
ant Episcopal Church, De Costa's ed. ; J, L, Diman's Orations and
Essays, 223 ; T, B, Chandler's Appeal to the Public in Behalf of the
Church of England in America (1767) ; " Letter of Dr, Gibson, Bishop
of London," in Chalmers's Opinions of Eminent Lawyers ; Franklin's
Works (Sparks's ed,), iv, 89 ; C, A, Briggs, " Puritanism in New York,"
Magazine of American History, xiii, 39 ; Otis's Vindication of the Con
duct ofthe House of Representatives, 20 n, ; Qninoy's Address, September
17, 1830, 22 et seq. ; Brooks Adams's Emancipation of Massachusetts, ch,
xi. ; Massachusetts Historical Collections, iv. 4, 410 et seq. ; Life of Peter
Van Schaack; Votes and Proceedings ofthe Freeholders ofthe Town of
Boston, November 20, 1772, 27 ; Perry's Historical Collections relating
to the American Colonial Church, iii., Massachusetts ; Beardsley's Life
and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D. D,, Missionary of the Church
of England in Connecticut ; Tudor's Life of Otis ; Ramsay's History
Amer. Rev. i, 199 (PhUa,, 1789).

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 27
him and his laws ; " and with instructions " to take
care that such orders were established there that the
Act of Navigation should be punctually observed ; "
and to send home a detailed report of the frame and
constitution of the local government in church and
state.^ The significance of these directions was clear to the
colonists when they found their old enemy, the Church
of England Samuel Maverick, among the commission
ers. This unfriendly scrutiny into their ecclesiasti
cal and civil affairs was met by the colonists with
infinite skill and patience. If not with entire candor ;
for nobody knew better than themselves that they
had claimed and exercised substantial sovereignty in
church and state, and that they were determined to
yield it only In the direst extremity. In that extrem
ity they soon found themselves ; but neither they nor
their descendants ceased to resist the introduction
of prelacy, until armed resistance at the Revolution
involved the thirteen colonies In a strife which had
its origin in a question of parliamentary government.
In 1684 the enemies of the Puritan church over
threw the old charter under which the colonists had
been allowed to manage civil and ecclesiastical affairs
In a very free and Independent way. What of dis
aster to civil and religious liberty, as the Puritans
understood these terms, this change Imported, soon
became evident. It overthrew their constitution of
government, it confiscated the title to their lands and
all improvements on them, and it Imperiled their cher
ished form of church government. The significance
of the loss of their charter, in its Influence upon the
hundred years of controversy which ensued, wiU not
1 Palfrey, History, ii, 584.

28 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
be fully appreciated unless we keep In mind that
ecclesiastical as well as civil causes led to that result.
It was not merely because the colonists had disobeyed
the Navigation Laws, coined money, and performed
other acts of civil sovereignty, that Charles's commis'
sioners were sent on their errand of inquiry. In fact,
the formation of the commission was instigated in the
colony itself by those whose chief grievance was that
they had suffered under the strictness of the Puritan
hierarchy In not being permitted those consolations to
be found by them only in the bosom of the Anglican
church. " They discountenance the Church of Eng
land " was the constant complaint to the Privy Coun
cil by Randolph, the memory of whose malign influence
as the evil genius of New England still survives In
tradition as well as in recorded history.
The new order of things under the presidency of
Dudley began May 25, 1686, and the day following
the Rev. Mr. Ratcliffe, who had been sent over by the
Bishop of London to Institute Episcopal worship,
waited upon the Council. Mason and Randolph,
members of that body, proposed that he should be
allowed one of the three Puritan meeting-houses to
preach in ; and in June the first Anglican church In
New England was organized at Boston. The next
year the Old South meeting-house was virtually seized
by Andros, who had succeeded Dudley, and used for
the Church of England service. " If," says Palfrey,
" the demand had been for the use of the building for
a mass, or for a carriage-house for Juggernaut, it
could scarcely have been to the generality of people
more offensive." ^ But the Revolution of 1689, of
1 " The Quakers and other Dissenters were encouraged by Andros
to refuse payment of the taxes levied by the towns for the support of

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 29
which the detestation of Episcopacy was one of the
chief causes, swept away Andros and his government,
and the Puritan Zion had comparative peace until
1699, when the Earl of Bellomont, the first Church
of England governor under the new charter, arrived.
He was attached to the communion of his church,
which he attempted to revive In Boston. In this he
was encouraged by the Bishop of London, the dio
cesan for America, and the Lords of Trade, who In
terested themselves to obtain for the colonists the
advantages of ecclesiastical supervision.^ And from
this time down to the breaking out of the war, Bishops
Tenlson, Sherlock, and Seeker were successively active
In promoting the establishment of an Anglican hier
archy, with resident bishops, in America ; ^ and in 1761
there were in New England thirty missionaries who
had been sent over by the Propagation Society.^
For nearly a hundred years preceding the Revolu-
the ministers, . , , The celebrating of marriages, no longer exercised
by the magistrates, as had been the case under the old charter, was
confined to Episcopal clergymen, of whom there was but one in the
province. It was necessary to come to Boston in order to be mar
ried," Hildreth, History of the 'United States, ii, 84, 85.
^ " The zeal of WUliam's colonial governors on behalf of the
Church of England originated quite as much in political as in religious
motives. Community of religion, it was thought, would be a security
for political obedience," — Ibid, ii, 214,
^ Massachusetts Historical Collections, vii. 215 ; Palfrey, iv, 298,
^ The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
was established in 1701 ; but whether on the suggestion of the Rev,
Dr. Bray of the Church of England, who, as a commissary to supervise
the religious establishment of Maryland, embarked thither December
16, 1699, does not appear.
He was an intelligent gentleman, and established libraries in the
colonies ; but they were mainly theological, and of the Church of Eng
land, As such they met with slight favor in New England, where only
a few were established. See B. C. Steiner in American Historical
Review, ii. 59.

30 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
tion, these efforts to establish Episcopacy In Massa
chusetts were causes of anxiety and alarm. On the
anniversary of the death of Charles the First, January
30, 1750, and twenty-five years before war broke out,
Dr. Jonathan Mayhew of Boston preached a discourse
which became famous on both sides of the Atlantic, in
which he attacked the doctrines of the divine right of
kings, passive obedience, and the exclusive claims of
the Episcopal hierarchy. A sentence from the preface
to the published sermon will indicate its character and
temper : " People have no security against being un
mercifully priest-ridden but by keeping all Imperious
bishops, and other clergymen who love to lord It over
God's heritage, from getting their feet into the stirrup
at all." It breathed an intense spirit of religious and
civil liberty, and did much to intensify the colonial
hatred of the threatened Episcopal hierarchy.^ In
this It expressed — perhaps inspired — the sentiments
of Samuel Adams, and was one of the most powerful
influences which kept alive the spirit of revolution
and finally prepared the minds of the Massachusetts
colonists for open resistance. The following extracts
will show how continuous was the hostility manifested
to Episcopacy, — a feeling not confined to the igno
rant, illiberal crowd, but shared by the most enlight
ened of the colonists.
Samuel Adams, as the voice of the House of Repre
sentatives, presumably expressing the sentiments of
the people. In a letter to their agent in London In
1768 said : " The establishment of a Protestant Epis-
^ " Say, at what period did they grudge
To send you Govemor or Judge,
With all their Missionary crew,
To teach you law and gospel too ? "
Tbumeitll's McFingal.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 31
copate In America Is also very zealously contended
for ; and It Is very alarming to a people whose fa
thers, from the hardships they suffered under such an
establishment, were obliged to fly their native coun
try Into a wilderness. . . . We hope In God such an
establishment will never take place in America, and
we desire you would strenuou.sly oppose It. The reve
nue raised In America, for aught we can tell, may
be as constitutionally applied towards the support of
prelacy as of soldiers and pensioners." ^
Dr. Andrew Eliot, the enlightened clergyman who
declined the presidency of Harvard College, In one of
a series of letters chiefly on this subject, written be
tween 1768 and 1771, addressed to Thomas Hollis, In
England, said : " The people of New England are
greatly alarmed ; the arrival of a bishop would raise
them as much as any one thing." ^
As late as 1772, the Boston Committee of Corre
spondence appointed to state the rights of the colo
nists, In their report made In Faneull Hall, among
other things declared that various attempts " have
been made, and are now made, to establish an Ameri
can Episcopate ; " though " no power on earth can
justly give temporal or spiritual jurisdiction within
this province except the great and general court." ^
It may be difficult for us who live under the mUd
and beneficent influence of Episcopacy to understand
the alarm which Its proposed introduction occasioned
to the most liberal minds among our New England
ancestors during the century which Immediately pre-
1 Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, i. 157,
2 Massachusetts Historical Collections, xxiv, 422; Tudor's Life of
Otis, 136.
^ Thornton's Pulpit of the American Revolution, 192 ; and Adams's
Wm-ks, ix, 287, 288.

32 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
ceded the Revolution. Making all due allowances for
the exaggerated apprehensions of the common people
(I mean those who were ready to mob a bishop), as
well as for the personal pecuniary Interest which the
clergy of the ruling order had In resisting encroach
ments upon their establishment, there was at that
time a real danger to civil liberty as it existed under
democratic forms, In the attitude and claims of the
Anglican hierarchy. Nor was New England alone In
this state of alarm. There were many In Old Eng
land, some high In the church itself,^ who depre
cated the reactionary tendency towards an exercise of
the temporal powers. In both countries the question
was the same at the period of our Revolution, and had
been for a hundred and fifty years. During this
period the Puritans In Old England who abided the
result of the contest on their native soil, and their
descendants, finally threw off the excess of prelatlcal
domination with its included doctrines of the divine
right and passive obedience, and relegated Episco
pacy In all but the name to the exercise of Its spirit
ual functions, restrained the power of the nobles, ex
tinguished that of the sovereign, and raised the people,
^ English Dissenters, with some churchmen, were in full accord
with their American brethren on this subject. Archdeacon Black-
burne says, " They knew the hardships of those legal disabilities
under which they themselves lay at home. They had good reason to
believe that the influence of the established hierarchy contributed to
continue this grievance. Their brethren in America were as yet free
from it, and if bishops were let in among them, and particularly
under the notion of presiding in established churches, there was
the highest probability they would take their precedents of govern
ment and discipline from the establishment in the mother country
and would probably never be at rest till they had established it on the
basis of an exclusive test. They knew their American brethren
thought on this subject just as they tliemselves did," — Works, ii, 73.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 33
through the commons, to their true place in the body
politic. To accomplish this cost one king his head,
another his crown, and the people themselves untold
treasures of blood and money.
Some of the Puritans sought quiet by flight into
the New England wilderness ; but in vain. They
found no exemption in that way. The spirit of eccle
siastical domination followed them, and for a century
and a half they strenuously resisted the re-imposltlon
of that system which their brethren at home were en
deavoring to throw off. The contest was essentially
the same on both sides of the Atlantic, and continued
down to the Revolution, of which It was one of the
principal causes. During this long contest names
often changed, and the evils experienced on one side
of the water and feared on the other were mitigated
by the lapse of time and the general progress of the
age. But the principle contended for, — civil and
religious liberty, — remained to the end.
The claim of the high churchmen was " that every
country acts naturally and prudently in making the
ecclesiastical polity conformable to Its civil govern
ment." This was a proposition which neither the
early nor the later Puritans would care to dispute,
since they acted upon It themselves. Their contention
was that, their civil government being essentially dem
ocratic, their ecclesiastical system should be the same.
They opposed the engrafting of the prelatical system,
which was monarchical, upon their system, which was
republican, well knowing the tendency of ecclesiasti
cism to draw to itself the civil government. They saw
Monarchy and Episcopacy as correlated facts, and in
resisting the latter they resisted the former. Such
was their view of the case ; nor were the facts against
them.

34 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
The Church of England, so far as It had a civil
establishment, was the creature of Parliament. It
looked up to the king as Its head, and to the Parlia
ment as Its lawgiver. Its creed and book of prayer
were established by statute. It could not reform Its
own abuses. Through Parliament the laity amended
and regulated the church. The election of the bishops
by the clergy was only nominal. The purity of spirit
ual influence was tarnished by this strict subordina
tion to the temporal power.^ This was the system.
Its administration was still more objectionable to the
Puritans. Its establishment In New England meant
a return to that state of ecclesiastical and civil affairs
from which they had suffered so much, and from
which they fled to the privations and sufferings of an
inhospitable wilderness.^ So at least they regarded
It, and the efforts of the Anglican hierarchy down to
the Revolution never permitted this feeling to subside.
Under the old charter, the churches, with the consent
of the General Court, called their synods, which laid
down or modified their platform of religious faith and
ecclesiastical government according to the convictions
of a body of professed Christians. But when the Con
gregational ministers of Massachusetts, as late as
1725, memorialized the General Court for permission
to hold a synod, the Bishop of London, Instigated by
the Anglican clergy of Boston, brought the matter to
1 Bancroft, History, ed, 1883, iii, 4
^ The Episcopate would legitimately bring in the whole system of
canon ecclesiastical courts, in contravention of the constitutional judi
cial powers of the provincial courts ; the colonists would not, how
ever, listen to the suggestion that the bishop's power would be merely
spiritual, for they feared that, as Mayhew expressed it, if the bishop's
foot was once in the stirrup the people would be effectually priest-
ridden.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 35
the attention of the home government; and Yorke,
afterwards Lord Hardwicke, then attorney-general,
and the solicitor-general, gave as their official opin
ion : 1. That synods cannot lawfully be held without
the royal license. 2. That an application to the pro
vincial legislature was a contempt of the sovereign ;
and, 3. That if notice of this should find them (the
synod) in session, the lieutenant-governor should
" signify to them . . . that they do forbear to meet
any more ; " and, if they persevere, " that the princi
pal actors therein be prosecuted by Information for
misdemeanors." ^ This Incident of colonial history
shows that the objection to Anglicanism was not
merely theoretical, for It invaded the constitution of
the civil government. Its adherents were generally
on the side of prerogative ; and John Adams has
recorded in his diary. In 1765, that " the Church peo
ple are, many of them, favorers of the Stamp Act at
present." ^
However we of the present generation may choose
to regard the apprehensions of the Massachusetts Pu
ritans and their descendants late Into the last century,
in respect to the designs of the Anglican hierarchy,
this fact — and It Is the only fact of present Interest
— remains clear : that the series of events — and It is
their continuity which should be particularly noticed
— which stand to the Revolution In the relation
of operative sequence, if not primarily of cause and
effect, began in Massachusetts Bay with the coming
of the Puritans ; and that these events were religious
as well as civil, unless the true expression would be,
religious rather than civil.
1 Palfrey, iv, 454, and the admirable Memoir of John Checkley, by
Rev, E. F, Slafter, i, 86 (Prince Society),
2 Works, ii, 168, 348,

36 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
Nor was the ecclesiastical element as a cause of the
, . Revolution restricted to Massachusetts. It
Ecelesias- .
tieism lu entered Into the controversy — was one ot
Virginia,! j.j^g causcs of the Revolution — in Virginia
as well as in Massachusetts, but with a difference.
The Puritans fled to Massachusetts because they hated
Anglicanism ; the ^avaliers^ fled to Virginiajbecause
1 When this address was delivered in 1884, it was, so far as I had no
ticed, the earliest historical presentation of ecclesiasticism (associated
with political liberty) as one of those causes which brought ou the
Revolution, I restricted the influence to Massachusetts and Virginia ;
not that I did not suspect that it was far more general, but that I then
lacked authorities for a positive statement, I now add one of the
most remarkable, showing how effective ecclesiasticism was in New
York as leading to revolt. It is in a letter of Ambrose Serle from
New York, November 8, 1776, to Earl Dartmouth of the British Min
istry, and is in Stevens's Facsimiles of Manuscripts, vol, xxiv. No,
2045, By some inadvertence at the time when this paper was preparing,
I failed to consult Foote's Annals of King's Chapel. Had I then read
this work I should have seen that 1 had been anticipated in my views,
and have acknowledged the industrious research, candor, good judg
ment, and literary abUity which, as I think, have been combined in
an equal degree in no historical work by an American since Belknap's
History of New Hampshire.
Grounding myself as I did on original authorities rather than on later
views, it was thus that I failed to read Foote, Had I done so, it would
have saved me vast labor and much thought, which I do not however
now regret, for I was enabled to form an independent judgment
which happens to accord with that of Mr, Foote,
One reason for the opposition in New York (where one would least
expect it) to Seeker's plan of setting up Episcopacy in the colonies is
found in a paper by Charles H, Levermore, in The American Histori
cal Review, vol, i, p. 238, It is to the effect that the Livingstons and
several of their Whig associates, warm asserters of civil and ecclesias
tical liberty, were graduates at Yale, where, at that time, Calvinism
and hatred of prelatical authority were no less violent than at Harvard,
The whole paper should be read, and especially pp, 240, 241, and 248,
See regarding New York, Grahame's History, ii. 305 ; H, A, Cush-
ing's King's College in the American Revolution (Columbia University
Bulletm, March, 1898),

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 37
they hated Puritanism. The Puritan hostility to
Anglicanism was based upon the profoundest religious
conviction. It was transmitted to their children, and
ever associated with the trials and sufferings of the
first generation. It was kept alive by the unintermlt-
ting efforts of the English hierarchy to establish its
ecclesiastical system in the Puritan colonies. What
ever may have been the feelings of the Virginia church
men in the days of the Revolution towards the Congre-
gatlonallsts of New England, owing to circumstances
which will be presently narrated, they came together
on the ground of hostility to Anglicanism, which, as
has already been said, was a cause of the Revolution.
It was one cause ; ^ no one claims that it was the sole
cause. And it has been dwelt upon at some length,
not only because it seems to have failed of due recog
nition In the historical accounts of that event, but also
since a clear understanding of the matter is essential
to a correct view of the position of Samuel Adams
the Puritan, one of the prime movers of the Revolu
tion, as well as somewhat by way of contrast of John
Adams, its great statesman .^
1 Jonathan Boucher, writing from the extreme High Church view,
puts this matter in an interesting light, " That the American opposi
tion to Episcopacy was at all connected with that still more serious
one so soon afterwards set up against civil government was not indeed
generally apparent at the time [in Virginia] ; but it is now [1797] in
disputable, as it also is that the former contributed not a little to ren
der the latter successful. As therefore this controversy was clearly
one great cause that led to the Revolution, the view of it here given,
it is hoped, will not be deemed wholly uninteresting." — View, 150.
^ The difference was this : Samuel Adams was a Puritan and Cal
vinist of the strictest sect, John Adams strenuously dissented from
Calvinism, but firmly adhered to the doctrines of the Puritans con
cerning civil and religious liberty, and regarded with equal aversion
the designs of the Anglican hierarchy. His dissertation on the Canon
and Feudal Law, already aUuded to, was a " Tract for the Times."

38 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
The union between Massachusetts and Virginia in
the Revolution has been alluded to ; a union which,
considering the respective origin and history of the
two colonies, was Incongruous and almost grotesque ;
a union of the descendants of the fanatical Puritans
and of the High Church loyalists, of the roundhead
and of the cavalier. And yet these two colonies en
tered the contest earlier than any other, — Virginia
the earlier. If It is regarded as merely civil, — and
were mutually helpfid and steadfast to the end. This
phenomenal embrace requires explanation to the by
standers from both parties.
The religion of Virginia was Anglican ; and It was
the established religion, with the canons, the liturgy,
and the catechism. The anniversary of the execution
of Charles I. was a legal fast, and the restoration of
Charles II. was a holiday. Besides their glebes and
parsonages, a maintenance was secured to the parish
ministers In valuable and current commodities of the
country ; and the New England laws against Quakers,
It was printed in the year of the Stamp Act, 1765, when he was
twenty-nine years old, and shows how inseparably ecclesiastical and
political tyranny were associated in his mind as things of present
dread, and also how thoroughly he had studied the questions on which
in later years he exercised a commanding influence. He was fully in
accord with Mayhew, Chauncy, Eliot, and Samuel Adams in their hos
tility to the Anglican pretensions and endeavors to establish an Epis
copate in the colonies. At the age of twenty he asked, " Where do
we find a precept in the Gospel requiring ecclesiastical synods, convo
cations, councils, decrees, creeds, confessions, oaths, subscriptions, and
wliole cart-loads of other trumpery that we find reKgion encumbered
with in these days ? " — Works, ii, 5,6, " Honesty, sincerity, and open
ness I esteem essential marks of a good mind, I am, therefore, of
opinion that men ought (after they have examined with unbiased judg
ments every system of religion, and chosen one system on their own
authority for themselves) to avow their opinions aud defend them
with boldness," — Works, ii, 8,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 39
says Hildreth, to whom I am Indebted for this para
graph, were In fuU force.^
Devotion to the church was a test of devotion to the
king as its head and defender, and non-conformity was
identified with republicanism and disloyalty.^
The following extract will serve not only to show
the views of a Virginia Anglican, but It also throws
much light upon the attitude of the New England Con-
gregatlonallsts In relation to the Introduction of Epis
copacy : " The constitution of the Church of England
Is approved, confirmed, and adopted by our laws, and
interwoven with them. No other form of church gov
ernment than that of the Church of England would be
compatible with the form of our civil government. No
other colony has retained so large a portion of the
monarchical part of the British Constitution as Vir
ginia ; and between that attachment to monarchy and
the government of the Church of England there Is a
strong connection." ^
The aspect in which the New Englanders appeared
to the people of Virginia, and the obstacles to be sur
mounted In securing their cordial cooperation in the
Revolution, may be seen In the same author : " That
a people [Virginians] In full possession and enjoy
ment of all the peace and all the security which the
best government in the world can give, should, at the
instigation of another people [New Englanders], for
whom they entertained an hereditary national dis-
esteem, confirmed by their own personal dislike, sud
denly and unprovoked, and in contradiction to all the
opinions they had heretofore professed to hold on the
1 History, i, 512.
2 Thompson's Church and State, 34, 35.
^ Boucher's View, 103,

40 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
subject of government, rush Into a civil war against a
nation they loved .... is one of those Instances of In
consistency In human conduct which are often met with
in real life, but which, set down in a book, seem mar
velous, romantic, and incredible. This, however, is an
unexaggerated description of the general temper of
mind which prevailed In the people of Virginia and
Maryland towards those of New England." ^
One more extract from the same writer will show
the approach of Virginia and Massachusetts to the
same ground : " When it is recollected that tlU now
[1771] the opposition to an American Episcopate has
been confined chiefly to the demagogues and Independ
ents of the New England provinces, but that It Is
now espoused with much warmth by the people of Vir
ginia, It requires no great depth of political sagacity
to see what the motives and views of the former have
been, or what wIU be the consequences of the defection
of the latter." 2
It is now desirable to understand by what circum
stances two provinces so dissimilar in their form of
government, religion, social life, and general habits of
thought were brought together on the common ground
of hostility to Episcopacy, which was so considerable
a cause of the Revolution.
There were Puritans In Virginia, though but a hand
ful, who in the early days of the colony had estab
lished relations with their New England brethren.
Commercial relations also existed between these col-
! Boucher, xxxiv. This writer suggests in a note that the New Eng
landers endeavored to overcome these prejudices by pitching on Mr,
Randolph, a Virginian, to be the first president of Congress, and on
Mr, Washington, who was also a Virginian, to command the American
army, 2 md. 103.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 41
onies, and sorae points in their civil history were not
dissimilar. Both had suffered from the repeal of their
charters, and both had lived in chronic dissatisfaction
with the mother country ; and if at any time and for
any cause the Revolution had failed In Massachusetts,
it would not have been hopeless until it had also failed
in Virginia. But on these two colonies it rested. The
constitution of Virginia, when compared with that of
Massachusetts, was monarchical, and, as has been said,
her religion was Anglican, and it was the established
religion. In 1740 there was not, so far as Is known, a single
Dissenting congregation In Virginia ; but Bcciesias-
in 1770 there were eleven Dissenting min- ticismm
isters regularly settled, who had each from pouti^.^
two to four congregations under his care.-'
At the Revolution, and for thirty years before, Vir
ginia had been making strenuous efforts to throw off
the Anglican system, so far at least as related to Its
temporal powers ; and during the same period, as
always, Massachusetts was as strenuously resisting its
Imposition. In this respect they were alike. But the
resemblance ends here. In the latter colony It was
essentially a question of civil and religious liberty ; In
the former It was essentially a question of taxation.
Every one is familiar with the case between the
clergy of the Established Church In Virginia and the
planters, known as the " Parsons' Case," which gave
first occasion to Patrick Henry for the display of his
unrivaled eloquence. It arose out of a question of
tithes, In substance, and has a twofold significance In
Revolutionary history. In the first place, it served to
undermine the Influence of the Anglican hierarchy ;
1 Boucher, 100.

42 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
and secondly, it drew Into question the right of the
king to set aside a Virginia law respecting a matter
essentially domestic, this very matter of tithes. Sin
gularly enough. It united ecclesiastical and civil ques
tions as causes of the Revolution In Virginia as they
had been united, yet with a difference, in Massa
chusetts from the beginning of her settlement.
If we desire to know the attitude of some of the Vir
ginians, — how many Is only matter of conjecture, —
near the time when the war broke out, we have the
most authentic Intelligence. Madison, writing to Brad
ford In Pennsylvania, in April, 1774, says, " Our As
sembly Is to meet the 1st of May, when It is expected
something will be done In behalf of the Dissenters,
Petitions, I hear, are already forming among the per
secuted Baptists, and I fancy it Is In the thoughts of
the Presbyterians also, to intercede for greater liberty
in matters of religion. . . . The sentiments of our
people of fortune and fashion In this respect are
vastly different from what you have been used to.
That liberal, catholic, and equitable way of thinking,
as to the rights of conscience, which is one of the char
acteristics of a free people, and so strongly marks the
people of your province. Is but little known among the
zealous adherents of our hierarchy. . . . Besides, the
clergy are a numerous and powerful body, have great
Influence at home by reason of their connection with
and dependence on the bishops and crown, and will
naturally employ all their arts and Interest to depress
their rising adversaries, for such they must consider
Dissenters who rob them of the good-will of the people,
and may in time endanger their livings and security."
In the previous January he wrote to the same, " I
want again to breathe your free air. . . . Poverty and

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 43
luxury prevail among all sorts ; pride, ignorance, and
knavery among the priesthood. . . . This is bad enough,
but It Is not the worst I have to tell you. . . . There
are at this time In the adjacent county not less than
five or six well-meaning men in close jail for publish
ing their religious sentiments, which In the main are
very orthodox." In another letter to the same he says
what is much to the point, " If the Church of England
had been the established and general religion in all
the northern colonies, as It has been among us here,
and uninterrupted tranquillity had prevailed through
out the continent. It Is clear to me that slavery and
subjection might and would have been gradually in
sinuated among us." ^
It is obvious from the preceding extracts how Madi
son regarded the efforts of the New England Puritans
in their resistance to the imposition of Episcopacy ;
but that he was not pleased with all their conduct
appears from the following : " I congratulate you on
your heroic proceedings in Philadelphia with regard
to the tea. I vpish Boston may conduct matters with
as much discretion as they seem to do with boldness."
This Is also relevant to the Revolution : " I verily
believe the frequent assaults that have been made on
America (Boston especially) will in the end prove of
real advantage." ^
1 Letters of Madison, i, 10 et seq.
^ Ibid. 10, In stating the motives which drew the people into the
Revolution, it ought not to be concealed that there were some not
altogether creditable, Madison gives this : " As to the sentiments of
the people of this Colony with respect to the Bostonians [in regard to
the Port BUl] , I can assure you I find them very warm in their favor,
. , , It must not be denied, though, that the Europeans, especially the
Scotch, and some interested merchants among the natives, discoun
tenance such proceedings as far as they dare, aUeging the injustice and

44 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
From the foregoing outline of a phase of ecclesias
tical history In the Massachusetts Colony may be seen
how early, as well as continuously, the religious ele
ment operated as a cause of the Revolution ; aud how
— and yet with what difference — Virginia came to
stand on the same ground with the former colony.
Although ecclesiasticism stands first among the
causes which prepared the Massachusetts
the pouti- colonists for the Revolution, and was Influ-
cai revo- gntlal In precipitating that event, yet the
Massa- event itself was a disruption of the civil and
chusetts, pQi;i;i(,a,l relations between the contending
parties, and as such should be traced to its origin.
Soon after the restoration of Charles II., the colo
nies came to have a common grievance In the opera
tion of the Navigation Laws and Acts of Trade,^
which were designed to pour the wealth of commerce
into the lap of England, and by the prohibition of
certain manufactures In the colonies to create a mar
ket for English productions ; but previous to the
Stamp Act there was no British regulation which
perfidy of refusing to pay our debts to our generous creditors at home,"
Ibid. 16, Boucher is more explicit on this subject. He says, " Among
other circumstances favorable to a revolt of America, that of the im
mense debt owing by the colonists to the merchants of Great Britain
deserves to be reckoned as not the least. It was estimated at three
millions sterling ; and such is the spirit of adventure of British mer
chants, and of such extent are their capitals and their credit, that not
many years ago I remember to have heard the amount of their debts
to this country calculated at double that sum : it is probably now
trebled," — View, xl,
¦^ " If any man wishes to investigate thoroughly the causes, feel
ings, and principles of the Revolution, he must study this Act of Navi
gation and the Acts of Trade," And of those who wrote in favor
of their enforcement, " AU I can say is, that I read them all iu
my youth, and that I never read them without being set on fire," ^
Adams's Works, x, 320, 336,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 45
produced the same practical results In all the colonies.
Most of the manufactures were in New England,
while her lumber and the tobacco of Virginia — for
cotton was not yet, and rice and indigo were grown
only on a limited territory of the Carolinas — consti
tuted the bulk of American commerce. These cir
cumstances served to bring Massachusetts and Vir
ginia to the same platform in the Revolution. They
also explain in some degree the backwardness of some
other colonies whose interests were less severely af
fected by the British commercial policy. But these
resemblances In certain facts of Massachusetts and
Virginia affairs in their relation to the common cause
should not lead us to overlook the essential differences
In their civil and ecclesiastical history.
Massachusetts history more Immediately concerns
us. Whatever rights the king may have Intended to
confer upon the members of the Massachusetts Com
pany by their charter of March 4, 1629, two things
are clear. First, it Is clear that the charter Is sus
ceptible of a legal Interpretation which makes it the
basis of a government proper with very large powers,
having little more than a formal dependence upon the
crown ; ^ and it Is equally clear that the colonists
themselves were disposed to give, and did give, the
most liberal construction to their charter powers.
Hutchinson says of them, " Upon their removal they
supposed their relations both to civil and ecclesiasti
cal government of England, except so far as a special
reserve was made by their charter, was at an end, and
that they had right to form such new model of both
1 See the discussion of this subject by the late Prof, Joel Parker
in Lectures before the Lowell Institute on Early History of Massa
chusetts, 357,

46 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
as pleased them." ^ On this construction of their
powers they acted.
But the home government took an entirely differ
ent view of their powers, as well as of the conduct of
the colonists In the exercise of them. As early as
April 28, 1634, a commission for regulating planta
tions was issued to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Lord Keeper, and others, to Inquire, besides other mat
ters, whether any privileges or liberties granted to the
colonists by their charter were hurtful to the king,
his crown, or prerogative royal, and if so, to cause
the same to be revoked.^
Here began the long contest which raged with
changing fortunes until the treaty of peace In 1783.
It was an endeavor, on one side, to set up and main
tain a free and essentially independent government ;
and, on the other side, to overthrow such a govern
ment, reduce the colonists to monarchical subjection,
and regulate their affairs agreeably to the Imperial
policy. To such a contest there could be only one
result : the colonists were sure to win. Growth, de
velopment, a boundless continent, remoteness, the
Inherited fierce spirit of liberty which neither fire nor
steel had been able to subdue, and invincible courage,
in time would settle the question. It was a question
of time, and this they seem to have felt all through
their history until the final consummation of their
expectations. In any other view of the subject their
conduct was neither consistent nor entirely to their
credit. Chalmers, an accurate though unfriendly historian,
has sketched the progress of the colony towards Inde
pendency for the first fifty years In the following
' History of Massachusetts Bay, i, 368, ^ Parker, ut sup. 375,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 47
words : " Massachusetts, In conformity with its ac
customed principles, acted, during the civil wars,
almost altogether as an Independent state. It formed
leagues, not only with the neighboring colonies, but
with foreign nations, without the consent or know
ledge of the government of England. It permitted no
appeals from Its courts to the judicatories of the sov
ereign State, without which a dependence cannot be
preserved or enforced. And It refused to exercise
its jurisdiction In the name of the Commonwealth of
England. It assumed the government of that part
of New England which is now called New Hampshire,
and even extended Its powers farther eastward, over
the province of Maine. And by force of arms it
compelled those who had fled from Its persecution
beyond Its boundaries into the wilderness to submit
to Its authority. It erected a mint at Boston, im
pressing the year 1652 on the coin as the era of Inde
pendence . . . thus evincing to all, what had been
foreseen by the wise, that a people of such principles,
religious and political, settling so great a distance
from control, would necessarily form an independent
State." 1
Chalmers's statement is not exaggerated. It mat
ters little with what Intent respecting their future
political relations the colonists embarked for Massa^
chusetts Bay. Their ecclesiastical independence was
an avowed purpose from the beginning ; and circum
stances of which they promptly availed themselves
favored the formation of an Independent civil state.
Nor should their actual condition at the time of the
Restoration be overlooked In reading their subsequent
history down to the Revolution.
1 Political Annals, 181.

48 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
This state of affairs in the Puritan colony, the
refuge of the Regicides, could hardly have been other
than displeasing to Charles II. and his advisers.
They determined to change It, but their success was
partial and temporary. Undoubtedly the loss of their
charter was a serious blow to the colonists. It was
their first fall, but they soon regained their feet. The
substituted government under the presidencies of
Dudley and Andros was resisted by aU prudent
means, and by violence even, before a knowledge of
the progress of the Revolution of 1689 had opened a
fair prospect of success. The charter of 1692 was
forced upon the colonists In derogation of their ac
quired constitutional rights ; and had they then, or at
any time down to the Revolution of 1775, quietly sub
mitted, the result would have been serious to their
liberties. But they did not submit, though then, as at
the later period, there were those who counseled sub
mission ; and during the succeeding century there were
infractions of their constitutional rights, in which
from prudential considerations they silently acquiesced.
The king, by his Court of Chancery, abrogated the
first charter, and Imposed upon the colony one less
favorable to popular rights. Here Is the answer of
the colonists in their Declaration of Rights of the
same year, entitled an act setting forth general privi
leges : " No aid, tax, tallage, assessment, custom, loan,
benevolence, or imposition whatsoever shall be laid,
assessed, imposed, or levied on any of their Majes
ties' subjects or their estates, on any color or pretence
whatsoever, but by the act and consent of the gov
ernor, council, and representatives of the people, assem
bled In general court." ^
1 Acts and Resolves Province Massachusetts Bay, i. 40. This is an

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 49
It is not easy to overestimate the Importance of
this Declaration of Colonial Rights. In the very first
year of the new charter the General Court opened the
contest on the grounds on which, eighty years later,
after some preliminary skirmishing on less tenable
positions, the battle was fought and Independence
won. It is also interesting to know that In 1765, at
which time John Adams intervened In public affairs,
in his first public address before the governor and
council, on the question of opening the courts which
had been closed for lack of stamps, he took the iden
tical position of the General Court In 1692 ; and
again, in the general Congress of 1774, in the Decla
ration of Rights of the colonies.
Resistance was not confined to mere declarations.
The obstruction by the colonies of the Navigation Laws
and Acts of Trade,^ their assumption of powers not
early expression of the later political maxim, "No representation, no
taxation ; " but the meaning of " representation," in England at least,
seems to have been different from that in the colonies. In England,
" the idea was that representation in Parliament was constituted, not
by the fact of a man's having a vote for a member of Parliament, but
by the fact of his belonging to one of the three great divisions of the
nation which were represented by the three orders of Parliament, —
that is, royalty, nobility, commonalty." — Moses Coit Tyler in Ameri
can Historical Review, i, 34, 36, Palfrey says, " If this had been con
firmed, the cause of dispute which brought about the independence
of the United States would have been taken away. But such proved
not to be the wUl of the Privy CouncU of King WiUiam," — History, iv,
139. This statement is misleading. It is quite true that the Council
disaUowed the whole act, but fortunately they specified the grounds
of their objections. These objections relate to section 8, respecting
the allowance of bail, and section 9, which relates to escheat and for
feitures. To the sections which declare general rights — the colonial
Magna Charta — no objections were made, and they consequently
retained the political significance which inheres in aU unehaUenged
claims of right,
^ In 1698, when the General Court was asked to pass laws enfor
cing the Acts of Trade, even the conservative councilors insisted

50 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
granted by charter, their refusal to transmit their laws
for examination or to allow appeals from their judicial
decisions, at length produced legitimate results in Eng
land ; and In 1701, as oftentimes later, called forth
Impatient notes of warning from the Board of Trade :
" The denial of appeals Is a humor which prevails so
much In proprietary and charter plantations, and the
Independency they thirst after is now so notorious,
that It has been thought fit those considerations and
other objections should be laid before the Parlia
ment." ^ But these warnings and threats were disre
garded until the patience of the home government
was exhausted and a bill for the repeal of the charter
was Introduced,''^ which failed In the exigencies of
more pressing concerns.
Under the first charter all ofScers were elected
" that they were too much cramped in their liberties already, and
they would be great fools to abridge, by law of their own, the little
that was left them," — Hildreth, ii, 202, This spirit became hered
itary, John Adams has said, " These acts never had been executed,
and there never had been a time when they would have been or could
have been obeyed," — Letter to Tudor, March 29, 1818, Novanglus,
245, In 1728, when Govemor Burnett, under royal instructions insisted
that the General Court should fix by law the governor's salary instead
of leaving it to depend upon the temper of that body from year to
year, they persistently refused, " because it is an untrodden path,
which neither we nor our predecessors have gone in ; , , , because it
seems necessary to form, maintain, and uphold our constitution ; , , .
because it is our undoubted right to raise and dispose of moneys for
the public service of our free accord, without any compulsion ; and
because, if we should now give up this right, we shall open a door to
many other inconveniences," — See Journal ofthe General Court.
To these maxims of policy and government they and their succes
sors adhered to the end, notwithstanding royal menaces. This was
revolution as clearly as any declaration which more immediately pre
ceded the war,
1 Palfrey, iv, 200.
^ Massachusetts.Historical Collections, vii. 220,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 51
directly or indirectly by the people ; under the second
charter the governor was appointed by the crown,
with a negative upon the election of the speaker and
councilors chosen by the House. To this Invasion of
their old constitution the people lacked the power of
forcible resistance ; but the popular party, under the
consummate leadership of Cooke, neutralized the gov
ernor's power and held him in thrall by exercising
their constitutional right of determining his salary.
And this they continued to do with exasperating per
sistency and disregard of the royal instructions quite
down to the Revolution.^
1 Palfrey has graphicaUy described the chronic contests between
the royal governors and the representatives, as also between the latter
and the more conservative council, all of which is more fuUy seen in
the journal of the House, which, from 1715 to 1730, he does not ap
pear to have consulted, " The House of Representatives began to
print its journal just before the beginning of Belcher's administra
tion, the first publication being of the proceedings of May 27, 17.30."
— History, iv, 532 n. This is erroneous. The printed journals of the
House — and I am informed that they exist in no other form — begin
with 25th May, 1715, and were continued without interruption tUl the
Revolution, In his concluding chapter he has deemed it necessary to
excuse the conduct of the popular branch towards the crown and its
representatives. But this depends. If the people of Massachusetts,
between 1692 and 1774, their original charter having been taken
away and another forced upon them, regarded themselves as within
the realm, entitled to aU the rights and immunities of British subjects,
and bound to bear their share of the burdens imposed by the imperial
policy, it is not difficult to understand why, in the eyes of the govern
ment and people of Great Britain, and even those of the neighboring
colonies, their conduct was regarded as captious and rebeUious,
Compared with the burdens home by their feUow-subjects within
the three kingdoms, their own were light, and their condition pros
perous. People understand the operations of governmental policy.
They know how unequally tariffs and navigation laws affect different
sections, classes, and interests ; and yet they submit to them for rea
sons satisfactory to the majority. Our ancestors neither liked nor
submitted to this policy ; they obstructed, disobeyed, and evaded its
operation so far as was consistent with their safety. Nor could they

52 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
This view of the beginning and progress of the
contest which ended In the Revolution might be sup
ported by much additional evidence ; but I trust that,
even in the foregoing imperfect sketch. It fairly
appears that the Massachusetts Puritans came to the
Bay that they might be free and Independent In their
civil and ecclesiastical affairs ; that with the first
monition of danger in the days of Charles the First
they determined to maintain their independence at all
hazards ; that the contest thus begun continued with
varying fortunes until the final decision of the ques
tions involved was referred to arms ; and, finally, that
during these hundred and fifty years of contention
endure with patience or treat with decent respect the govemors sent
to rule over them, and stUl less the natives raised to that high but
most uncomfortable position. From one point of view it is difficult
to see why ; for these representatives of the crown, in abiUty, learn
ing, character, and good dispositions, would compare favorably with
those chosen by themselves under the Constitution, and were angels
of Ught compared with those we have inflicted on our territories.
Except that they were royal govemors, it is not easy to find any in
superable objection to BeUomont, Shute, Burnett, Shirley, or even
Bernard, But, on the other hand, if we find, as I think the colonists found,
in the repeal of the first charter and the imposition of a royal gov
ernment upon a people essentiaUy free and independent, the justify
ing cause of irreconcUable hostility, and an invincible determination
to throw it off on favorable occasion, then their ninety years of strife,
obstruction, and hostUity towards the crown and its representatives,
and final appeal to arms, become clear, reasonable, patriotic, and
worthy of perpetual remembrance and benediction — and, least of
all, demand apology.
The people out of New England, except the Virginians, had no
simUar experience, and but little knowledge of the real situation of
the Massachusetts Puritans, Hence it is not strange that they, in com
mon with those of the British Islands, had come to regard tlie Yan
kees with prejudice and disUke ; or that with reluctance they finaUy
placed themselves on the Massachusetts grounds, as they did under the
lead of John Adams.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 53
the colonial constitution was growing and developing
itself into a free republican constitution as the basis,
measure, and protection of all their rights.
Against this background of civil and ecclesiastical
history John Adams appeared on the Revo- jojm
lutlonary stage. He had studied this historv Adams's
^1, 1. ¦ .„ , ,. attitude
caretully, and its significance in relation to, to the Ke-
coming events he fully appreciated. It was voi^^tioi-
revolution, and had been revolution from the overthrow
of the first charter. That he so regarded it he has
expressly told us. From the outset, with his first
public utterance, he placed himself squarely on this
basis of the provincial constitution ; and there he stood,
constant, consistent, to the end. This is his great dis
tinction. From it he overthrew Hutchinson and Leon
ard, otherwise unassailable. Any other position was
full of logical pitfalls ; this was sound, clear, tenable,
and on it the contest was decided in Massachusetts.
Had the history of the other colonies been the same
as that of Massachusetts, with Its formative influence
upon the people and their leaders, the decision of the
question would have been the same as hers, and the
consummation of the Revolution would have been com
paratively easy. Had Massachusetts with New Eng
land finally stood alone, the day of her deliverance
must have been postponed. But with Virginia and
Massachusetts in alliance — and notwithstanding a
general dissimilarity there were facts common to their
history which brought them shoulder to shoulder —
the Revolution, though difficult, was not impossible.
It was this difficulty which John Adams encoun
tered and overcame at the head of the national party
which he, more than any other man, gathered, inspired,
and led.

64 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
For the American Revolution, like all epochal move
ments in the direction of nationality and freedom,
depended upon the movement of parties. These now
demand our notice.
When the Revolutionary struggle in Massachusetts,
„, „ which had been suspended during the events
The Kev- . t • , n .
oiution m- which Culminated in the destruction of the
evitabie, j^pgucjj power In America, broke out anew
with the Stamp Act of 1765, there seems to have been
a feeling common to all the colonies that growth,
situation, and conflicting interests would in time sever
the political relations which existed between the mother
country and her colonies ; and this opinion. If such
that may be called which so vaguely existed In their
minds, was the opinion of Hutchinson and Oliver no
less than of James Otis and Samuel Adams. It Is
true they disclaimed this, sometimes with vehemence.
John Adams did so.^
He said that at no time before the Declaration of
Independence was he averse to reconciliation, and that
he had no desire to see the relations with England
severed. ' There is abundant similar testimony. The
talk of the warmest of the patriots was full of loyalty
to the king and of affection for the mother country.
Nor were they Insincere. They gloried In the name
of Britons. Ties of blood and attachment to the old
home were strong, and their pulse quickened with
memories of PeppereU before the bastions of Louis
burg and of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham.
But beliefs are not necessarily desires, and we re-
1 And yet he has told us that long before the war broke out he and
Jonathan Sewall, the loyalist, agreed in their sentiments respecting
public affairs, and both were of the opinion that the British ministry
and Parliament would force the colonists to appeal to arms, — Works,
iL78.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 55
cognize as inevitable many things which we deprecate.
Could the colonists have been blind to facts and ten
dencies which all the world saw ? The testimony on
this point is clear and decisive. The following are
only a few of the observations which have been col
lected by writers on this period of our history. In his
notes upon England, which were probably written
about 1750, Montesquieu had dilated upon the restric
tive character of the English commercial code, and
had expressed his belief that England would be the
first nation abandoned by her colonies, A few years
later, Argenson, who has left some of the most strik
ing political predictions upon record, foretold In his
memoirs that the English colonies in America would
one day rise against their mother country, that they
would form themselves Into a republic, and that they
would astonish the world by their prosperity. In a
discourse delivered before the Sorbonne in 1750, Tur-
got compared the colonies to fruits which only remain
on the stem till they have reached the period of ma
turity, and he prophesied that America would some
day detach herself from the parent tree. Still earlier
than Turgot's prophecy, Kalm, the Swedish traveler,
contended that the presence of the French In Can
ada, by making the English colonists depend for their
security on the support of the mother country, was the
main cause of the submission.^
But more decisive as to the prevalence of this belief
among the colonists are some of their own words. Dr.
Andrew Eliot, writing to Hollis In England, Decem
ber, 1767, says, " We are not ripe for a disunion ; but
^ See Leckyls History of the Eighteenth Century, iii, 290, Bancroft
has also treated this question in his History of the United States ; and
see Frot'h.mgba.Ta.'s Rise of the Republic, 246. 

56 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
our growth Is so great that In a few years Great Bri
tain will not be able to compel our submission ; " ^ and
in 1772 Dr. Charles Chauncy said " that in twenty-
five years there would be more people here than In
the three kingdoms, the greatest empire on earth." ^
But no one save John Adams expressed this under
current of thought so clearly as William Livingston
in 1768 : " Americans, the finger of God points out
a mighty empire to your sons. . . . The day dawns in
which this mighty empire Is to be laid by the estab
lishment of a regular American Constitution. . . .
Peace or war, famine or plenty, poverty or affluence,
— In a word, no circumstance, whether prosperous or
adverse, can happen to our parent ; nay, no conduct
of hers, whether wise or imprudent — no possible tem
per of hers, whether kind or cross-grained — wiU put
a stop to this building. There Is no contending with
omnipotence ; and the predispositions are so numerous
and well adapted to the rise of America that our suc
cess Is Indubitable," ^
No one can read the history of the colony in Its
original sources without meeting evidence of the exist
ence of the belief that the time would come when the
colonies would grow into a great and Independent em
pire. Not that they wished to set up for themselves
at once. On the contrary, quite apart from any senti
ment of loyalty. It is not Improbable that they were
too fully sensible of the advantages of, their position
as appendages of the crown, with the privilege of
drawing upon the imperial resources in warding off
1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, xxxiv. 420.
2 Adams's Works, U, 304.
^ The American Whig, quoted with variations hy Boucher, View,
xxvi., and by Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, 244.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 57
the attacks of the French, which as independent colo
nies they would be obliged to meet with their own
men and money. Nor did they look forward to any
definite time when it would be for their advantage to
terminate these relations, nor to any specific course of
action which would hasten that event. Nevertheless,
their political action tended to render that result In
evitable, nor was the feeling which Inspired this ac
tion allowed to subside ; for, from the earliest days
down to the war, whenever they showed restlveness
under the British rule they were charged with aiming
at independence.-'
The Massachusetts colonists may not, as they said,
have aimed at an Independence, yet they steadily, and
seemingly not unconsciously, pursued a course which
would inevitably lead to it.
From the first it seems to have been inevitable that
the political relations between Great Britain and her
colonies in America should be finally severed ; but
when and how — whether by the silent influence of
growth or as the result of violence — were questions
in abeyance, and subject to chance. The lots were
cast, and it was war.
But war was not resorted to merely as the solution
of difficulties which arose from the growth
and development of the colonies. They had oiution
not reached that stage — in time sure to come tatTd^by
— when union made subjugation Impossible, party ac-
Undertaken solely on that ground, the war,
as we now see, was premature. The colonies were not
ripe for it. Nor were they strong enough for it. Un
aided, they would have failed, as fail they did until
1 See Evelyn's Diary, May 26, 1671, et seq. Also a letter from
Dummer to the House, quoted in Palfrey, iv. 407 n.

68 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
aided. The war was precipitated by party action In
Massachusetts. The opposite view, which has led to
infinite misconception of the Revolutionary struggle,
finds countenance only In the general and apparently
spontaneous uprising of the continent In resistance to
the Stamp Act. But that demonstration was utterly
deceptive, as afterwards appeared, so far as It seemed
to Indicate any settled conviction and determination.
It was a commercial protest, backed by no ulterior
purpose of forcible resistance. The repeal of the act,
notwithstanding the reaffirmance of the principle In
the Declaratory Act, apparently satisfied the public
mind everywhere out of New England — perhaps out
of Massachusetts. It seems to have been so even in
Virginia. Jefferson's statement on this point is clear,
and it Is decisive. In Virginia, between 1769 and
1778, he says, " Nothing of particular excitement oc
curring for a considerable time, our countrymen seemed
to fall Into a state of Insensibility to our situation ;
the duty on tea not yet repealed, and the Declaratory
Act of a right In the British Parliament to bind us by
their laws In all cases whatsoever still suspended over
us." And John Adams, as late as 1772 writes, " Still
quiet at the southward ; and at New York they laugh
at us."
This doubtless correctly represents the apathy every
where prevailing out of Massachusetts. The real state
of the case seems to have been, if the colonies are
regarded as a whole, that the opposition to the British
acts was based on pecuniary Interests rather than on
deeply seated political convictions ; and when the Im
mediate danger of taxation passed away, the popular
hostility subsided, as Jefferson says. But the situa
tion in Massachusetts was peculiar. In the first place,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 69
the ecclesiastical question, Instead of being one of
tithes and of yesterday, as In Virginia, was as old as
the colony, and laid hold on the deepest and most
sacred convictions of the people ; and, as we have seen,
it was a burning question, entirely Independent of any
question of parliamentary taxation, and wholly un
affected by the repeal of the Stamp Act or the modi
fications of the other revenue measures. And in the
next place, as we have also seen, there had always
existed In Massachusetts as In no other colony two
distinctly arrayed parties divided on questions directly
leading up to colonial Independence. And in these
circumstances rather than In any exclusive virtue or
intelligence of this colony — I speak this with bated
breath — is to be found the reason why Massachusetts
was earliest and most persistent in the war to which
she furnished nearly one third of the troops brought
into the field, although her territory before the close
of the first year was freed from the foot of the in
vader. The war began in Massachusetts. It was brought
on by the action of parties. These parties, the radi
cals and the conservatives,^ were as old as the race,
and will survive with It. They came over with Win
throp. At first these graduates of old Cambridge
were sufficiently though somewhat Incongruously oc
cupied in framing ordinances respecting yoking and
' Adams to Jefferson : " You say our divisions began with Federal
ism and anti-Federalism. Alas ! they began with human nature ; they
have existed in America from its first plantation, , , , A Court and
Country party have always contended. Whig and Tory disputed very
sharply before the Revolution and in every step during the Revolu
tion, Every measure of Congress from 1774 to 1787 inclusively was
disputed with acrimony, and decided by as small majorities as any
question is decided in these days" [1812], — Works, x, 23.

60 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
ringing of swine, party fences, and the laying out of
townways and highways ; but these affairs with some
others of more importance attended to, and interstate
affairs after the subsidence of Laud's demonstrations
being in abeyance, they divided on theological pole
mics, and thus preserved the civilization which was
imperiled in a frozen, savage wilderness. But the
arrival of Charles's commissioners in 1664 made hot
work for both parties ; and the historian of New Eng
land has recorded " that before the close of the first
century political parties had arrayed themselves not
only upon local questions, but also upon questions of
the relation of the Colonies to the Empire."
With the Inauguration of the new government In
1692 party strife was renewed, and continued with
intervals of repose through the entire provincial
period. Party questions were somewhat In abeyance
through the French wars to the treaty of peace In
1763, but became grave during the period of commer
cial torpidity which ensued, and rancorous upon the
passage of the Stamp Act In 1765. Nor are we per
mitted to believe that the magnitude of the Interests
involved or the serious consequences likely to flow
from erroneous action preserved the discussion from
intemperance, or that conclusions were reached with
sole reference to the public weal. Contemporaneous
newspapers and pamphlets and the published proceed
ings of the people In town meeting assembled, and of
their representatives In the General Court, contain
ample evidence that the party heats, personal interests,
and mob violence, to which many of those now living
were witnesses In the late civil war, had their proto
types in the Revolutionary era.
At both epochs and In both parties were found rad-

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 61
icals and conservatives, statesmen and politicians, pa
triots and self-seekers, intelligent adherents and blind
party devotees. At both epochs and In both parties,
in the name of liberty and under the guise of patriot
ism, against persons whose only offense was a silent
adherence to their own convictions, were committed
acts of violence instigated In the frenzy of party by
those whose names and character should constitute
denial, and recorded without disapprobation by his
torical partisans.
In the Revolution parties were outlined by the gen
eral principles of their respective adherents, but were
by no means homogeneous. There were those in the
governmental or Tory party, as it then began to be
called, who doubted neither the omnipotence of Par
liament over the colonies nor the wisdom of its exer
cise in levying a tax, while others were satisfied with
the affirmation of the right. And In the patriotic
party many deprecated a resort to forcible resistance
who strenuously denied the British pretensions. Of
these Franklin and Dickinson were the most emi
nent ; and as late as 1776 their opinions were the
opinions of the majority out of New England.^
Adams writes to Plumer : " You Inquire whether
every member of Congress did, on the 4th of July,
1776, In fact cordially approve of the Declaration of
Independence. 1 then believed, and have not since
altered my opinion, that there were several who signed
with regret and several others with many doubts and
much lukewarmness." ^
1 See Franklin's letters in Tudor's Otis, 392 n., and Magazine of
American History, September, 1883, article " Dickinson ; " also HU
dreth, in, 45, 57, 77,
2 'Works, X, 35, See Frothingham, Rise of the R^ublic, 514 et seq.

62 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
With the exception of the clergy, the party affilia
tions of no class could be accurately predicted. Par
ents and children, brothers and sisters, and lifelong
friends found themselves arrayed In hostile ranks as
religious and political convictions, marriage, social
relations, interest,^ or even accident, dictated.
The number of the ' people In each of these parties
Is not susceptible of precise determination, and varied
somewhat with the changing fortunes of the contest.
Many of those who finally adhered to the crown were
among the most earnest denunciators of the Stamp
Act. John Adams has recorded It as his opinion that
" in 1765 the colonies were more unanimous than
they have been since, either as colonies or states."
From 1760 to 1766 was the purest period of patriot
ism, from 1766 to 1776 was the period of corruption.
This agrees with the opinion of Jefferson, so far as
he refers to the same period. Nor Is there anything
unusual In this phase of parties. So long as dissat
isfaction was expressed by declarations of rights, or
even mob violence, patriotism was cheap ; but when it
became apparent that affairs were drifting to armed
resistance, uncertain In Its issue, many who had been
conspicuous as patriots drew back, and finally en
trusted their fortunes to the government as the
stronger party.
Of the barristers In Boston and its Immediate vicin
ity, Thacher died In 1765, Otis became Incapacited
in 1771. Five were loyalists, and John Adams alone
' " The managers of our public affairs, like those on your side of
the Atlantic," writes Dr. Eliot to Thomas Hollis, December 10, 1767,
" are governed by private views and the spirit of a party. Few have
any regard to the good of the public. Men are patriots tiU they get
in place, and then they are ! ! ! anything," — Massachusetts Historical
Collections, xxxiv. 414,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 63
lived through the Revolution as the advocate of Amer
ican Independence. Twenty-four of the prin-
. . The Par-
clpal barristers and attorneys In the colony ty of the
and one hundred and twenty-three mer- Loy^i-
chants and traders, including a few others
In Boston, signed the address to Governor Hutchin
son, May 30, 1774; and similar addresses to Gov
ernor Gage, as late as October 14, 1775, were signed
by the same class of people, and In still larger pro
portion to the population, in Salem and Marblehead.
Plymouth County was the stronghold of the loyalists.
On the evacuation of Boston, March 17, 1776, Sir
William Howe was accompanied by fifteen hundred
of these people ; and in September, 1778, the General
Court specified. In an act forbidding their return, the
names of more than three hundred citizens In the sev
eral counties. These numbers Include only those who
were conspicuous as landed proprietors or In the mer
cantile and professional classes. The Tories were In
possession of the principal offices in the gift either
of the crown or the ' people. As the conservative
party and having something to lose,^ they were sat-
^ John Adams gives the impressions which the wealthy delegates
from the other colonies to the Congress of 1774 had received in re
spect to those of Massachusetts, It had been represented to them
that Hancock was fortunately sick, and Mr, Bowdoin's relations
thought that his large estate ought not to be put to hazard. So they
sent Mr, Cushing, who was a harmless kind of man, but poor and
wholly dependent on his popularity for his subsistence ; Mr, Samuel
Adams, who was a very artful, designing man, but desperately poor,
and wholly dependent on his popularity with the lowest vulgar for
his Uving ; and John Adams and Robert Treat Paine, who were two
young lawyers of no great talents, reputation, or weight, who had no
other means of raising themselves into consequence than by courting
popularity. And they were aU suspected of having independence in
view, — Works, ii, 512, This, of course, is John Adams's statement,
and it contains so much of truth and significance as to enhance our
estimate of his candor.

64 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
isfied with the existing order of things, and In that
state of mind found It easy to indulge the sentiment
of loyalty which inheres In the British subject in all
lands so long as he is aUowed to do as he pleases.
Not that the Tories were fonder of paying taxes than
were the patriots, but they were content when the ob
noxious tax was repealed, and were disinclined to make
an issue on the Declaratory Act which proclaimed the
parliamentary right to tax. To these political senti
ments was united the profoundest conviction that the
colonists, unaided, could never withstand the power of
the empire when put forth In Its might, and that the
hope of friendly intervention by the continental powers
of Europe was a dream sure to be interrupted by a
rude awakening. As the event showed, this was their
fatal mistake.
Such was the party of the goverment, or the Loyal
ists. Such was the formidable party, intrenched in
wealth, office, and social Influence, which confronted
John Adams and his associates; and It is his and
their glory to have overthrown It.
The patriotic party is less easily described, since it
contained many heterogeneous elements. As
Patriotic a whole It was the party of the opposition.
Party. guch as Is always found under all forms of
government. In Massachusetts its formation on well-
defined issues antedates by more than a hundred years
the resistance to the Stamp Act, and was coeval with
the inauguration by Charles II. of those measures de
signed to reduce the colonies to subjection. The real
purpose of this party, though seldom avowed, was
from the first substantial independence of the crown
of England. At no time was It troubled with scru
ples. It hoped immunity from the chastisement

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 65
threatened by the king in his embroilment in foreign
wars.^ It resisted the abrogation of the old charter ;
It Imprisoned Andros and Dudley ; and when resist
ance proved unavailing, it sought to save the liberties
of the people by neutralizing the anti-democratic ele
ments In the new charter of 1692. The struggle thus
begun never changed Its character, and, as we have
already seen, never ceased until the peace of 1783.
Two things must never be lost sight of. First, that
this resistance was the resistance of a party. From
the first stage of the contest to the last there was
a Tory party which counseled submission ; and this
party was proportionally more numerous In Its early
than in Its later stage. Secondly, that from first to
last the action of the patriotic party was resistance
and obstruction. It was not the attitude of slaves
seeking their freedom, but of freemen resisting subju
gation. The difference is immense, and on Its per
ception depends a knowledge of the real character of
the American Revolution, which was the final victory
In a hundred years of party strife, with unbroken con
tinuity of unvaried purpose, — the maintenance of
Independence rather than Its acquirement, — originat
ing in a province, but at length, and mainly through
the influence of John Adams, enkindling the heart of
a continent. Besides reasons of state which embittered the colo
nists were some of a personal nature, affecting those
especially who suffered under the usurpation of An
dros or were displaced by Dudley. This personal
^ " They say, " writes a commissioner in 1665, " they can easily
spin out seven years by writing, and before that time a change may
come ; nay, some have dared to say, who knows what the event of this
Dutch war may be ? " Calendar of State Papers, quoted by Pro
fessor Seeley, Expansion of England, 68 n.

66 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
element was never absent from the contest in any of
its stages, and finally became one of the most potent
forces in arraying the Massachusetts colonists in
armed hostility to British authority.
The lull of political excitement during the French
war was only temporary. With the restoration of
peace the people, no longer distressed by the anxieties
occasioned by war and irritated by the operations of
the Anglican hierarchy, were ready to give ear to the
whisperings concerning the ministerial purpose to
raise a revenue In America. The passage of the
Stamp Act in 1765 left no doubt on that subject.
This was the occasion for the reopening of old party
questions, and party strife ensued, which continued
with scarcely any mitigation until the war.
But this was true chiefly of Massachusetts. In the
colonies to the southward the repeal of the act was
followed by the general apathy which so much alarmed
and disgusted Jefferson. The facts verified the con
jecture of Franklin. In his examination before the
Commons in 1766, he was asked if the Americans
would be satisfied with the repeal of the Stamp Act,
notwithstanding the resolutions of Parliament as to
the right ; and his answer was, " I think the resolu
tions of Right will give them very little concern If
they are never attempted to be carried Into practice."
Additional reasons for the apparent change In pub
lic sentiment may be conjectured. At first It seems
not to have been generally understood that all sums
raised in America by taxation were to be expended
there In the defense and government of the country.
To this there doubtless were good practical and con
stitutional objections ; but these would not be likely
to strike the common mind with the same force as a

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 67
project to replenish the British exchequer from the
pockets of the colonists. Nor was It unlikely that the
acts of violence which everywhere accompanied the
popular expression of disapprobation of the measure
should on second thought cause some apprehension
in the minds of those friendly to law and order.
Property also became alarmed.
But whatever may have been the reasons for the
popular falling off, there can be no question as to the
fact ; and if it had been true in the same degree In
Massachusetts as In the other colonies, it Is doubtful
whether the conflict would have occurred when it
did. In Massachusetts, however, there was to be no
peace. The Stamp Act was repealed, but the Declar
atory Act remained, and the Bishop of London did
not stay his hand. The Puritan pulpit rang with
unceasing alarm until Its voice was drowned in the
clangor of arms. Not one of the causes which had
kept the royal governors in contention for sixty years
was settled or In abeyance. New causes were con
stantly arising, — often made ; and It was the evident
determination of the patriotic party that they should
be settled only in one way — with substantial Independ
ence of British authority in all matters of domestic
policy. To these causes must be added the personal
hostility, which had become deadly, between Bernard
and Hutchinson on one side and James Otis, Jr., and
Samuel Adams on the other.
The last-mentioned causes kept the contest alive In
Massachusetts, which seemed to be In a state of col
lapse In other colonies, until the arrival of the East
India Company's teas revived colonial interest in pub
lic affairs.

68 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
In the early stages of the controversy. International
Samuel as well as local, James Otis, Jr., was the
Adams leader ; but after a while his light began to
party^^^^* flicker, and In 1771 went out and was seen
leader, jjq more. Thacher, less to be pitied than
Otis, had found an early grave. Joseph Hawley and
Samuel Adams remained ; but Hawley's residence
was remote from the scene of immediate conflict, and
occasional fits of despondency rendered untrustworthy
for sudden exigencies one of the most able and Inter
esting but little known patriots of the Revolution.
Samuel Adams remained, and in all local, religious,
political, and personal relations the Revolution In
Massachusetts found In him Its greatest leader.-'
If his colony was not quite ripe for armed resist
ance, nor all of them strong enough, unaided, to
carry through the contest If entered upon ; or if, as
was the judgment of Hawley,^ and as later events
seemed to indicate, there was danger, on one hand,
that the conflict would be precipitated without ade
quate preparation, and on the other, that the people
would grow weary of the strife, — it was Samuel
Adams who kept alive the spirit of resistance, and
with infallible sagacity piloted the bark of liberty
1 " Adams, I believe, has the most thorough understanding of lib
erty and her resources in the temper and character of the people
though not in the law and constitution, as well as the most habitual,
radical love of it of any of them, as weU as the most correct, genteel,
and artful pen. He is a man of refined policy, steadfast integrity,
exquisite humanity, genteel erudition, obliging, engaging manners,
real as well as professed piety, and a universal good character, unless
it should be admitted that he is too attentive to the public, and not
enough so to himself and his family," — John Adams in 1765 : Works,
ii. 163,
^ See a remarkable letter on this point, written from Northamp
ton, February 22, 1775, to Thomas Cushing, in Massachusetts Histori
cal Collections, xxxiv, 393,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 69
through these dangerous seas. Apathy might prevail
elsewhere, but In Massachusetts It was not allowed to
prevail. At one time there seemed to be danger ;
but never was an exigency in human affairs more
clearly discerned nor more resolutely met. Never
was opposition more thoroughly organized nor led
with more consummate skill. To this work Samuel
Adams gave his time without stint, his whole heart,
and his admirable ability. His convictions of the
justice of the cause were founded on the rock. His
faith In Its ultimate triumph was as the faith of the
martyrs. He was the last of the Puritans, with the
zeal of the first of the Puritans.^ He hated kings,
but most of all popes and bishops. The crown and
the crozier were alike detested symbols of tyranny.
The king was an offense far away ; Hutchinson was
an offense near at hand. He gathered, united, and
led the patriotic party of his day. Into It he Infused
his own courage, zeal, and constancy. He was the
unrivaled politician of the Revolution. Without him
it would never have occurred when it did nor as It
did. In this work Samuel Adams was the foremost
and greatest man.
But the Revolution needed a statesman. Begin
ning in a colony, it was provincial. It
required to be nationalized. It began on a ization of
party basis of local politics ; it needed a con- ^'^^, Kevo-
stitutional basis. It had enlisted the sym
pathies and resources of a colony. It needed the sen
timent of nationality and the resources of a continent.
To supply these needs was the work of John Adams.
^ Adams to Morse : " If James Otis was Martin Luther, Samuel
Adams was John Calvin , , , cool, abstemious, polished, and refined,
though more inflexible, uniform, and consistent."

70 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
The country needed — and, as the Ill-starred cam
paigns of 1776 showed. It was one of its sorest needs
— one who could enlist the sympathies of continental
Europe In behalf of the hard-pressed colonists, shield
them from hostile intervention, and secure for them
material assistance. For this work, no less by the
hajjpy constitution of his mind than by the varied
experiences of his life, of all men Franklin was best
fitted. Finally, the Revolution needed a leader for its
armies : it needed Washington.
Of these men, all required for the initiation and
successful Issue of the Revolution, each could do his
own work supremely well, but neither that of the
others. In completeness and grandeur of character
Washington stands alone. In mass of Intellect Frank
lin Is accounted first and John Adams second ; but If
amount and variety as well as importance of service
as statesmen be taken Into the account, Franklin and
Adams might change places.
Under such circumstances of colonial history John
Adams appeared on the theatre of public affairs.
Before we can rightly estimate his career we must
know In what character he appeared. Of course he
was not a Tory, nor was he a Son of Liberty, though
elected as such. He neither represented nor did he
ally himself to any merely political party. He put
himself at the head of that great movement of the
race In America towards nationality, visible to the dis
cerning, as we have seen, everywhere except to those
who were in it. John Adams himself was only vaguely
conscious of It, or of his relations to It. In this he
was like the monk of Erfurth and the son of the
brewer of Huntingdon. But, no less than Luther or

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 71
Cromwell, he was elected to lead and direct the move
ment of an age.
At the age of twenty he said, " Soon after the
Reformation a few people came Into this new world
for conscience's sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial
incident may transfer the great empire of Europe Into
America. It looks likely to me ; for if we can remove
the turbulent Gallics, our people, according to exact
est computation, will in another century become more
numerous than England Itself. The way to keep us
from setting up for ourselves is to divide us." This
was in 1755, four years before Wolfe's victory on the
Plains of Abraham and five years before James Otis
argued against the Writs of Assistance.
This divination of nationality In the future empire
of America was not, as It has been regarded, the work
of a meditative mind turned politician, but an Intul-
itlon of that historic imagination already spoken of
which led him In later years to head the movement
that realized the prophetic vision of his youth. No
two characters in our revolutionary period are more
strongly contrasted than Benjamin Franklin and John
Adams. Natives of the same colony and In some
respects representative of the spirit of Its people, In
others they differed as widely from It as they did from
each other. Franklin's intellect was of the first order,
under the supreme control of common sense, of which
he was the incarnation. This determined his attitude
to the Revolution. He was opposed to It so far as
its promoters contemplated armed resistance to Great
Britain. Always averse to war, he would have
patiently waited until time and growth should sever
the colonies from the mother country. He did not
believe the colonies were strong enough to fight the

72 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
king; but when Samuel Adams forced the hand of
the minister and war became inevitable, Franklin
threw his great Influence with the patriotic party.
As matter of judgment, he was right. The colonists
were not strong enough to withstand even the feeble
generals of the king. At the time of French inter
vention the game of war had gone against them, and
the last two years were fought largely with French
troops and French money. Franklin's judgment was
controlled by his great reason. He had no Imagina
tion. This is where he differed from John Adams.
As Adams said of himself, " It had always been his
destiny to mount breaches and lead the forlorn hope."
He had faith In It. He had seen It through all the
ages In the victorious van, and his Imagination was
kindled by the historic review. It was just this sub
lime Intuition of nationality which distinguished him
among his contemporaries ; and this united with
great abilities and high courage made him the first
statesman of the Revolution.
The value of this gift to the cause which John
Adams came to represent, or to himself personally,
can hardly be overestimated. He had said that " by
looking Into history we can settle In our minds a clear
and comprehensive view of the earth at its creation ;
of Its various changes and revolutions ; of the growth
of several kingdoms and empires ; and that nature
and truth, or rather truth and right, are Invariably
the same In all times and in all places." This intui
tion enabled him to discern in race tendencies, situa
tion, and growth the Inevitable result of the approach
ing contest 3 and when the hour for choice came he
cast his fortunes not with the governmental party as
might have been expected from his constitutional and

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 73
professional conservatism, but with those ready to
battle for freedom and nationality. And this faith
In the prophetic movements of events left no room for
doubt as to the justice of the cause or of Its ultimate
success. And so he never quailed In the face of dan
ger, never was disheartened by disaster, and his every
step was a step forward.
Besides the faculty by which John Adams divined
the end and every intermediate step from the begin
ning, in the logical order of events, he possessed
another of scarcely less value to the cause. By con
stitution of mind as well as by special education he
was constructive ; and in this order : before he tore
down, he planned reconstruction. Governments were
not the results of accident, but growths from germs
maturing as the oak from the acorn by laws of race,
situation, and the facts of national life. His recon
struction, therefore, as we shall see, was In accordance
with these laws. Familiar as he was with the theo
ries of government from the republic of Plato to those
of his own times, and not unwilling to adopt what
ever would Incorporate Itself into that system which
his race had found most serviceable, he had no faith
in systems which lacked the sanction of proved util
ity. His work was new. To disrupt an empire was
not new. It was not new to overthrow governments.
But to overturn thirteen royal provinces, and without
Intervening anarchy to set up In their stead thirteen
Independent governments ; to loose the bands of an
empire and reform the contiguous parts Into an
united whole with such coherence as enabled It to
maintain Itself against formidable odds, — this was
something new in history, and to many seemed Impos
sible.

74 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
Samuel Adams represented the Puritan element in
the contest In Massachusetts. To him the Revolution
was the last In a series of events reaching back through
a hundred years to resist the imposition of the Angli
can hierarchy on the descendants of the Puritans.
Civil and religious liberty were Indissolubly united In
his affections, but his Inspiration was religion. This
fervor, which gave him power among his own people,
detracted from his Influence In those colonies in which
the people regarded the Massachusetts Puritans as
bigoted fanatics.
John Adams was also a believer In religion, but he
had read Shaftesbury, BolIngbroke,i and Hume. To
him religion had Its place, — the first place In natural
order in every well-regulated mind. But he was no
bigot and had no invincible repugnance to any form
of religious belief.
And so in civU government he believed in orderly,
constitutional subordination. But In his scheme It
was a subordination to laws, not men. He believed In
laws. As a lawyer he admitted the supremacy of law ;
but as a statesman he recognized the distinction be
tween those rules which in judicial tribunals determine
the rights of persons and those general maxims appli
cable only to legislation. In construing the British
Constitution or that of his own colony. It was not with
him a question of original theory, but of present fact.
" When Massachusettensis says that the king's domin
ions must have an uncontrollable power, I ask whether
they have such a power or not," is his way of reason
ing. What by growth, development, and actual oper-
1 Adams to Jefferson : " I have read him [Bolinghroke] through
more than fifty years ago, and more than five times in my Ufe, and
once within five years past.' ' — Works, x, 82,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 75
atlve force have these several constitutions come to
be as matter of fact to-day ? Parliamentary suprem
acy is doubtless a constitutional maxim In England,
and the supremacy of the Great and General Court
in all internal affairs, civil as well as ecclesiastical. Is
and always has been a constitutional maxim in the
province of Massachusetts Bay. And in both cases
the validity of these maxims Is to be determined, not
by the declarations or admissions of past ages, but by
the potentiality of a present declaration. To the as
sumed right of Parliament to tax the colonies, as a
corollary of parliamentary omnipotence, he offered no
theory of constitutional construction, but answered,
" Our provincial legislatures are the only supreme
authorities In our colonies." Colonial constitutions,
like the British Constitution, he assumed were flexi
ble, readily adapting themselves to changed circum
stances, subject to growth and development, and the
sole measure of the rights of the people, whenever as
matter of fact they had come to rely upon them as
such. Nor did he fail to perceive nor shrink from the
conclusion that, when time and circumstances brought
on the Inevitable conflict, force would be the final
arbiter. To the acceptance of this doctrine he led the
national mind, as represented In the Declaration of
Rights by the Congress of 1774, and inspired It at a
later date with the audacity to defy a power greater
than its own.
Such seems to have been John Adams's theory of
the provincial constitutions, though nowhere expressly
formulated In words and perhaps not even In his own
mind ; but everywhere evinced by his conduct, not
otherwise consistent or intelligible. He frequently
met his antagonists, such as Hutchinson and Leonard,

76 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
on their own ground, and sometimes overthrew them
by skillful fence ; but his strength and his power were
In his practical recognition of the American constitu
tions. And if, as has been suggested, he has nowhere
given us a complete statement of his constitutional
views during the controversial period, but left them
to be Inferred, as in the Declaration of Rights, he is
not peculiar in this respect. Great leaders, especially
if like John Adams they are men of action, are seldom
the formulators of their own principles of conduct,
and are not always conscious of them. They are men
of intuitions ; and their chief distinction is that they
are the first to feel the movement of the age, recog
nize Its significance, and give it beneficent direction.
Excepting the year 1770, when John Adams was a
member of the General Court, he had no official rela
tion to public affairs. In the vulgar strife between
those who had place and those who wanted place he
felt no Interest. Poor, ambitious, conscious of great
powers, he doubtless desired opportunities for their
exercise. He saw positions of power and emolument
in his profession engrossed by the old historic families
which adhered to the crown. Into this charmed cir
cle he gazed, he tells us, not without envy. But he
was a man of principle, with a just sense of honor, and
no demagogue. Poorly adapted for the game of poli
tics, and lacking the faculty which moulds the senti
ments of numbers Into some definite form of action, he
made a poor figure as a politician. By the constitu
tion of his mind, by taste and education, he was fitted
for statesmanship ; and when that career was open to
him, he entered upon It with such success that he soon
became recognized as the most commanding statesman
of the country.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 11
The Revolution encountered difficulties apart from
the evident determination of the ministry to sustain
the parliamentary authority. As a domestic question,
it was to be rescued from party squabbles and placed
on such constitutional grounds as would satisfy the
sound judgment of those on whom it depended for
support, as well as the fervid patriotism of those whose
obstreperous demonstrations were silenced by the first
call to less noisy duty. It also required to be nation
alized ; for unless Massachusetts was to stand alone,
and standing alone to fail. It was essential that all the
colonies, of diverse nationalities, histories, and reli
gions, and without special good-will to Massachusetts,
should nevertheless unite with her on common ground,
make her cause their cause, and count the work done
only when a free, independent empire should rise out
of the ruins of thirteen royal governments. The cause
in Massachusetts did not stand exactly on the right
basis. It was too local and personal. It was too
largely a question between the ins and the outs to
excite interest In the other colonies, and in the eccle
siastical contention they had no sympathy with the
Massachusetts Puritans.
To one of less abundant resources or less confidence
in them, to one with less faith In the future empire
of America, grounded on the historical development
of nationality and constitutional government by the
Anglo-Saxon race, the magnitude and difficulties would
have been appalling. But John Adams brought abil
ity, courage, and devotion to the cause, and he gained
it. When he entered Congress In 1774 he found the
representatives of the thirteen colonies brought to
gether chiefly by commercial considerations, having no
principle of cohesion and no purpose of united action.

78 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
except peaceful resistance to parliamentary taxa-
tlon.i But before he left Congress In 1777, and more
through his Instrumentality than any other, these col
onies had become independent states, some with con
stitutions for which he constructed the plan, and united
states, with the germ of a constitution which took
shape under the Constitution of the United States, in
which were embraced the essential features of the
Constitution of Massachusetts, the work of his own
hands. Such an opportunity has seldom presented
itself to a statesman in any age or country; seldom
has such opportunity been so successfully improved.
The period between 1765 and 1775 was prolific of
_ . , party pamphlets. In which the parliamentary
tional pretensions and colonial rights were dls-
questions, g^gggj with zeal and often with great abil
ity. Massachusetts contributed her full share of this
literature to the common cause, and added a series of
state papers comprising messages from the royal gov
ernors and answers from the two houses, together
with resolutions from conventions and popular assem
blies, probably unsurpassed In volume by similar pro
ductions emanating from any other colony. Owing
to her peculiar situation and the frequent occasion
she gave for interference In her affairs by the king or
his representatives, few constitutional questions of
colonial Import failed of exhaustive discussion. John
Adams's contribution to this revolutionary literature
was considerable In amount, and the direction he gave
^ In the Congress of 1774, *' after the first flush of confidence was
over, suspicions and jealousies began to revive. There were in all the
colonies many wealthy and influential men who had joined, indeed, in
protesting against the usurpations of the mother country, but who
were greatly disinclined to anything Uke a decided rupture." — HU
dreth, iii, 45,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 79
to it was followed by consequences of importance to
the patriotic party In Massachusetts, and later to the'
national party in Congress.
The Stamp Act and other colonial measures which
proceeded from the British ministry became party
questions on both sides of the water, and were dis
cussed in Parliament with the heat which character
izes party declamation at all times. In those days
as well as In later days, and in grave histories, these
declamatory utterances were regarded and cited as
statesmanlike determinations of constitutional ques
tions. Nothing can be more misleading. They were
mainly party cries of the opposition, similar to those
with which we became familiar In the congressional
debates which preceded the late Civil War. Chat
ham's splendid eloquence gave currency to declara
tions which had no foundation In constitutional law,
and Camden, from whose judicial mind more caution
might have been expected, conceded and not long
after denied the American position ; nor was either
utterance without suspicion of political or personal
motive. Their object was not to support the rights
of the colonists, but to overthrow their opponents.
There were those among the colonists at the time who
held these partisan declarations at their just estimate.
John Adams said, " I know very well that the oppo
sition to ministry was the only valid ground on which
the friendship for America that was professed in
England rested." Camden, who had asserted with
the colonists that taxation and representation were
inseparable, later, in 1767, declared that his doubts
were removed by the declaration of Parliament itself,
and that its authority must be maintained. But this
attitude of the opposition in England, though not

80 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
generally understood in America, was of great advan
tage to her cause. It encouraged the colonists in
their resistance and led to a feeble and vaciUating
policy in the ministry, which showed itself In the in
efficient conduct of the war.^
The questions of constitutional law raised by the
parliamentary revenue measures affecting the colonies
neither at the time nor since have received a satis
factory solution. Regarded as questions of law de
terminable in courts of justice, or of the legislative
power under the British Constitution, in which aspect
a lawyer would at first be likely to regard them, John
Adams might well have hesitated in forming an opin
ion. Otis at the outset took the ground that Acts of
Parliament were not binding on the colonies ; but on
fuller consideration of the subject. In his work on the
" Rights of the Colonies," he conceded the claim of
parliamentary supremacy. This was Chatham's doc
trine coupled with a distinction between external and
internal taxes ; and Franklin had incautiously ad
mitted " that an adequate representation In Parlia
ment would probably be acceptable to the colonists."
John Quincy Adams quotes Jefferson's statement,
" that In the ground which he took, that the British
Parliament never had any authority over the colonies
any more than the Danes and Saxons of his own age
had over the people of England, he never could get
anybody to agree with him but Mr. Wythe. It was
too absurd." He then adds, " In truth, the question
of right as between Parliament and the colonies was
one of those upon which It Is much easier to say who
was wrong than who was right. The pretension that
they had the right to bind the colonies In all cases
1 See Quarterly Review, January, 1884, p, 7,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 81
whatever, and that which denied them the right to
bind In any case whatever, were the two extremes
equally unfounded ; and yet It Is extremely difficult
to draw the line where the authority of Parliament
commenced and where It closed." ^
John Adams drew the line against the authority of
Parliament in any case whatever except by the colo
nial consent; and this position, taken In the earliest
stages of the controversy, he consistently maintained
to the end. And this was the only tenable ground.
Once admit the supremacy of the British Constitution
in regulating the Internal affairs of the colonies, and
there was no ground for constitutional resistance to
any acts affecting them as distinguished from the
people within the three kingdoms. On that ground
neither Hutchinson nor Leonard was answered.^ It
was a question of fact, and chiefly as to time. When
the colonial charters were the evidence of corporate
existence within the realm for extra-territorial pur
poses, they Uke aU domestic charters were subject to
alteration or repeal; but when by lapse of time,
growth, and usage they had become governments
proper, regulating their own internal affairs, they
then became colonial constitutions which excluded aU
other authority. This I understand the position of
John Adams to have been. Burke recognized the
1 Life and Works, vUi, 282.
^ General poUtical maxims never have had, and probably never
wUl have, practical force either in courts or legislative bodies. To
quote the maxim that taxation and representation were inseparable
as a guide to legislation or as a ground for legal resistance to a law
already passed, while five sixths of the people of England, whole
counties, large towns, and many of the Channel Islands were, or had
been, wholly unrepresented though fully taxed, was practicaUy as
absurd as for a fugitive slave to quote the Declaration of Independ
ence or the preamble to the Constitution in a court of law.

82 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
effect of usage in determining constitutional rights.
" Do not burden them with taxes ; you were not used
to do so from the beginning. Let this be your reason
for not taxing." Of course the British Parliament
were quite at liberty to take an entirely different view
of the question, as they did, and its practical solution
depended on the relative strength of the parties.
John Adams was brought face to face with this
question, and took his position In regard to It before
the Governor and Council In 1765, on the petition of
the town of Boston for reopening the courts, which
had been closed for the want of stamps required by
the act. A few days before he had written In his
diary, " It Is my opinion that by this inactivity we dis
cover cowardice and too much respect for the act.
This rest appears to be, by implication at least, an
acknowledgment of the authority of Parliament to tax
us. And If this authority Is once acknowledged and
established, the ruin of America will be inevitable."
This was on the 18th of December. On the 20th Is the
following : " I grounded my argument on the Invalid
ity of the Stamp Act, It not being In any sense our
act, having never consented to it."
On the validity of this position John Adams staked
his legal reputation, his hopes, his fortunes, and the
welfare of his people.
It is one of the highest claims of Washington to
the gratitude of mankind that he carried the country
through a long war in strict subordination to the civil
authority ; and it raises our respect for John Adams
that, his position once taken on the fundamental law
of his colony, he maintained it with courage and fidel
ity, without swerving from principle and without re
course to the arts of a demagogue. He began his

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 83
career as a statesman, and such he remained to the
end. After the death of Thacher and the retirement of
James Otis, Jr., John Adams became the trusted ad
viser of the patriot leaders on all legal and constitu
tional questions. They had need of him, for the party
which adhered to the crown was led by very able men,
who carried with them the Influence of wealth, social
position, and official station. A cause supported by
such men as Hutchinson, Sewall, and Leonard could
be overthrown only by powerful assailants. Better
than any man of affairs save Hutchinson, John Adams
understood the history, legislation, and constitutional
law of his colony ; and probably no man of his day,
on either side of the Atlantic, had more carefully con
sidered the foundations of government, or the forma
tive process by which constitutions adapt themselves
to the changing circumstances of national life. He
recognized their present validity only so far as they
conformed to the laws of national growth ; and he saw
that they retained their Identity only as the oak is
identical with the acorn from which it sprung.
In the legal and constitutional controversies which
preceded hostilities, the dialectical force was by no
means wholly on the side of the patriotic party. Hutch
inson was a formidable antagonist, and more than
once caused anxiety In the camp of the Whigs. And
he was surpassed by Daniel Leonard, whose weekly
papers, published in the winter of 1774-75 under the
signature of " Massachusettensis," raised this anxiety
to positive alarm. These celebrated letters, — If such
can be called celebrated which no one reads ; a classic
lost to literature amid the ruins of the cause which
brought it forth, — written with evident sincerity of

84 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
purpose and almost pathetic tenderness of feeling, were
likely to affect the popular mind very powerfully ^ at
a time when the colony seemed to be drifting into war.
His constitutional argument was strong, perhaps un
answerable on the ground on which he put it ; and his
appeals to the judgment, good sense, and right feeling
of the community required an answer. The eyes of
the Whigs were turned to John Adams. He had just
returned from the Congress at Philadelphia, in which,
with infinite difficulty, he had brought the delegates
to the true fighting ground of the Revolution. With
the constitutional argument he was perfectly familiar.
The answers of the House of Representatives, in Jan
uary and March, 1773, to Hutchinson's messages, were
Indebted to him for their legal astuteness, which was
adopted by Samuel Adams and used with the sklU
which characterizes his acknowledged compositions.
I refer to these controversial papers only for the pur
pose of showing the attitude of John Adams to the
main question. The Tory writers, assuming that the
colonists were British subjects within the realm, and
with rights and duties determinable by the construc
tion ordinarily given to the British Constitution in
practical legislation, had little difficulty In making
plain that no line could be drawn between absolute
parliamentary supremacy in all cases whatever and
total Independence. This was forcing the controversy
to an issue for which the colonists as a whole were not
ripe, as John Adams had sorrowfully learned In the
recent Congress at Philadelphia. As a Massachusetts
issue he could accept it with prompt decision; but
^ " Did not our Massachusettensis
For your conviction strain his senses ? "
Tkumeull's McFingal.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 85
there were other parties to be conciliated, and he
necessarily wrote with a view to the state of feeling in
the other colonies and in England as well, where the
contest was regarded with Intense Interest. In discuss
ing the question as one arising on the construction of
the British Constitution, he showed both power and
learning In attack as well as In defense ; but he was
in close quarters with an antagonist worthy of his
steel, and as Is usual in such cases he experienced the
varying fortunes of war.
But on his own ground — the position taken before
the Governor and Council In 1765, on the petition
for opening the courts ; and later, in the fourth article
of the Declaration of Rights by the Congress at Phila
delphia — he was on firm, constitutional ground, and
historically correct. If the general course of colonial
history rather than Isolated facts Is regarded. Some
of these positions have been already referred to ; but
as he is about to pass from the provincial to the na
tional stage, and as the replies to " Massachusettensis "
were the latest and most authentic expression of his
views on the colonial constitution, I refer to them
again. On the parliamentary modification of the charter
contemporaneous with the Boston Port Bill he says,
" America will never aUow that Parliament has any
authority to alter their constitution. She Is whoUy
penetrated with a sense of the necessity of resisting It
at all hazards. And she would resist It If the con
stitution of Massachusetts had been altered as much
for the better as It is for the worse." The Inviolability
of the colonial constitution, and that constitution as
the basis and measure of colonial rights, was his doc
trine.

86 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
This bold position was the true position. No sounder
doctrine ever emanated from any American constitu
tionalist ; and when John Adams assumed it, defended
it, and brought his colony to stand upon It and fight
the war upon it, he rendered her a service of states
manship such as has never been surpassed. It changed
the nature of the contest. Acts which would have
been rebeUion to the British Constitution, and made
all participators in them traitors, were no longer such,
but justifiable and patriotic defense of their own con
stitutional liberty.
The Whigs were no longer fighting against Great
Britain, but for the protection of their own rights.
The difference was Immense, and so were the conse
quences. This new feeling nerved the arm and fired
the hearts of many whom the idea of treason Inspired
with something of Its old terror. Every act of min
isterial power designed to coerce the colonists was
usurpation, and the ministerial troops became an or
ganized mob which might be lawfully resisted.
Important as were the consequences of John
Adams's doctrine of the inviolability of colonial con
stitutions In affording a good fighting position, other
and even more Important consequences flowed from it.
If the people of the several colonies were living under
constitutional governments of their own, and not
merely royal charters revocable at the pleasure of the
Imperial government. It followed that they had a right
to change their constitutions at will and mould them
to their changed circumstances. This was what John
Adams Incessantly urged in the Congress of 1775, and
what was as strenuously resisted by a large party not
yet ripe for Independence, which, they claimed, and
with truth, such a measure would promote more than

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 87
any other conceivable. Finally Adams prevailed ; and
while the war was going on, several of the colonies
adopted State governments on models furnished by
him, and notably his own State, the constitution of
which he drafted, and from which was adopted the
frame of government in the Constitution of the United
States. Fifty millions of people to-day live under a
constitution the essential features of which are after
his model. Thirty-eight States now have constitutions
in no essential respect differing from that which he
drafted. Thus widely Is his Influence felt. How per
manently, God only knows. But until constitutional
government is overthrown on this continent, the work
of the Geeat Constitutionalist will endure.
As an example of his insight and grasp of constitu
tional principles may be cited his action in respect to
the impeachment of the judges who accepted salaries
from the crown Instead of the province, in contraven
tion of the provincial constitution. Peter Oliver was
chief justice. His brother, the stamp distributor, had
been compelled to renounce his office under the Liberty
Tree. But the chief justice was understood to be of
sterner stuff, and probably would have yielded his
life sooner than his office at the dictation of the mob.
The Whigs — and most of all the Whig lawyers —
were in doubt. But John Adams had no doubt. The
provincial constitution, he claimed, contained the germ
of every power which had been developed in the Brit
ish Constitution in the centuries of Its growth ; and
now that the exigency had arisen which called forth
the latent resources of the provincial constitution,
with that promptness, decision, and sound judgment
which always characterized his action when there was
anything to call forth his powers, he proposed the

88 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
impeachment of the chief justice by the House before
the Council. After his professional brethren had re
covered from their astonishment at the audacity of
this proposal, and come more fully to understand the
constitutional basis on which It rested, they feU In with
the idea, and proceedings were inaugurated, which
were brought to a summary end by the war and the
flight of Oliver to England on the evacuation of Bos
ton by the king's troops.
When John Adams was transferred from a provin
cial to a national stage as one of the delegates from
Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, which met
at Philadelphia In September, 1774, he became asso
ciated with a body of very able men, among whom he
at once assumed a leading position, as he had done In
his own colony. He was by considerable the ablest
man in the body, and In his line of constitutional
statesmanship by far the best equipped.
But his position was one of great difficulty. It is
only after a careful study of the proceedings of this
Congress and the subsequent history of some of its
niembers that we come at Its real character. It was
a Peace Congress.^ Some of the colonies had been
compromised by their attitude In respect to the East
India Company's teas ; and the extreme measures of
the British government In closing the port of Boston
and altering the charter of the contumacious people
of Massachusetts excited the apprehension of other
^ That such was its character is evident from the final resolutions
adopted : —
"We have for the present only resolved to pursue the foUowing
peaceable measures : 1, to enter into a non-importation, non-consump
tion, and non-exportation agreement or association, 2 and 3, to address
the people of Great Britain, the inhabitants of British America, and
to prepare a loyal address to his Majesty,"

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 89
colonies as to the ulterior purposes of the ministry.
While it was the patriotic desire of the Congress to
express their sympathies and to stand by the people of
Boston In the hour of their sufferings. It was hoped
and expected that some conciliatory course would be
followed which would allow the ministry and the Mas
sachusetts people to extricate themselves from their
difficulties without recourse to war.
John Adams had no faith In the efficacy of the peti
tion to the king, nor In the addresses to the people
of Great Britain and the Canadas. Matters had gone
so far in New England that they would be satisfied
with no terms short of the withdrawal of the royal
troops, the reopening the port of Boston, and the total
repeal of all measures designed to reduce them to obe
dience. At the same time, not only the British min
istry, but the British people also, were demanding the
complete submission of the Bostonians or the inflic
tion of condign punishment. So far as Massachusetts
was concerned, the war was Inevitable. John Adams
saw It to be so, and prepared himself for It.
He endeavored to prepare the Congress for It, and
not without valuable results. The great work effected
by this Congress was the bringing the colonies on to
common ground by a declaration of their rights.
Opinions were divided. A compromise ensued, and
the famous fourth article was the result. It was
drawn by John Adams, and carried mainly by his
influence, and reads as follows : —
" That the foundation of English liberty and of all
free government is a right In the people to participate
in their legislative council ; and as the English colo
nists are not represented, and from their local and
other circumstances cannot be properly represented in

90 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and
exclusive power of legislation In their several provin
cial legislatures, where their rights of representation
can alone be preserved in all cases of taxation and
internal polity, subject only to the negative of their
sovereign in such manner as has been heretofore used
and accustomed. But from the necessity of the case
and a regard to the mutual interest of both countries
we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts
of the British Parliament as are hona fide restrained
to the regulation of our external commerce, for the
purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the
whole empire to the mother country and the com
mercial benefits of its respective members, excluding
every idea of taxation. Internal or external, for raising
a revenue on the subjects in America without their
consent." This was not precisely what John Adams wanted,
but it was much. When this declaration went forth,
the cause of Massachusetts, In whatever It might
eventuate, was the cause of the colonies. It was na
tionalized. This was John Adams's greatest feat of
statesmanship. On It the success of the impending
war and the Declaration of Independence rested.^
Congress, having completed Its work, adjourned
^ It is interesting to learn that John Adams regarded the declara
tion of the Congress on the subject of parliamentary power over the
colonies merely as the reaffirmance of the old colonial doctrine,
" Thus it appears," he says in Novanglus, " that the ancient Massa-
chusettensians and Virginians had precisely the same sense of the au
thority of Parliament, viz., that it had none at aU ; and the same sense
of the necessity, tliat by the voluntary act of the colonies, their free,
cheerful consent, it should be allowed the power of regulating trade ;
and this is precisely the idea of the late Congress at Philadelphia,
expressed in the fourth proposition of their BiU of Rights." — Works,
iv, 112,

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 91
October 26, 1774. This body has been much com
mended for Its moderation and ability. Chatham
eulogized the remarkable series of addresses it sent
forth ; but neither Samuel Adams nor John Adams
nor some of the Virginians were satisfied with the
results of the Congress. As Bancroft says, " Con
gress did not as yet desire Independence. Had that
been their object, they would have strained every
nerve to Increase their exports and fill the country
with the manufactures and munitions which they
required." On the contrary, they agreed upon certain
commercial restrictions upon the trade of the mother
country and those colonies which should side with her,
hoping thereby to coerce the king's government, by
the Influence of the manufacturing and trading classes
at home, to desist from that commercial policy which
was the chief ground of their displeasure. As matter
of fact the Revolution had not cast off Its commercial
phase. It had, however, made one capital declara
tion of colonial rights.
The value of this stroke of statesmanship became
apparent In the next session of Congress In May,
1775. The events at Lexington and Concord had
precipitated the contest which the majority of the
people of the colonies wished to avoid. But the die
was cast, and one of the delegates at least had mea
sured the magnitude of the struggle that had begun,
the necessity of nationalizing it, and of bringing to
its support the full powers and resources of a conti
nental government. This sagacity and statesmanship
were evinced by the completeness of his plans ; and
his practical force, by his final success In carrying
them into operation In spite of innumerable obstacles
thrown in his way. " We ought," wrote John

92 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
Adams to General Warren, July 24, " to have had In
our hands a month ago the whole legislative, execu
tive, and judicial of the whole continent, and have
completely modeled a constitution ; to have raised a
naval power, and opened aU our ports wide." When
the intercepted letter which contained the above
extract was published at Philadelphia, it " displayed
him as drawing the outlines of an independent state,
the great bugbear in the eyes of members who still
cling to the hope that the last resort might be avoided."
These views subjected him to animadversion, and
even cold treatment, to the extent that he "was
avoided in the streets by many as If It were a con
tamination to speak with such a traitor."
We see the magnificence of his plan to create the
empire which he foresaw In his youth. We see the
sagacity of the measures by which It was to be accom
plished. We also see, what those who opposed him
were soon to see, the vast resources, the untiring
labors, and Indomitable courage which he brought to
the execution of these plans.-^
His plan was to sever at once every political tie
which bound the separate colonies to Great Britain in
^ " Her (Massachusetts) government passed out of royal hands
before the Continental Congress had been in session a month. After a
partiaUy successful appeal for the advice of the Continental Congress,
hers was the first government to be placed on a new although con
fessedly temporary foundation ; and from one of her leaders went
forth to the other colonies one of the strongest single lines of influ
ence toward the speedy erection of commonwealth governments,
Massachusetts endorsed heartUy, even if for the time incompletely,
the principal feature of John Adams's plan of political campaign ;
and it was toward the fuU realization of his poUcy in the complete
establishment of commonwealth governments that the leaders aimed
consistently during the few years of the distinctly transitional
period," — Harry A, Cushing's Transition from Provincial to Com
monwealth Government, 13, 14.

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 93
their royal governments, and to lay the basis of their
independence by the erection of state governments In
their stead ; to nationalize these state governments by
confederation, and to give this new government the sub
stance as well as the form of nationality by adopting
the army before Boston and putting it under national
commanders ; by constructing a navy ; by issuing
bills of credit ; by sending embassadors to foreign
nations ; and finaUy, by declaring the thirteen colo
nies the free, independent United States of America.
To the accomplishment of this work of building a
nation, no one of all the great men with whom he was
associated addressed himself with a clearer compre
hension of what It Involved, or more ably or more
assiduously devoted himself to it, than John Adams.
This was his great work. Before its substantial
completion I do not think he could have been spared.
I see no one who could have filled his place between
1774 and 1777. But after that period, the Revolu
tion in successful progress, independence declared,
and the work of constitutional reconstruction well
advanced, he might have retired to well -merited
repose. The Congress thought otherwise ; and John
Adams, who always heeded the call of his country,
embarked for Europe charged with diplomatic duties.
He was well informed In matters of public and inter
national law, but was not, I think, speciaUy adapted
for a diplomatic career. He rendered some excellent
service, but none which might not have been as well
performed by his able associates, unless we may still
question whether their zeal for the preservation of the
old colonial rights to the fisheries and for extending
the boundaries of the country to their furthest limits
was equal to his own. He certainly had always

94 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
before his eyes the vision of his youth — the Empire
of America. Not even In a later day was Webster's
view wider, more national, or more patriotic ; nor in
the largeness and liberality of his commercial policy
has he ever been surpassed by any of our public men.
Doubtless there Is a tendency to over-estimation
when our eyes are fixed somewhat exclusively upon a
single actor In a cause which enlists the abilities of
other eminent men. But I think we may safely add
our own to the according voices of those patriots who
were personally cognizant of the services of John
Adams, in assigning to him the preeminent place
among the statesmen of the Revolution. He did not
bring to the Revolution so large an understanding as
Franklin's. But Franklin lacked some things essen
tial to the cause which John Adams possessed. He
lacked youth. At the critical period which was form
ing au epoch In history, he was an old man, with great
Interests depending on the existing order of things,
averse to extreme measures, especiaUy war, and with
out special training for constitutional questions. Jay,
Jefferson, Wythe, Henry, Lee, Gadsden — not to
mention others — were able men, and rendered great
services. But, save Franklin, no man In the colonies
was so largely endowed as John Adams. His under
standing was extraordinary. He planned well, and he
executed his plans. There was no other man of so
much weight in action as he. There were wise men
— some, estimated by conventional standards, much
wiser than John Adams ; but none whose judgments
on Revolutionary affairs have proved more solid or
enduring. There were younger men of genius and
older men of great experience In affairs ; but John
Adams was just at that period of life when genius

JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION 95
becomes chastened by experience without being over
powered by adversity.
But whatever may have been the value of his ser
vices when compared with those of his great compa
triots, it is sufficient title to lasting honor and the
unceasing benedictions of his countrymen that John
Adams had a conspicuous place among those who
builded a great nation, made It free, and formed gov
ernments for It which seem destined to endure for
ages and affect the political condition of no Inconsid
erable part of the human race.
While living John Adams had no strong hold on
the people, and at one time, as he said, an immense
unpopularity, like the tower of Siloam, feU upon him ;
and now that he Is dead, even the remembrance of his
great services seems to be growing indistinct. He
probably lacked many of those qualities which attract
popular favor, and those which he possessed, such as
courage and steadfastness, were exhibited on no theatre
of public action, but in the secret sessions of the Con
tinental Congress. Passionate eloquence on great
themes touches the heart to finer Issues ; but no sylla
ble of those powerful utterances which, as Jefferson
tells us, took men off their feet, was heard beyond the
walls of Independence Hall ; and even the glory of
the transaction which made the old hall Immortal
rests upon the hand which wrote, not upon that which
achieved, the Great Declaration. This ought not to
be altogether so. It niatters little to the stout old
patriot with what measure of fame he descends to
remote age, for he will never wholly die ; but to us
and to those who come after us It Is of more than
passing consequence that we and they withhold no
tribute of just praise from those unpopular men who

96 JOHN ADAMS AND THE REVOLUTION
deserve the respectful remembrance of their country
men. In the public squares of the city have been erected
statues of those great men, save John Adams, whose
services were Indispensable to the Initiation and suc
cessful issue of the Revolution — Samuel Adams,
Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington ; but our
eyes seek In vain for any adequate memorial of him
whose life, public and private, was without blemish,
whose essential character Is worthy of all admiration,
and whose services ought never to be forgotten so long
as free, united, constitutional government holds its
just place in the estimation of the people.

THE
AUTHENTICATION OF THE DECLARA
TION OP INDEPENDENCE
JULY 4, 1776
Reprinted fkom the Proceedings op the Massachusetts
Historical Society, November, 1884

THE
AUTHENTICATION OF THE DECLARATION

Few historical events which have occasioned con
troversy are referred to definite time and place by
such overwhelming weight of authority, personal and
documentary, as that which assigns the authentication
of the Declaration of Independence, by the signatures
of the members of Congress, to Independence HaU In
Philadelphia, July 4, 1776. After It had been called
In question, this was distinctly affirmed by two of the
most eminent of the persons then present, one of
whom was the author of the Declaration, and the
other the most powerful advocate of the resolution on
which it was based ; and their concurring statements
appear to be corroborated by memoranda claimed to
have been written at the time, as well as by the
printed official Journal of the Congress of which both
were members ; and yet it is more than probable that
both eye-witnesses were mistaken and the memoranda
untrustworthy, while the printed Journal Is demon
strably misleading. This is aU the more extraordi
nary since the error relates to an event In respect to
which error is hardly predicable. It is not a question
as to what took place on some widely extended battle
field crowded with struggling combatants, but as to
what passed directly under the eyes of fifty Intelligent
gentlemen in the quiet and secret session of the Con
tinental Congress.

100 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The question Is this: Was the draft of the De
claration of Independence, which after various amend
ments was finally agreed to on the afternoon of July
4, forthwith engrossed on paper and thereupon sub
scribed by all the members then present except Dick
inson ? This Is affirmed by Adams and Jefferson,
and In this the printed Journal seems to sustain them.
But this, Thomas McKean, himself a signer, present
on the 4th, and voting for the Declaration, has ex
plicitly denied; and so have Force,^ Bancroft,^ and
Winthrop.^ With some variation in phrase, these
writers agree with Mr. Webster,* who says that on
the 4th " it was ordered that copies be sent to the
several States, and that It be proclaimed at the head
of the army. The Declaration thus published did not
bear the names of the members, for as yet It had not
been signed by them. It was authenticated, like
other papers of the Congress, by the signatures of the
president and secretary."
Of the more recent writers, Frothingham ^ and Ran
dall,^ unable to see their way in this conflict of author
ity, have left the matter In doubt ; while Dr. Lossing,
who had said that " the Declaration of Independence
was signed by John Hancock, the President of Con
gress, only, on the day of its adoption, and thus it
went forth to the world," " having reexamined the
^ The Declaration of Independence, 63.
^ History ofthe United States, viii, 475.
» Fourth of July Oration, 1876, 28,
* Works, i, 129 ; see T, F, Bayard's oration in Proceedings on Un
veiling Monument to Caisar Rodney, 47, and Roberdeau Buchanan's
Life of McKean, 37.
^ Rise ofthe Republic, 545 n,
* Life of Jefferson, i, 171 n,
' Field Book of the Revolution, ii. 79.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 101
question, or convinced by the statements of Mrs.
Nellie Hess Morris, ^ has changed his opinion, and
now affirms that It was engrossed on paper and signed
on the 4th by all the members who voted for It, and
subsequently on parchment, and again signed on Au
gust 2 In the form weU known In facsImUe.^
The first to chaUenge the commonly received opin
ion that the Declaration of Independence was en
grossed and then signed by the members of Congress
on July 4 was Thomas McKean. Shortly after Gov
ernor McKean's death in 1817, John Adams sent to
Hezekiah Niles eight letters written to him by Mc
Kean between June 8, 1812, and June 17, 1817.
These letters were published In Niles's " Weekly
Register " for July 12, 1817 (xU. 305 et seq.). In
one of them, dated January 7, 1814, which Is too
long to be given In full, but which may be found ut
supra, and also In the " Collections of the Massa
chusetts Historical Society " (xliv. 505), Governor
McKean says : —
" On the 1st of July, 1776, the question [on the Declara
tion] was taken in coinniittee of the whole of Congress,
when Pennsylvania, represented by seven members then
present, voted against it, four to three. Among the ma
jority were Robert Morris and John Dickinson. Delaware
(having only two present, namely, myself and Mr. Read)
was divided. All the other States voted in favor of it.
The report was delayed until the 4th ; and in the mean
time I sent an express for Csesar Rodney to Dover, in the
county of Kent in Delaware, at my private expense, whom
I met at the State House door on the 4th of July in his
boots. He resided eighty miles from the city, and just
1 Potter's American Monthly, iv.-v. 498.
2 Ibid. 754.

102 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
arrived as Congress met. The question was taken. Del
aware voted in favor of Independence. Pennsylvania
(there being only five members present, Messrs. Dickinson
and Morris absent) voted also for it. Messrs. Willing and
Humphries were against it. Thus the thirteen States were
unanimous in favor of Independence, Notwithstanding
this, in the printed Public Journal of Congress for 1776
(vol, ii,) it appears that the Declaration of Independence was
declared on the 4th of July, 1776, by the gentlemen whose
names are there inserted, whereas no person signed it on
that day ; and among the names there inserted one gentle
man, namely, George Read, Esq,, was not in favor of it ;
and seven were not in Congress on that day, namely,
Messrs. Morris, Rush, Clymer, Smith, Taylor, and Ross,
all of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Thornton, of New Hamp
shire ; nor were the six gentlemen last named members of
Congress on the 4th of July. The five for Pennsylvania
were appointed delegates by the convention of that State on
the 20th July, and Thornton took his seat in Congress for
the first time on the 4th November following ; when the
names of Henry Wisner, of New York, and Thomas Mc
Kean, of Delaware, are not printed as subscribers, though
both were present in Congress on the 4th of July and voted
for Independence. . . . After the 4th of July I was not in
Congress for several months, having marched with a regi
ment of Associators, as Colonel, to support General Wash
ington, until the flying camp of ten thousand men was com
pleted. When the Associators were discharged I returned
to Philadelphia, took my seat in Congress, and signed my
name to the Declaration on parchment.''
In transmitting this letter to Mercy Warren for
her reading, John Adams said : —
" I send you a curiosity. Mr. McKean is mistaken in a
day or two. The final vote of independence, after the last
debate, was passed on the 2d or 3d of July, and the De
claration prepared and signed on the 4th.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 103
" What are we to think of history, when in less than
forty years such diversities appear in the memories of liv
ing persons who were witnesses ?
" After noting what you please, I pray you to return the
letter. I should like to communicate it to Gerry, Paine,
and Jefferson, to stir up their pure minds." *
Governor McKean's recollection was certainly at
fault in one or two particulars. His patriotic and
successful endeavor to bring Rodney up from Dela
ware was that he might vote on the main question, —
the Resolution of Independence, which passed the 2d
of July. It is doubtful, also, whether he was correct
in saying that Wisner of New York voted either for
the Resolution or for the Declaration ; for, though he
may have been In favor of independence, the delegates
from that State were not authorized so to vote until
July 9, nor was their authority communicated to Con
gress before July 15.^ McKean was in error on some
collateral points ; but was John Adams right and Mc
Kean wrong on the main question, — the signing of
the Declaration on the 4th ? It is premature to decide
until all the evidence Is produced ; but there is a
noticeable letter written by John Adams to Samuel
Chase from Philadelphia, July 9, in which he says :
" As soon as an American seal is prepared, I conjec
ture the Declaration will be subscribed by aU the
members, which wiU give you the opportunity you
wish for of transmiting your name among the vo
taries of Independence." ^ From this It Is clear that
Chase, whose name appears on the printed Journal
1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, ser. 5, iv, 505,
2 Journal of Congress, U, 265.
8 Works, h:. 421.

104 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
of the 4th as a signer, was not In Philadelphia on
that day, nor until after the 9th; and a question
arises, why Chase, on his return to Philadelphia,
should not have signed that Declaration which John
Adams says he and others signed on the 4th, in
stead of waiting for the general subscription, which
he conjectured would take place after the prepa
ration of an American seal. The following entry In
the Journal shows that Carroll was not in Congress
until after that date, though his name is entered on
the same Journal, when printed, under July 4, as
then present and signing the Declaration : —
July 18. " The delegates from Maryland laid before
Congress the credentials of a new appointment made by
their convention, which were read as follows : —
" In Convention, Annapolis, July 4, 1776.
" Resolved, That the honorable Matthew Tilghman, Esq.;
and Thomas Johnson,, Jun,, William Paca, Samuel Chase,
Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of CarroUton, and Robert
Alexander, Esqrs.; or a majority of them, or any three or
more of them, be deputies to represent this colony in Con
gress, etc. etc. . . . Extract from the minutes : G, Duvall,
Clerk." 1
^ Journal of Congress, ii, 273, The addition to the name of
Charles Carroll, in the above resolve, of the words "of CarroUton,"
shows that such was his common designation before he signed the
Declaration of Independence, Carroll, though he had a large pro
perty at stake, was one of the most ardent of the patriots, and as im
patient as any of his associates at the delay of his colony to take the
ground of independence ; and on the very day on which the printed
Journal represents him as at Philadelphia and signing the Declara
tion he was at Annapolis, where he bad been for some time engaged
in the finally successful effort to bring the recalcitrant Assembly
to the point of voting the resolve quoted in the text. Due consid
eration of the significance of the foregoing facts begets doubt respect
ing the story which has been widely circulated and has gained some

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 105
But the most particular and apparently the most
irrefragable statement in favor of the popular belief
that the Declaration was signed on the 4th by the
members then present, except Dickinson, is found In
Jefferson's memoranda, and also In his letter of May
12, 1819, to Samuel Adams WeUs.i And first the
memoranda. At the end of the Declaration, on page
21, Jefferson has appended the following : —
" The Declaration, thus signed on the 4th on paper, was
engrossed on parchment and signed again on the 2d of
August."And In brackets : —
" Some erroneous statements of the proceedings on the
Declaration of Independence having got before the public
in latter times, Mr. Samuel A. Wells asked explanations of
me, which are given in my letter to him of May 12, '19,
before and now again referred to, I took notes in my place
while these things were going on, and at their close wrote
them out in form and with correctness ; and from one to
seven of the two preceding sheets are the originals then
written."credence. It is to the effect that when the members were signing the
engrossed copy of the Declaration on August 2, Hancock, with some
implied allusion to his own large fortune supposed to be imperiled by
his signing, asked Carroll, who also was rich, " if he intended to sign,"
Perhaps there was nothing Lu the character of Hancock which would
have prevented his asking such a question ; but certain facts stand in
the way, Carroll took his seat July 18, The next day Congress voted
that the Declaration, when engrossed, should be signed by every member
of that body. So that if Carroll's patriotic efforts at Annapolis, which
secured to himself and his delegation the right to vote, left any doubt
as to his intention in that regard, the above vote of Congress renders
the insolent question attributed to Hancock altogether improbable.
The same may be said as to the alleged addition to Carroll's signature
of the words "of CarroUton " in consequence of the taunt of a by
stander that their omission might save him his estate.
1 Jefferson's Writings, Boston ed,, 1830, i, 20, 94.

106 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
In the margin the editor Informs us that the above
note is on a slip of paper pasted in at the end of the
Declaration. There Is also, he tells us, sewed into the
manuscript a slip of newspaper containing McKean's
letter, from which it appears that Jefferson intended
to make an Issue of fact with Governor McKean.
Jefferson, in his letter to WeUs, says : —
" It was not till the 2d of July that the Declaration itself
was taken up, nor till the 4th that it was decided ; and it
was signed by every member present except Mr. Dickinson.^
The subsequent signatures of members who were not then pre
sent, and some of them not yet in office, is easily explained
if we observe who they were ; to wit, that they were of New
York and Pennsylvania. . . . Why the signature of Thorn
ton of New Hampsliire was permitted so late as the 4th
of November, I cannot now say."
It Is Important to notice that when Jefferson speaks
of a " Declaration thus signed," he must have had be
fore him one that bore the signatures of the New York
and Pennsylvania delegates, as well as that of Thorn
ton of New Hampshire, as he mentions them.
The letter to WeUs bore date May 12, 1819. On
August 6, 1822, more than three years later, he added
the foUowing postscript to a copy which he had pre
served : —
" Since the date of this letter, to wit, this day, August 6, '22,
I have received the new publication of the Secret Journals of
Congress, wherein is stated a resolution of July 19, 1776,
that the Declaration passed on the 4th be fairly engrossed
on parchment, and when engrossed be signed by every
^ If the Declaration was signed on July 4, it is fair to ask why
R, R, Livingston's name was not in it ; for he was on the committee
to draft it and he is represented in TrumbuU's picture as present on
its presentation.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 107
member ; and another of August 2d that, being engrossed
and compared at the table, it was signed by the members."
As neither the resolution of July 19 nor the sign
ing on parchment of August 2 appear except as here
after given in his memoranda of matters he "took
notes of in his place while these things were going on,"
and as he was certainly In his place August 2, when
he signed the parchment Declaration, It Is not surpris
ing that he was disturbed when they came to his no
tice nearly fifty years later, since he had apparently
forgotten them.
It Is true he says, " The Declaration thus signed on
the 4th, on paper, was engrossed on parchment and
signed again on the 2d August." The latter date
shows that the entry was made a month after the first
alleged signing. " The Declaration thus signed," to
which he refers and which he had before him, con
tained the signature of Thornton, which carries the
date forward as late as November 4. There is no evi
dence of the existence of a printed copy of the Decla
ration, with the signatures of the members attached,
before that Issued under a resolution of Congress, Jan
uary 18, 1777; and the Imprint of the official journal
which contains the names of the signers is of the same
year. From these facts It seems to foUow that Mr.
Jefferson's memoranda were made later than that
date. We now proceed to a more careful examination of
these memoranda. If they were made by Jefferson at
the close of each day, or within a few days after the
transactions they record, they would settle the ques
tion against any amount of opposing testimony of less
authoritative character. But It Is evident, on critical
consideration, that such of these memoranda as relate

108 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
to the signing of the Declaration on the 4th of July
were made up with the printed Public Journal before
him ; and as that did not appear until the next year
his notes lose the authority of contemporaneous entries.
Indeed, he teUs us himself that the statement of facts
as we have it was made up " at their close."
It is not a little remarkable that, with the printed
Journal of July 4, which bore Thornton's signature of
November 4, before him, Jefferson should not have
asked himself how that name should be found, not
upon the Declaration, but upon the Journal of that
day. When Thornton came down from New Hamp
shire In November, he doubtless signed the parchment
Declaration In compliance with the order of July 19,
" that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every
member of Congress." Though coming late, Thorn
ton was a member of that Congress. In order to make
Jefferson's assumption effective, the clerk must then
have produced the paper Declaration and requested
Thornton to sign that. But neither of those signings
would put Thornton's name on the Journal of the 4th.
It could have come there only by the clerk's false
entry that Thornton was present and signed on the
4th ; for the entries of July 4, July 19, and August
2 are In the handwriting of Charles Thomson. To
state this supposition Is to contradict It. Nor Is Jef
ferson's way out of the difficulty more clear If we ac
cept Mr. Randall's ^ solution, which seems to be adopted
by Dr. Lossing,^ that the non-appearance of the paper
Declaration to-day is to be accounted for by the pre
sumption that it was destroyed as useless when the
parchment was signed on August 2 ; for had that been
1 Randall's Jefferson, i. 173,
^ Potter's American Monthly, iv,-v, 755.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 109
the case Thornton's name would not have appeared on
an Instrument destroyed three months before he en
tered Congress.
The real state of the case begins to appear: the
printed Public Journal for July 4, 1776, varies from
the original. There are three publications which pur
port to give the proceedings of the Old Congress, In
whole or In part. The first is entitled " Journals of
Congress. Containing the Proceedings In the year
1776." The proceedings for July, 1776, were not
officially published until more than six months after
their occurrence. The last entry in the Journal for
that year is December 31 ; and the preparation of the
copy, with a full Index, would probably delay Its pub
lication until the spring of 1777. For more than
forty years this was the only Journal known to the
public. It was that which Adams and Jefferson had
before them when they so explicitly stated that the
Declaration of Independence was signed by the mem
bers present on July 4. This printed Journal appears
to sustain them in that statement.
The second of these Journals Is entitled the " Secret
Journals of the Acts and Proceedings of Congress,"
and was first published In 1821, In four volumes,
agreeably to Congressional Resolves. These volumes
contain those records of domestic and foreign affairs
which Congress thought it wise to keep from the
public eye, and are found In manuscript volumes
distinct from those which contain the Public Jour
nals. The wisdom, secrecy, or timidity of Congress is clear
from the fact that the three resolutions, one of them
relating to Independence, which Richard Henry Lee
moved on June 7, 1776, are referred to in the Journal

110 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
of that day only as "certain resolutions respecting
independency; " nor were they ever extended on the
records, and only became known In the manner pre
sently to be explained. On the 10th one of these
resolutions was set out by way of recital.
The third of these Journals Is to be found In Force's
" American Archives," and is not the Journal kept
by Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Old Con
gress, but an account of the proceedings of Congress
made up from the Journals above described, and the
minutes, documents, and letters preserved in files by
the secretary. It lacks the authority which appertains
to a journal extended by a sworn secretary of the body
whose proceedings it records ; but, nevertheless. It Is
doubtless the most authentic account of the transac
tions of Congress which we possess. From the files
Force printed the original paper which contained
Lee's famous resolutions.^
With this account of these several Journals I now
propose to bring them together, so far as relates to
the Declaration of Independence. It wiU be under
stood that In speaking of the Public Journals of Con
gress I refer In all cases, unless otherwise specified,
to the printed Journals.
Proceedings according to tlie Public Journal.
July 4, 1776. Agreeable to the order of the day, the
Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole, to
take into their farther consideration the declaration ; and
after some time the president resumed the chair, and Mr.
Harrison reported that the committee have agreed to a
declaration, which they desired him to report.
The declaration being read was agreed to, as follows : —
^ See facsimUe in American Archives, 4th ser, vi. 1700.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 111

A Declaeation by the Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled.
l^Sere foUows the Declaration in the form we have it.^
The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, en
grossed, and signed by the following members : —

John Hancock.
New Hampshire.
Josiah Bartlett.
WilHam Whipple.
Matthew Thornton.
Massachusetts-Bay.
Samuel Adams.
John Adams.
Robert Treat Paine.
Elbridge Gerry.
Rhode Island.
Stephen Hopkins.
WiUiam Ellery.
Connecticut.
Roger Sherman.
Samuel Huntington.
WiUiam WiUiams.
Oliver Wolcott.
New York.
WiUiam Floyd.
Philip Livingston.
Francis Lewis.
Lewis Morris.
New Jersey.
Richard Stockton.
John Witherspoon.
Francis Hopkinson.
John Hart.
Abraham Clark.

Pennsylvania.
Robert Morris.
Benjamin Rush.
Benjamin Franklin.
John Morton.
George Clymer.
James Smith.
George Taylor.
James Wilson.
George Ross.
Delaware.
Csesar Rodney.
George Read.
Maryland.
Samuel Chase.
WiUiam Paca.
Thomas Stone.
Charles Carroll, of CarroUton.
Virgitiia.
George Wythe.
Richard Henry Lee.
Thomas Jefferson.
Benjamin Harrison.
Thomas Nelson, Jun.
Francis Lightfoot Lee.
Carter Braxton.
North Carolina.
WiUiam Hooper.
Joseph Hewes.
John Penn.

112 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
South Carolina. Georgia.
Edward Rutledge. Button Gwinnett.
Thomas Heyward, Jun. Lyman HaU.
Thomas Lynch, Jun. George Walton.
Arthur Middleton.
Resolved, That copies of the declaration be sent to the
several assemblies, conventions and committees, or councils
of safety, and to the several commanding officers of the
continental troops ; that it be proclaimed in each of the
United States, and at the head of the army.
In the Secret Journal there Is no entry under the
4th of July, 1776.
Proceedings in Congress Ath July, 1716, as given in
Force's "Archives." ^
Agreeable to the Order of the Day, the Congress re
solved itself into a Committee of the Whole, to take into
their further consideration the Declaration ; and after some
time the President resumed the chair, and Mr. Harrison
reported that the Committee have agreed to a Declaration,
which they desired him to report.
The Declaration being read, was agreed to, as follows : —
[Here follows the Declaration, as in the Public Journal,
but without any signatures. ^
Ordered, That the Declaration be authenticated and
printed. That the committee appointed to prepare the
Declaration superintend and correct the press. Resolved,
That copies of the Declaration be sent to the several assem
blies [etc., as in the Public Journal].
The Secret Journal.
July 19, 1776. Resolved, That the Declaration passed
on the 4th be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title
and style of " The Unanimous Declakation of the thik-
1 4th ser, vi. 1729,

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 113
TEEN United States of Ameeioa;" and that the same,
when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress.^
The Public Journal has no entry on this day re
specting the Declaration ; but the Proceedings In
Force's " Archives " contain the resolve as above.^
The Secret Journal.
August 2, 1776. The Declaration of Independence being
engrossed, and compared at the table, was signed by the
members.* The same Is found in Force's " Archives," * but not
in the Public Journal. Tlie Public Journal.
January 18, 1777. Ordered, That an authenticated
copy of the declaration of independency, with the names of
the members of Congress subscribing the same, be sent to
each of the United States, and they be desired to have the
same put upon record.^
Assuming that the entry In the Public Journal of
July 4 is genuine, the above order is superfluous, since
as such It merely repeats the former order, and
couples with it the expression of a desire that the sev
eral States would record It. The operative clause Is
to print the Declaration with the names of the mem
bers signing It. This was accordingly done, and for
the^rsi5 time. From the copy thus printed was made
up the Journal of the 4th July, as printed more than
six months antecedent.^
1 Secret Journal, Domestic Affairs, ii, 48.
2 Force's Archives, 5th ser, i, 1584,
' Secret Journal, Domestic Affairs, ii, 49.
* Force's Archives, 5th ser, i, 1597.
^ Journals of Congress, iii, 28,
^ See New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, ii, 189, for

114 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
With these extracts from the Journals and Pro
ceedings before us, and assisted by certain well-known
and Indisputable facts, it ought not to be difficult to
discover the truth respecting the apparent signing of
the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July,
1776. It wiU be observed that the statements of these
Journals are inconsistent, if not contradictory. The
Public Journal says, under date of July 4 : —
" The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress,
engrossed, and signed by the following members."
In the Proceedings the corresponding entry is as
follows : —
" Ordered, That the Declaration be authenticated and
printed. That the committee appointed to prepare the
Declaration superintend and correct the press,"
" Resolved, That copies of the Declaration be sent to the
several assemblies," etc.
Now, It Is hardly conceivable that these Inconsistent
orders could have passed at the same time and In rela
tion to the same subject-matter. One or the other of
them must be Incorrect. It is noticeable that what
seems to be an order In the Public Journal Is only a
narrative of an alleged fact, namely, that " the fore
going declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed
and signed by the following members." It is perti
nent to ask, By what order, and where is it recorded ?
The Journal contains no such order, nor do the files.
Nothing exists independently of the above recital to
show that any such order was ever passed ; nor Is
the narrative a correct recital of facts. That is, It
Hancock's letter, January 31, 1777, sending a copy to New Hamp
shire,

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 115
states what Is known to be untrue, — In part, from
subsequent entries In the Journal itself. The New
York members, whose names are recorded as present
and signing the Declaration on July 4, were not
authorized to sign until the 9th, nor was that author
ity laid before Congress until the 15th.^ Of course
they did not sign before that date. As we have al
ready seen. Chase was not present on the 4th, nor was
Carrol], who did not take his seat until the 18th. ^
Rush, Clymer, Taylor, and Ross, of Pennsylvania,
whose names are recorded as signing on the 4th, were
not chosen delegates until July 20 ; ^ nor did Thorn
ton appear In Congress until November 4.* So far
as these delegates are concerned, the Public Journal,
which represents them as present in Congress on the
4th of July and signing the Declaration, Is clearly
spurious. In the next place, the record of the Public Journal
as printed is at variance with known facts. If, as It
asserts, the Declaration was signed on the 4th, It
should be found In the files of that day ; but search
has repeatedly been made for It without success, nor
has it ever been seen or heard of. It may have been
lost ; but there are facts making It by far more pro
bable that It never existed. If the signatures of
the delegates were affixed. In whole or In part, to the
Declaration on the 4th, they formed an important
part of the instrument, since they constituted Its sole
authorized and required authentication, when It was
^ See Sparks's it/eo/GoMyerneurilfor™,!, 109, 110; Life of Sparks,
i, 524, 525 ; as to the Connecticut members, see Massachusetts Histori
cal Society Proceedings, ser. 2, iii, 373 et seq.
^ Journals of Congress, ii, 273.
3 Ibid. 277,
* Ibid. 441.

116 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
printed and sent to the several assemblies and read at
the head of the army. We have the copies which
were so sent and read. But these copies contain only
the signatures of John Hancock, as president, and
Charles Thomson, as secretary, of the Congress, who
claim to have signed it in behalf and by order of that
body.i So that, if the order of Congress, as is
asserted by the Public Journal, was that the Declara
tion should be signed by the members, and so sent
forth, then Hancock and Thomson must have caused
It to be printed without these signatures, and falsely
claimed that their own were added by authority. For
not only cannot this original Declaration, which Jef
ferson says was signed by the delegates on the 4th,
be found, but not even one of the printed copies
which were ordered by Congress. This fact points to
an inevitable conclusion. Such a paper never existed
save on the false Journal as printed by Congress.
On the other hand, the proceedings and orders, as
set forth In the " American Archives," strictly con
form to congressional precedents. AU its proclama
tions and similar public documents went forth under
the authentication of the president and secretary,
unless otherwise ordered, as was the case with the
Address to the King and other like addresses of the
Congress of 1774. Any other method, save by express
vote, would have been illegal. Since the Declaration,
though of the nature of a legislative act, was in some
respects out of the ordinary course, the president
and secretary might well seek instruction. Congress
forthwith gave them directions to authenticate It and
print it under direction of the committee that drafted
1 The same authentication is given in the Annual Register, 1776,
161.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 117
it, and then send It to the assemblies and to the army.
This was done immediately. Lossing has stated that
the Declaration was agreed to about two o'clock In
the afternoon. It was printed during that afternoon
and evening, and the next day was sent forth to the
world.-' Copies of the Declaration are not rare.
There is one in the library of the Historical Society ;
and a copy was printed at Salem, doubtless within a
few days after the receipt of that distributed by order
of Congress. Its authentication is as follows : —
Signed by order and in behalf of the Congress,
John Hancock, President.
Attest, Chaeles Thomson, Secretary.
The ordinary authentication was by the signatures of
the president and secretary, followed by their official
title ; and the peculiarity of the authentication of the
Declaration in the use of the uncommon words,
" Signed by order and In behalf of the Congress,"
shows that It was so authenticated by the express vote
of that body.
In a word, the proceedings of Congress with respect
to the Declaration, as contained in the " American
Archives," and given above, conform to and account
for aU knovm facts; while the record of the same
transaction, as found in the Public Journal, is contra
dicted by other entries In the same Journal, and Is at
variance with all the external circumstances attending
and foUowing the transaction.
But the case does not rest wholly upon the reasons
given above. Thus far in this analysis I have con
fined myself to the printed Journals of Congress and
^ See note in Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, 544, from which
one might infer that the Declaration was published ou the 4th.

118 DECLARA TION OF INDEPENDENCE
to such facts as are of public notoriety ; and if the
case were allowed to rest here, I trust It has been
made to appear that the Public Journal of July 4,
reciting that the Declaration of Independence was
signed by the members of Congress on that day, Is
erroneous. But the error requires explanation as
well as demonstration. The error Is in the printed
Journal which does not conform to the original manu
scripts. Of these there are three which are more
fuUy described In the subjoined note.-' Two of them
1 For the interesting facts given above I am indebted to the cour
tesy of S, M, Hamilton, Esq., of the State Department, Washington,
who, in the absence of Theodore F, Dwight, Esq., to whom I had
addressed some inquiries, had written the following letter and its
enclosures, Depabtmbnt of State, Washtngton, November 5, 1884,
Deab Sik, — , , . I faU to discover any printed half -sheet of
paper, with the names of the members afterwards in the printed
Journals stitched in. I have found, however, a printed copy of the
Declaration inserted in one of the manuscript Journals covering the
period in question, and have, by the enclosures, endeavored to give
an accurate idea of the same.
Three of the manuscript Journals of the Continental Congress
cover July, 1776, One begins, or rather the first entry in it is under
date of. May 25, 1776, and ends July 24, In this appears the printed
copy of the Declaration, The next begins with entry under date of
May 14 (continuing the record of that day, begun in the preceding
volume), and the last August 6, 1776, In that the Declaration ap
pears as a regular and continuous entry, and is in the same handwrit
ing as the rest of the Journal, The third Joumal is the Secret
Domestic Journal, which contains uo entry between Jime 24 and
July 8, 1776.
Taking your queries as they eome in your letter, I may say, —
1st, The enclosure gives an idea of the only printed copy of the
Declaration inserted in any manuscript Journal,
2d. As wUl be seen, the printed names of Hancock and of Thom
son are the only names appearing attached to it in any form,
3d. It -wiU be seen, also, that the names of the States do not
appear. 4th. The words, " The foregoing declaration,'' etc. {vide printed

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 119
relate to the events of July 4, and all include the
Declaration of Independence in some one or more of
Journal, ii, 245), have not been found in the Joumals, neither in
the manuscript copy of the Declaration nor in the printed half-
sheet. They (the words above quoted) appear iu the printed Jour
nals ouly.
5th, Neither of the Public Journals nor the Secret Journal con
tains any written names to the Declaration,
Enclosure marked No, 1 is to represent the printed half-sheet.
That marked No, 2 is in a manner a comparison of the entries in the
two Public Joumals of so much of the minutes under the 4th of July
as relates to the Declaration, -with the exception of that part relating
to copies being sent to the several States, etc. The copying ink
denotes the entries as in the Journal containing the printed half-
sheet ; the red ink shows them as appearing in the Journal containing
the Declaration in manuscript : that is, the words in red ink appear
in the Jonrnal containing the Declaration in manuscript in addition to
those in the former, while words in red brackets do not appear
therein, I am, sir, very obediently yours, S, M, Hamilton.
Mellen Chambeklain, Esq,, etc.
The printed page not conveniently aUowing the exhibition by type
or photography of Mr, Hamilton's enclosures, they may be described
as foUows : No, 1 is a folded sheet of paper designed to represent the
size and form of the manuscript Journal which contains a printed
copy of the Declaration attached by wafers. The size of the sheet,
-when folded, is 8 by 12| inches. On the verso of the first leaf the
-writing covers the upper half of the page, the lower half being left
blank, apparently to receive hy attachment the printed broadside of
the Declaration now found there. This copy is twice folded so as to
adapt it to the page of the Joumal, The printed matter measures
11| by 17J inches. Its authentication is in print and as follows : —
Signed hy Order and in Behalf of the Congkess
John Hancock, President
Attest Charles Thomson, Secretary
The imprint is : "Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap."
Above this printed copy of the Declaration, and forming part of the
manuscript Journal which begins with May 25 and ends July 24^
1776, are the foUowing entries, under date of July 4, 1776 : —

120 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
its stages. They are all at variance with the printed
Public Journal, though agreeing with each other in aU
" Agreeable to the order of the day the Congress resolved itself
into a committee of the whole to take into their further consideration
the declaration
" The president resumed the chair
" Mr, Harrison reported that the committee of the whole Congress
have agreed to a Declaration which he delivered in
" The Declaration being again read was agreed to as foUows "
[Here the printed Declaration is attached by wafers.]
On the next page is the foUowing : —
" Ordered That the declaration be authenticated & printed
" That the committee appointed to prepare the declaration superin-
tend & correct the press,"
This is the true Journal of Congress for July 4, omitting the order
respecting its transmission, etc.
Now compare this with the spurious printed Joumal, and the fals
ity of the latter clearly appears. The printed Joumal reads : —
*' The foregoing declaration was by order of Congress, engrossed,
and signed by the foUowing members,"
Then foUow fifty-five names of gentlemen, many of whom were not
members of Congress at that time.
The other copy of the manuscript Joumal is as follows, so far as it
differs from the first copy ; and, as wUl be seen, the differences are
merely verbal. This is found in enclosure No, 2,
\Journal entirely in manuscript, with the Declaration in the same hand
writing, from May 14 to August 6, 1776.
So much of the minutes under 4th July as relates to the Declaration,]
Agreeable to the order of the day the Congress resolved itself into a
committee of the whole to take into their further consideration the
declaration and after some time
The president resumed the chair Sf
Mr, Harrison reported that the committee have agreed to a declara
tion, which they desired him to report
The declaration being read was agreed to as foUows,
A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America
in Congress assembled
[The italicized words do not appear in the Journal to which is at
tached the printed copy of the Peclaration,]

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 121
essential particulars. In neither of them is found an
order for the subscription of the Declaration July 4,
Mr, Dwight has placed me under additional obligations hy the fol
lowing letter, which throws much light upon the Journals of the Old
Congress ; and it is matter of regret that I am unable to present in
connection with this subject several valuable enclosures which he
caused to be prepared.
Department of State, Washington, December 23, 1884.
As to the several Journals : Charles Thomson, as you know, was the
" perpetual Secretary " of the Continental Congress ; and, from all I
can gather, he was a man of the strictest probity, and was most con
scientious in the discharge of his important trusts. It would be in
teresting to discover how much influence he exerted in the first
councils, I am confident it was considerable. To him we owe the
preservation of all the records of the Continental Congress, — not only
the Joumals, but all those fragments now so precious, e. g., the origi
nal motions, the reports of committees, the smaU odds and ends, which
are the smaU bones of history. They are all iu this room, and at my
elbow as I -write. One of them, for instance, is the original of Lee's
motion reproduced, but without proper explanation, by Force, in the
American Archives. You aUude to it.
The Joumals of Congress are, with some very few exceptions, en
tirely in the handwriting of Thomson, He seems to have been present
at every session. The series of the archives of the Congress very pro
perly begins with what he termed the " Rough Joumal," beginning
with the proceedings of September 5, 1774, and ended with the entry
of March 2, 1789, and was probably written while Congress was sit
ting, the entries being made directly after each vote was taken. It is
contained in thirty-nine smaU foolscap folio volumes. The second of
the series is a fair copy of the " Rough Journal," from September 5,
1775, to January 20, 1779, — in ten volumes folio. From this copy, it
is stated in a record in the Bureau, " the Journals were printed ; and
such portions as were deemed secret were marked or crossed by a com
mittee of Congress, — not to be transcribed," In this he has ampli
fied some entries, and given more care to the style and composition of
his sentences.
This explanation wiU account for the " two Public Journals,'' The
"Rough Joumal " should be regarded as the standard. No, 3 of the
series of archives is the " Secret Domestic Joumal," comprising entries
from May 10, 1775, to October 26, 1787 ; the fourth number is a Secret
Joumal, foreign and domestic, comprising entries from October 18,
1780, to March 29, 1786 (the foregoing two numbers form two vol-

122 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
nor any copy or account of a declaration so signed,
nor any reference to such a paper. On the other
umes). No, 5 is in three volumes, and is caUed "Secret Journal of
Foreign Affairs," November 29, 1775, to September 16, 1788. No, 6
is iu three volumes, and is designated " An imperfect Secret Joumal ; "
it contains entries made from the Journal of Congress, September 17,
1776, to September 16, 1788, No, 7 is a small quarto volume, contain
ing but few entries, called the "More Secret Journal," No, 8 is a
folio. Secret Journal A, 1776-1783 : the contents of this volume appear
to be merely minutes of proceedings, which were afterwards entered
on the Public Joumals, (This volume does not contain any record of
July 4, 1776, or any reference to the signing of the Declaration,) The
foregoing wUl afford you, I trust, a sufficiently just idea of these in
valuable records.
The copy for the first edition of the Journals was probably prepared
by Charles Thomson; but he was not responsible for the matter
printed therein, as he distinctly states on the fly-leaf of the first vol
ume of the fair copy (No. 2 of the series) that the selection was made
by a committee of Congress. The responsibUity for the introduction
of the names of the signers at the close of the Declaration cannot now
be determined. It is entirely reasonable to suppose, however, that
there was no intention to mislead ; but that, as the names appeared in
no other printed form, they were inserted for the information of the
public. The Secret Journals were naturaUy not then suited to publi
cation. To be sure, we must acknowledge that the entry of the record
of engrossing and signing on the Secret rather than on the PubUc
Journal indicates that there existed some reason for considering these
acts as of a confidential character.
The Journals, it must be remembered, were not the accounts of an
individual, but were the accepted records of Congress ; that then, as
now, each day's proceedings were read to that body before they ob
tained the authority necessary for their preservation, I dwell upon
this in order that you may not attribute the discrepancies between the
originals and the printed journals to the carelessness of a clerk or of
the secretary. In my opinion, the responsibUity rests with Congress
alone. That part of the Journal of 1776 as printed by Peter Force in the
American Archives appears to me, from a hasty comparison, to be a
mongrel, made up primarily from the first printed edition of 1777,
corrected in some few particulars by the copy from which that edition
was printed (No, 2 of the series described above), and punctuated and
capitalized to suit his own fancy. He has in the punctuation and cap
italization altered both the manuscript and printed versions. The
matter he appended as notes, and which seems as much a part of tha

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 123
band, in one of them, which is the same as is given In
the Proceedings in Force's "Archives," Is pasted a
original record as the caption and names of the signers in the printed
Journal of 1777, was taken from a variety of sources in the archives,
to which he, of course, had access, Mr, Sparks offended also, and was
summarUy criticised, for similar changes of the originals he printed.
With the original of Madison's Journal of the Debates in the Consti
tutional Convention we have the autograph notes written out by Jeffer
son for Madison, concerning the debates on the Declaration, which
Mr, GUpin has carefuUy printed iu the Papers of James Madison (i.
9-39), It might be profitable to compare that version with the por
tions of the same printed in vol, i, of the Writings of Jefferson, aud in
vol, i, of EUiot's Debates.
In view of the fact that the Secret Joumal containing the record
of July 19 and August 2 was published in 1821, it seeins to me very
strange that the recollections of Jefferson and others should have been
preferred to that veritable official account of the signing,
I am very incredulous as to the existence of a signed copy of the
Declaration prior to the engrossed copy. We have the veritable first
draft in the writing of Jefferson, and the remains of the copy en
grossed and signed on parchment alluded to in the Secret Journal entry
of July 19, Had there been another bearing the signatures of the
delegates, it is fair to suppose that the same care for its preservation
would have been exercised as that to which we owe the other records
and documents. It would not have invaUdated the second copy. The
actual signing of such a preliminary copy would have added no more
strength to the action of Congress in adopting the Declaration than
the entry on the Joumal of that action, which was and is now a con
clusive and binding record. It was not signed on the Journal ; such
a signing would have been a very irregular proceeding. It seems to
me that a special direction to the president of Congress and to the
secretary to authenticate the copies sent out by order of Congress was
not deemed necessary ; such an authentication was incident to the
duties of their respective offices. The copies so sent out bear, not
written, but printed signatures.
Of that first printed broadside we have the copy wafered in the
Journal, and another among the papers of Washington, which he read,
or caused to be read, to the army, as mentioned in General Orders of
July 9, 1776,
As you have clearly demonstrated, but for the insertion of the names
in the first printed Journal so as to appear a part of the record of the
4th July, all this mystification could not have occurred. But I repeat
that the insertion is not to be regarded as an intention to mislead, but

124 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
printed copy of the Declaration, authenticated by the
signatures of Hancock and Thomson, agreeably to the
order of Congress, and is doubtless one of the copies
printed on the night of the 4th or morning of the Sth
of July. Had the printed Public Journal foUowed
this manuscript, which conforms to and explains aU
extrinsic facts appertaining to the Declaration, aU sub
sequent misapprehension would have been avoided.
Governor McKean had special reasons for investigat
ing the matter at an early date. He was present on
the 4th and voted for the Declaration ; but Inasmuch
as It was not signed on that day, as he asserted, his
name did not appear on the Journal, nor on the copy
engrossed on parchment and signed August 2, since at
that time he was away from Philadelphia with the
army. Sometime later — Bancroft says, in 1781 —
he was allowed to afSx his signature to the engrossed
copy, where It now appears. His signing In 1781 did
not affect the Journal of July 4, 1776, as Jefferson
seems to have supposed would be the case with Thorn
ton and the New York and several Pennsylvania
members, who were likewise absent on July 4 or not
then authorized to sign. McKean's name does not
appear among the signers of the Declaration of Inde
pendence in the Journal printed In 1777, nor In the
edition of 1800. It Is given in that of 1823, and pos
sibly In some of an earlier date, which I have not
seen. Now, at any time after 1781, if the Declaration
to enlighten, the pubUc ; and that it is so printed is due to inadver
tence. Believe me to be, my dear sir.
Very sincerely yours,
Theodore F. Dwight,
Chief of Bureau of Rolls and Library.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 125
were printed from the engrossed copy, It would in
clude McKean's signature ; but if from the printed
Journal of July 4, his signature would not be found.
It was just this discrepancy between copies that led
to an investigation. In the letter already quoted from.
Governor McKean says : " In the manuscript Journal
Mr. Pickering, then Secretary of State, and myself
saw a printed half-sheet of paper, with the names
of the members afterwards in the printed Journals
stitched In ; " and In another letter,^ June 17, 1817,
he says that neither the manuscript of the Public
Journal nor that of the Secret Journal has any written
names annexed to the Declaration. In this statement
he is undoubtedly correct ; but apparently he has con
founded, in the lapse of years and by the loss of mem
ory, the printed copy authenticated by Hancock and
Thomson, which is wafered to the manuscript Journal,
with a copy bearing signatures, which does not now
appear. Trusting to this statement of Governor
McKean respecting the copy of the Declaration with
the signatures of the signers stitched into the manu
script Journal, I had supposed, until I received Mr.
Hamilton's letter, that the falsification was In the
record ; but It now appears that It Is in the printed
Journal. As has been said, had the Public Journal as we
have it been printed from the manuscript Journal as
it stands to-day, with the printed Declaration omitting
the authenticating signatures of Hancock and Thom
son, we should have a narrative of the proceedings on
the 4th precisely as they occurred. But, unfortunately.
It was not so printed. Published as It was, and as
we have it, the Journal Is doubtless erroneous and
1 PortfoUo, September, 1817, 246.

126 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
misleading ; and though, at this late day, we may be
unable to divine all the reasons which prompted the
course that was pursued, there is no evidence of a de
sign to falsify the record. When " the committee
appointed to superintend the publication of the Jour
nals " were empowered and Instructed, by a resolve of
September 26, 1776, to employ Robert Aitkin " to
reprint the said Journals from the beginning, with all
possible expedition, and continue to print the same,^' ^
Charles Thomson probably furnished him with a copy
of the proceedings of July 4, and their authority did
not extend to the Secret Journal, In which alone was
entered the resolution of July 19 for the engrossment
of the Declaration on parchment and the subsequent
signing thereof, August 2. But when they furnished
copy for July 4, they appended to the Declaration
the following statement : " The foregoing declaration
was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and slg-ned
by the following members." We Infer, and have a
right to Infer, that the engrossment and signing were
on July 4; but the printed Journal so affirms only
by Implication. All the facts stated were true at
the time of their statement, some time subsequent to
September 26. The error consists in throwing back
to July 4 the order for engrossment of July 19, and
the signing of August 2. Any more specific state
ment of these later matters would have been a breach
of the resolution of secrecy which was repealed, and
then only virtually, by a resolve fifty years afterwards
to print these Secret Journals. The veil of secrecy
which rested on the transactions of July 19 and Au
gust 2 undoubtedly had a tendency to refer the events
of those days to July 4. Evidently Mr. Jefferson,
^ Journal, ii, 391,

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 127
one of the most intelligent and active participators In
those events of July 19 and August 2, was surprised
when they were recalled to his notice In 1822 by the
Secret Journal, which had then been published for the
first time.i Apparently, and not without reason, under
these circumstances of secrecy, every transaction relat
ing to the Declaration of Independence had been re
ferred, both by Jefferson and John Adams, to July 4.
For more than six months Congress had withheld
the names of those signing the Declaration. This
may have been from prudential considerations. Un
less the Declaration was made good by arms, every
party signing It might have been held personally re
sponsible for an overt act of treason. Whether this
would have been the case In respect to Hancock and
Thomson, who were not acting In any personal capa
city, and possibly even In opposition to their own con
victions. In accordance with an express direction of
Congress, may be a matter of question. But whatever
may have been their reasons, there is no doubt as to
the fact that Congress not only sat with closed doors,
and pledged the members to secrecy,^ but withheld
even from its Secret Journals some of its most Impor
tant proceedings. The fact has already been stated
in regard to this very matter of independence that
Congress had deemed it Imprudent to extend on Its
Journals Lee's resolutions on which the battle was
fought ; and had they not been preserved on the files,
we should never have known their authentic form from
any public record.^
^ American Historical Review, i, 168.
2 A facsimile of the Resolution of Secrecy of November 9, 1775,
may be found in American Archives, 4th ser. iii. 1916,
>* See facsimUe of these resolutions. Ibid. 4th ser. vi. 1700,

128 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
Such are the facts respecting the signing of the
Declaration of Independence and the errors in the
printed Journals recording the same.^
It Is to be regretted that doubt should rest upon
transactions, and the records of transactions, which
are connected with an event so important In the his
tory of a nation as the declaration of its independ
ence. The printed Journal, so far as relates to what
1 In the foregoing paper it has been my purpose to discuss a single
question ; Was the Declaration of Independence signed JiUy 4 by the
members of Congress ? Had my aim been more popular, I should
have drawn, for more interesting particulars, on the authorities
cited in Winsor's Handbook of the American Revolution, 103 et seq.,
and Poole's Index, 339, title " Declaration of Independence,"
The reader who has followed me in the foregoing paper may ask
why Force, Webster, Bancroft, and Winthrop have not explained
the matter, instead of each resting on his own authority in opposi
tion to the express statements of Jefferson and Adams who have the
support of the Journal, The answer, except so far as Force is con
cerned, is obvious : that neither the observance of proportion in a
general history nor the limits of a, Fourth of July oration wUl aUow
of minute and tedious explanations. But with respect to Force the
case is different. The limits of his monograph on the Declaration
were not restricted. He was brought face to face with the question.
He understood it better than any other man, and better than any
other he could have explained the difficulty had he chosen to do so.
He did not so choose. The trouble with him was that his pamphlet
was controversial. It was an attack on that part of Lord Mahon's
History of England, in which he gives an account of the Declaration
of Independence, Following Jefferson and the printed Journals of
Congress, Lord Mahon had said : " The Declaration of Independence,
appearing the act of the people, was finally adopted .ind signed by
every member present at the time, except only Dickinson. This was
on the 4th of July." ¦ — History of England, vi, 98. Force's curt
answer to this is as follows : " The Declaration was not ' signed by
every member present on the 4th of July, ' except Mr, Dicldnson, " —
Force's Declaration of Independence, 63. Thus he made a point
against Lord Mahon on the score of accuracy. True, Force knew
how, and by what authority, his lordship was misled. He could have
given the explanation which would have reheved the historian ; but
that was not his purpose.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 129
took place on the 4th of July, 1776, is clearly untrust
worthy ; and one of the original manuscript Journals
is not altogether accurate. When the record was
extended on that Journal, by wafering to a page,
apparently left blank for the purpose, the printed
copy of the Declaration of Independence Authenti
cated by the signatures of Hancock and Thomson, it
was made to assert facts as of the 4th of July which
actuaUy occurred on the 5th. The authentication
and the printing of the Declaration were ordered on
the 4th as something to be done later ; and should
not have been entered as something done on that day,
as the Journal affirms. Nor is this unfortunate error
confined to the records. The engrossed copy of the
Declaration which was signed on August 2 is made to
say, in substance, that all the names attached to It
were there subscribed on July 4 ; and there Is nothing
on the instrument to indicate that any signatures
were added on August 2, and even of a date so late
as 1781, when McKean signed It.
These errors are the more to be regretted, since
they are irremediable. They must stand on record
for all time. The Journals in no new edition wIU
be changed so as to conform to the truth ; and should
they be so changed they would lose their authority as
the Journals of Congress. But though the record
must stand, and the engrossed copy and all its fac
similes continue to assert that it was signed July 4,
there can be no objection to the reconstruction of
these documents, as matters of history, so that they
shall conform to the truth.
The several entries on the Journal which relate to
the Declaration of Independence should read as fol
lows : —

130 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
" July 4, 1776. The Declaration being read was agreed
to, as follows : [Here should appear the Declaration with
out any signatures or authentication, as is the case with
one of the manuscript Journals.]
" Ordered, That the Declaration be authenticated and
printed. That the committee appointed to prepare the
Declaration superintend and correct the press, etc.
" July 19. Resolved, That the Declaration passed on
the 4th be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title,
etc. ; and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every
member of Congress.
" August 2. The Declaration agreed to on July 4,
being engrossed and compared at the table, was signed by
the members, agreeably to the resolution of July 19.
" November 4. The Hon. Matthew Thornton, Esq., a
delegate from New Hampshire, attended, and produced his
credentials. " Ordered, That Mr. Thornton be directed, agreeably to
the resolve passed July 19, to affix his signature to the
engrossed copy of the Declaration, with the date of his sub
scription. "January 18, 1777. Ordered, That an authentic copy of
the Declaration of Independence, with the names of the
members of Congress subscribing the same, be sent to each
of the United States, and they be desired to have the same
put upon record.
''  , 1781. Whereas it has been made to appear to
this present Congress that the Hon. Thomas McKean was
a member of Congress from Delaware in the year 1776,
and that, on July 4 of that year he was present and voted
for the Declaration of Independence, but being absent with
the army at the time of the general subscription of that
instrument on August 2 : therefore,
" Resolved, That the said Hon. Thomas McKean be
allowed to affix his signature to the aforesaid Declaration,
he adding thereto the date of such subscription."

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 131
Such was the course pursued by McKean and
other post-signers of the Articles of Confederation,
which were agreed to by Congress, July 9, 1778.
McKean's name is signed as foUows : " Tho. M'Kean,
Feb. 12, 1779."
With the foregoing changes and additions the Jour
nal of Congress would conform to the real transac
tions respecting the Declaration of Independence.
The engrossed copy reads as foUows : " In Con
gress, July 4, 1776. The Unanimous Declabation
of the thirteen united States op Ameeica." After
the Declaration follow the signatures. They should
have beeu preceded by some such recital as the fol
lowing : " The foregoing Declaration having been
agreed to on July 4, by the delegates of the thirteen
united colonies. In Congress assembled, and the same
having been engrossed. Is now subscribed, agreeably
to a resolution passed July 19, by the members of
Congress present this 2d day of August, 1776."
Independence was announced to the world July 4,
1776. That is glory enough for the most insatiate of
days. It needs not the honors of July 2, nor those of
August 2. On the former of these days when Lee's
resolution, " that these United Colonies are, and of
right ought to be, free and independent States ; and
that aU political connection between them and the
State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved,"
— when this resolution was agreed to by the Congress
on July 2, the battle had been fought and the victory
won. Two days later came the 4th, which, like all its
successors, was less the occasion of a battle than of
a triumph. What was done on July 2 realized the
ardent wishes of the patriotic party in thirteen colo
nies. Its consummated act was a notable achievement

132 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
of advocacy ; and the great patriot fondly hoped that it
would be celebrated to the remotest tlmes.^ But it Is
1 John Adams, writing to Mrs, Adams from Philadelphia, July 3,
1776, said : " Yesterday the greatest question was decided which
ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor
wiU be decided among men, A resolution was passed without one
dissenting colony, ' that these United Colonies are, and of right ought
to be, free and independent States, ' etc. You wiU see in a few days
a Declaration setting forth the causes which have impeUed us to this
mighty revolution, , , , The second day of July, 1776, wiU be the
most memorable epocha in the history of America, . , , It ought to
be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devo
tion to God Almighty," etc, — Works, ix, 417, But it was to be
otherwise. The second day of July has altogether passed from
the memory of men. In fifty years from that time the editor of
Niles's Weekly Register, shortly after the death of Adams and Jeffer
son in 1826, quoting the above letter, changed its date from the 3d to
the 5th of July, and printed the passage, " the second day of July,
1776," as follows : " The Fourth of July, 1776, wUl be a memorable
epoch in this history of America ! "
Even so careful a writer as Mr, Webster feU, in his later life, into
the same error. From the accuracy of' his account of the authentica
tion of the Declaration of Independence, it is evident that he had
examined aU that had been published on that subject before 1826,
Nothing of value has since been added to his statement, whUe some
of the later glosses could well be spared. — Works, i. 129, But he
did not undertake to explain how the confusion arose : perhaps he
did not even know, because, when he wrote the eulogy on Adams and
Jefferson, he was far away from the original Joumals, an inspection
of which alone discloses the source of the error. In this eulogy he
has given two supposititious speeches on the resolution of July 2, That
these speeches were on the resolution, and not on the Declaration, is
evident from the opening sentence, " Let us pause ! This step, once
taken, cannot be retraced. This resolution, once passed, wUl cut off
aU hope of reconcUiation," — Works, i, 132, Notwithstanding this,
Mr. Webster, writing in 1846, to one who had inquired respecting the
authenticity of the speech attributed to John Adams, said : " The day
after the Declaration was made, Mr, Adams, in writing to a friend
declared the event to be one which ' ought to be commemorated as
the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty,' "
— Works, i, 150, It is needless to add that Adams's letter was writ
ten the day before the Declaration instead of the day after and
referred to the Resolution of Independence of July 2, aud not to the

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 133
otherwise. The glory of the act is overshadowed by
the glory of its annunciation.
Declaration of July 4, For some account of the origin of the change
of the date of John Adams's letter, see Letters Addressed to his Wife,
1, 128, n.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS
or THE
AMERICAN COLONIES TO THE ENGLISH GOVERN
MENT AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
A Papek head bbfoee the American HisTomcAii Association,
IN Boston, May 23, 1887

THE CONSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS

AMERICAN COLONIES TO THE ENGLISH GOVERN
MENT AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION

No thoughtful reader closes a volume of American
history, or perhaps of any history, without the con
viction that the author's conclusions drawn from the
included facts depend very much upon his point of
view, as well as upon the forum to which he refers
them for adjudication ; and that In estimating the
value of his work we must likewise take into account
his nationality, political and ecclesiastical associations,
constitution of mind, and temperament, as influences
which, unconsciously it may be, have affected his
judgment. There is high authority for something like this.
In the preface to Chalmers's " Introduction to the
History of the Revolt of the Colonies," Jared Sparks,
to whom that preface Is attributed, says " the author
was a lawyer, and he has discussed the subject before
him In the spirit of his profession, adhering to legal
interpretations and distinctions. It is possible that
any American lawyer, taking the same premises,
would come to the same conclusions ; and It may be
admitted that the premises are correct, since they are

138 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
drawn from state papers and legal records of the
highest authority. The error lies in the mode of
viewing the subject."
I quote this passage for the immunity it affords
one who wishes to present some old subjects from a
new point of view ; and because nowhere else in
Sparks's writings have I noticed a better illustration
of two of his eminent qualities as an historian, — per
fect candor and critical sagacity.^
^ Sparks "was a careful investigator, as any one finds who enters
fields -which he has reaped with expectation of profitable gleaning ;
but if to learn his methods and to catch his spirit, no time so spent
ought to be regarded as time lost.
An American in every fibre of his eonstitntion, Sparks believed in
the justice of the Revolutionary cause, and was loyal to the memory
of those whose lives he wrote ; but he never exalted his heroes by
belittling their associates or by maligning their opponents.
He placed the American cause in the most favorable light, and did
not indulge in that urbane condescension towards opponents which
sometimes marks the meritorious work of Lord Mahon, and he never
imperiled his case as Lecky, an abler writer than Lord Mahon, some
times has done by inattention to facts essential to its support.
Nor, on the other hand, did Sparks conceal ugly facts,* or change
their import by artful and disingenuous arrangement of them. He
arrayed all the forces, friendly or hostile, although, as it sometimes
* Lord Mahon charged him with doing so, but I think Sparks's vindication of
his integrity is complete. The strongest case against him is that o£ suppressing
Washington's reiteration of an opinion unfavorable to Kew England. There is no
doubt that Washington entertained such an opinion. That constitutes an histori
cal fact : but if he has recorded that opinion in a letter to Brown, does it make it
any more a fact in that he has also recorded it in letters to Jones and Robinson ?
Sparks gives the first record, but to save apace omits the paragraphs in which
similar opinions are given in letters to two other correspondents. That, I think,
states the case fairly. It may be said that Sparks should have given aJl such
passages or indicated their omission by stars or otherwise. Why those opinions
more than others ? To have given a r^sum6 of all omitted passages would have
swelled his volumes unduly. If proper editing would require such notice of repe
titious passages, why not, on the same grounds, the omission of all repetitious or
unimportant letters? It may be admitted, however, that Sparks's editorial rules
are not those now in vogue ; but in fairness it ought not to be forgotten that in
dealing with such a mass as the Washington papers, Sparks was confronted with a
new and very difQcult problem. See also H. B. Adams iu Magazine of American
History, July, 1888.

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 139
Between the peace of 1763 and the Declaration of
Independence the political relations of the American
colonies to the crown, and to Parliament, and the
degree of their subordination to imperial authority,
were questions of practical import which gave rise to
discussions sometimes profound and always earnest ;
but after April 19, 1775, the clamor which they
had occasioned was, for a time, silenced by the
greater din of arms. During the period of constitu
tion-making which ensued, they were often referred
to in the debates of the Convention of 1787 and iu
the pages of the " Federalist ; " but not long after they,
with other causes of the Eevolution, were relegated
to the closet of the historian.
My purpose in this paper Is to suggest that the
questions rife at that stage of the Revolu- ^j^^ g_
tion were not new questions — only newly tions of
important ; — that they were coeval with luyon not
the first political organizations In the Brit- 'isw,
ish-American colonies, and had vexed them at every
happened, his flank was turned, or his front disordered by mutinous
auxiliaries which he had brought into the field,*
History was regarded by Sparks, as it ought to be hy every one, as
the record of impartial judgment concerning the motives and conduct
of men, of parties, and of nations, set forth in their best light ; and
he was incapable of attempting to pervert that judgment by doubt
ful testimony or by unscrupulous advocacy, which represents one
party as altogether wise and patriotic and the other as altogether
unwise and malignant, — an attempt which must ultimately f aU, since
it finds no support in the nature of man, in intelligent observation, or
* An instance is found in Sparks's Franklin (iv, 450), where he seems to
justify the use made of Hutchinson's private letters, on the ground that Hutcliin-
son had secretly used Franlilin's in the same way ; but from Hutchinson's letter
to the Earl of Dartmouth, which Sparks prints, it is evident that Franklin's let
ter, instead of being private, was his official letter, as agent, to the Speaker of the
House, and therefore public property ; and, as may be conjectured, Hutchinson
Bent it to the Earl of Dartmouth unofficially lest, upon a " call for papers," it
should find its way to the House of Commons, and thence, as had Bernard's and
Gage's letters, back to Boston, See R, rrothingham's 'Warren, 225 n.

140 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
stage of their development down to the Revolution ;
and, Instead of being settled by that event, that they
are still vital — and are not unlikely once more to
become absorbing questions, as more than once In the
mean time they have been. Their settlement on a
just basis depends, as Dr. Sparks seemed to think,
upon the selection of the right point of view. And
since discordant opinions have arisen in respect to the
same facts and circumstances when submitted to sim
ilar apprehensive Intelligences, history should serve
as a lens which gathers up all the rays colored by pas
sion, prejudice, interest, or unwarranted judgments,
and recomposes them into the white light of truth.^
If the controversy at the time of the Revolution
respected the political relations of the colo-
compe- nies to Great Britain, and the degree of sub-
tent tri- ordination due from remote dependencies to
bunal, . ^ .
some central authority, what tribunal had
jurisdiction of such questions, and by what principles
were they to be determined ? Were they determina
ble solely, as the Tories in both countries claimed,
by the British constitution ? or, as the Whigs finally
claimed, had the colonial constitutions acquired that
degree of consistency, and the people living under
them such numbers and weight In the empire, as war
ranted them in determining their inter-state relations
in common sense. He had a healthy contempt for demagogues, —
historical demagogues in particular — as corrupters of youth,*
1 The following paper was prepared with no view to its publica
tion, but merely to be read before the Historical Association, Nor is
it the result of any exhaustive study of the precise questions of which
it treats ; and the writer, although he believes in the essential valid
ity of the historical propositions which it undertakes to set forth,
desires, nevertheless, that they should be regarded as theses for dis
cussion rather than aa his final judgments,
* Life of Sparks, i. 571, ii. 180 n.

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 141
in accordance with these constitutions ? Or If we
say, as there Is some reason for saying, that the real
difficulty was practical rather than political, and re
lated principally to the degree in which the Interests
of agricultural states ought to be subsidiary to the
mercantile policy of British merchants, then perhaps
an appeal would lie to the economic system which
Adam Smith was just bringing Into prominence, with
promise of free trade to the colonies agreeably to the
policy since adopted by the British government. Or,
finally, was the question one concerning the rights of
man, as Jefferson claimed ; and In that case, what
rights : those which are natural, positive, and inalien
able, or such as are qualified by public law, constitu
tions, and municipal organizations ? On the question
in this form the opinions of authoritative writers
on government would be entitled to great weight.
Clearly much depends upon the forum, as well as
upon the point of view. Sparks suggested the error
of Chalmers, which was also that of the king and his
ministers, and of Parliament, and of the Tories on
both sides of the water. Their facts might be well
authenticated and their logic valid, but they looked
at the subjects In controversy " from the wrong point
of view," unless we agree with Goldwin Smith, who,
it Is reported, regards the Revolution as a calamity
to both parties, by which America was deprived of
her history, and a great schism was caused in the
Anglo-Saxon race.
The Whigs conducted the controversy with Infinite
tact, changing ground as the exigencies of
their situation required. At first, as a party, q^q party!
they argued the question as one arising un
der the British constitution ; and finally, as Jefferson
declared, by their inalienable rights as men.

142 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
At no time before or since the period between 1763
and 1776 has the Anglo-American shown greater in
tellectual activity or a firmer grasp of political philo
sophy or more aptness in adapting It to practical pol
itics. Sprung from the parent stock at the time of
Its greatest vigor and of Its most splendid achieve
ment, as If by natural selection for his work in the
New World, he was less endued with the spirit which
sought expression In the imaginative literature of the
great dramatists than with those principles meditated
by Sir John Eliot in his lonely cell, and for which
Hampden died on the field, — principles which
moulded the constitution, so that It restrained the
power of the crown, enlarged that of the people, and
gave free play to that genius which made Great Brit
ain, after Rome, the greatest power for civilization
the world has ever known. Of such origin and with
such associations the men of the Revolution, adopting
the conclusions of Sidney, Harrington, and Locke, —
the principles of nature and eternal reason, as John
Adams called them, — applied them to public affairs
In a body of political literature unsurpassed In amount
or quality by anything which preceded or which has
followed. Had their writings been of the closet merely,
such encomium would be extravagant ; but what justi
fies It is that profound speculations on the nature and
purpose of government were united with a practical
sagacity which adapted means to ends and secured
the result desired.
This period of discussion was followed by seven
"What years of war, in which, by a series of vic-
the war torles Some of which were military and
others only moral, they made good the de
claration that " these united colonies are, and of right

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 143
ought to be, free and Independent states." The war
settled that, if It settled nothing more. Then followed
the Confederation. The states were jealous of their
rights, and some of them insisted on monopolizing for
their own use advantages which the Confederacy
should have shared. The government fell into de
crepitude, and the people narrowly escaped anarchy.
In due time the colonies, by their representatives,
met in Philadelphia and formed a general constitu
tion. Presumably the result of their labors would
embody the principles which they had adopted In
their controversy with Great Britain, at least as
modified by the vicissitudes of war and by their ap
plication to practical affairs. But how far this was
the case will appear if we examine the questions one
by one. Things do not change by changing their
nam^, If the quarrel between Great Britain and her colo
nies was respecting the king's prerogatives, gome
and the colonial contention was that such t^ngs
1 . 1 IT • 1 which it
large and varied powers could not wisely, did not
nor consistently with the spirit of the con- ^^'*is-
stitution since 1688, be Intrusted to a single person,
however exalted, or wise or weU-disposed, they did
not long continue of that opinion ; for in forming the
Constitution of the United States they clothed their
President with prerogatives such as no British sover
eign since the English Revolution had exercised.^
Was It the question of the right of Parliament to
enact commercial laws which injuriously affected the
colonies whose chief Interest was agricultural ? Our
tonnage act, passed in the first session of Congress,
was similar in principle and design to the acts of
^ See Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, ser, 2, v, 156.

144 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
Charles II., and with some modifications is stlH In
force, and has operated, and now operates, unfavor
ably to the agricultural States of the seaboard which
stand in similar relations to the commercial and
manufacturing States of the North as the colonies
stood to Great Britain ; nor need I say that our trade
laws produced similar disquiet, and at one time threat
ened serious consequences.
Or was It a question of taxation by a body in which
they neither had, nor could have, adequate representa
tion ? That has been the complaint In our Territories
and sparsely populated States, as It was In the days
of the Stamp Act ; and though not yet loud or serious,
it may become so, and with the difference that instead
of being a hardship feared it will be a hardship felt.
If the apj)ointment and pay of the judiciary with
out efficient control of It by the people or their as
semblies caused rational discontent, the grievance
remains under the new government as It was under
the old, and Is aggravated by the adoption of the
English system of Equity, Prize, and Admiralty juris
diction to an extent unknown to the colonies.
Finally, was It the theoretical question of the uni
versal. Inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness? After how many years
and at what cost of life and treasure was the Great
Declaration made good !
No one who reads the debates of the Convention of
The fail- 1^87 can fail to notice that the friends and
ure to the opponents of the proposed Constitution
these divided on questions involving the same
«ons' principles as those which divided the Revo
lutionary parties ; nor can one read the Con
stitution itself without perceiving that its acceptance

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 145
by the Convention was a ti'iumph of the legitimate
successors of the Anti-Revolutionary party of 1775.
" It was not even proposed," says Hildreth,^ "to cur
tail the appointing power, the veto, or the extensive
authority vested generally in the President, nor seri
ously to limit the powers of Congress or the jurisdic
tion of the Federal Courts." The Constitution failed
to receive the signatures of some of the ablest members
of the Convention ; and " It was exceedingly doubtful
whether, upon a fair canvass, a majority of the people,
even in the ratifying States, were in favor of It." ^ So
dissatisfied were the people, not only with the Constitu
tion, but also, and even more, with what was omitted,
that Its adoption was accompanied by numerous pro
posed amendments ; only two, however, of those relat
ing to matters mooted at the Revolution became parts
of the Constitution — those prohibiting the quarter
ing of troops in private houses and the issue of gen
eral warrants. And so far were the Revolutionary
questions from being settled in accordance with the
results of that event, it has been said that from 1789
to 1860 they caused nearly as much dissatisfaction
with the general government in the States south of
the Potomac as the policy of the British government
caused in the colonies between 1768 and 1775 ; and
that evidence of this is found In the Virginia and
Kentucky resolution,^ In the assault on the judiciary
1 History ofthe United States, iv, 118, In November, 1787, Elbridge
Gerry wrote to John Wendell, "I think (the Constitution) neither
consistent with the principles of the Revolution or of the constitu
tions of the several States,"
2 Hndreth, ibid. 28,
^ These resolutions expre.ised the sentiments of the Republicans,
who claimed to represent the states-rights party, or the old revolu
tionary party of Jefferson, Samuel Adams, and George Clinton, as op-

146 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
in Jefferson's administration, and in the dissatisfac
tion of South Carolina with the tariff In 1832, to say
nothing of the extent to which such problems entered
into the conflict which led to civil war.
The war, then, did not settle these questions; It
merely disposed of them under a new order of things,
and left their settlement to us or to those who may
come after us ; and it may be that the late Civil War
merely placed them in abeyance for the second time,
and that nothing but their final settlement on just
economic grounds will cause them to disappear from
American politics.
I therefore regard the period between 1768 and
1776 as one of the most significant In our history ;
for the questions then rife reach back to and are In
extricably Interwoven with the history of each colony
from Its first planting ; and, reaching forward also,
how fully they have entered into our later history is
known to every intelligent reader.
A clear understanding of the constitutional ques
tions which perplexed the colonists of the
character Revolution depends somewhat upon a know-
ofour ledffe of their antecedent historv. Ameri-
hlstory, ° i -r> i . •
can history before the Revolution is neither
romantic nor picturesque, nor, as a whole, Is it strik
ing. It is barren of Incidents, lacks great characters,
posed to the Federalists, who were charged with entertaining the mon
archical principles of the old Tories and, by the forced construction of
the Constitution, with having perverted the government, and with hav
ing administered it on principles adverse to those of the Declaration
of Independence, The tendency of the general government from the
beginning undoubtedly has been towards consolidation ; and if the re
sults of the late Civil War may be regarded as an expression of the final
judgment of the people as to the constitutional questions involved, it
is an interesting commentary on those mooted between 1703 and 1778
— though in no respect affecting the main question of independence.

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 147
contributes little or nothing to statesmanship, war, or
policy, and still less, If less be possible, to literature
or art. The glory of Wolfe is not our glory. The
foot of no colonial soldier climbed the steeps or trod
the heights behind Quebec, and none but the veteran
troops of England heard the triumphant cry, " They
run ! " or caught the hero's parting words, " I die
content." And If we have nothing to show save the
results of conflicts with miserable Indian tribes, or
the not very creditable military and naval expeditions
against the Canadians, a foe vastly inferior in number
and resources; or of civil history save the Antlno-
mlan controversy, or the hanging of a few Quakers
and of a more considerable number of witches — or
those accounted such, — acts which had no essential
relation to the soil or climate of the country, and in no
respect differentiated Its people or their history from
those of any other people, I think we might close the
volume without loss of Instruction or delight.
But, on the other hand, our history is unique In Its
origin. Isolated in Its progress, and Is the best expo
nent of the new order Inaugurated by the revival of
learning and the Reformation, because It rests upon a
broader human basis and clearer recognition of indi
vidual rights. More than any other history it gives
promise to the hopes of man, and records development
under exemplary constitutional forms and methods
which other nations appear to regard with Interest.
The history of America, unlike that of most nations,
is not shrouded In the mists of mythology nor In the
darkness of barbaric ages. From the beginning it
stands, for the most part, in the clear light of authentic
facts. It traces its origin, as no other nation can, from
public documents, such as land patents, incorporative

148 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
charters, proprietary grants, or royal commissions, in
the interpretation and construction of which, with the
Included facts, may be found aU, or nearly all, that is
of value. In these documents the beginning of our
essential history Is to be sought, rather than in the
forests of Germany or in the fens of Lincolnshire;
and with them and the records of the Board of Trade,
royal Instructions, assembly journals, and Chalmers's
Opinions, and with little other aid, any one of his
torical Insight and general culture, observant of the
logic of events and well acquainted with men, their
motives, and modes of bringing to pass their purposes,
— not necessarily a jurist, but like Hutchinson, Ram
say, Trumbull, and Belknap, with clear conceptions
of organic and municipal law, — could write the his
tory of the thirteen colonies In his closet.
Another characteristic circumstance of our history
Is its isolation. Before the war of 1755 it had, so far
as I can perceive, no essential dependence upon Euro
pean affairs — not even those of England ; certainly
none which changed the direction or rate of progress
which the people were making under Influences purely
American. This Is not the view taken by the historian
of the United States or by the historian of New Eng
land ; and I am aware how much their histories gain
in interest by being projected on a background In
which we see the movements of armies and the pa
geantry of kings and courts.^
Original tendencies of the race and acquired habits
^ Without doubt, the colonies were a factor in European politics ;
hut how far the converse is true is not so clear. The essential history
of the colonies is that of their development ; and the historian may
disregard, or pass lightly over, whatever did not materially affect that
development. Perhaps the French war of 1755, which resulted in the
overthrow of the French power in America, presents the strongest case

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 149
and Impulses were transmitted In both of its branches,
and doubtless influenced the emigrants in their new
of a colonial war growing out of European complications ; and yet,
with regard even to this war, it is a question how far it affected the
development of the colonies — that is, in consequence of that war and
its result, how was their subsequent history different from what it
would have been had the war never taken place or had the result been
different ? But see Massachusetts Historical Collections, ser, 4, iv, 370.
The answer must be uncertain, yet there are facts which lead to the
conjecture that the result made, or had it been different would have
made, no essential difference,
Wolfe's success at Quebec is often spoken of as having changed the
history of the French and English colonies. It was indeed a splendid
achievement of British arms ; but Creasy wisely counted the battle of
Saratoga, not that at Quebec, among the " Fifteen Decisive Battles of
the World,"
Nor was the immediate effect upon Canada itself very great. Eleven
years later, the Quebec Act of 1774 was a politic, if not a necessary,
recognition of the status quo; and it is worth considering how far,
even to this day, those circumstances and conditions which accelerate
or retard the prosperity of a people were changed by the war, (See
an instructive paper, by John George Bourinot, LL, D,, of Ottawa, in
the Scottish Review for April, 1887,)
It may be conceded that the reduction of Canada precipitated the
American Revolution, It is not claimed, I think, that it caused that
event. How, and to what degree, then, did it hasten it ? It is usually
said that after the peace of 1763 the British colonies, no longer exposed
to hostile inroads of the French and Indian allies, were better able to
resist the unpropitious legislation of Great Britain,
This aspect of the case was fully discussed by English and colonial
statesmen, among whom was Franklin ; and the English negotiators
of the treaty of 1768 were in doubt whether they ought to retain Can
ada as one of the results of the war or give it up for Guadeloupe ; and
it would seem that they made a great political mistake in their deci
sion, unless we overestimate the effect of the reduction of Canada upon
our subsequent history.
Let us suppose that the French had retained Canada, Would that
fact have wiped out the enormous debt incurred by its conquest or
have prevented its increase for the defense of the colonies ; or would
the colonies, thwarted in their wishes, have become enamored of stamp
acts, navigation laws, or Townshend's revenue measures ?
Wolfe's victory did not precipitate, or make more exigent than his
defeat would have done, any of those questions which had been open

150 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
home under unwonted circumstances ; but the colo
nists were far from the complications of European pol
itics, and when histories so dissimilar are treated in
relation, and with due regard to historical perspective,
American history loses its distinctive characteristics
and much of its value. I prefer, therefore, to regard
it, as I believe it to be, the history of Englishmen
more or less Imbued with the principles of the Re
formation and of the Petition of Right, who cut them
selves loose from Europe, with Its old Institutions and
associations, and without pattern, or assistance, or
very effective interference — though that was often
threatened — undertook on bare creation, to develop
for more than a hundred years, and finally brought on the war. The
debt, as has been said, remained to be paid ; nor could it be paid, or
even remain stationary, except hy subjecting the colonies to an impe
rial policy, involving the adoption of essentially the same measures as
those which led to rebellion.
Why, under such circumstances, would they have been less willing
to seek relief in independence, or the French less willing to incite them
to rebellion, on occasion ; and when the colonists were brought to the
contemplation of that, as in time they must have been, could they have
been blind to the consideration how mach more effective French assist
ance would be (than it really was under other circumstances) when
that power held the St, Lawrence and the northern approaches to Lake
Champlain ? The northern campaigns of 1775-6 and 1777, to say
nothing of Sullivan's expedition of 1778, would have been eliminated,
and the concentration of colonial energies and resources in the middle
and southern colonies have thus been permitted. In regard to this
matter, see Franklin's Familiar Letters, Sparks's edition, 247, 266,
The real contest between England and France in which the colonies,
as a whole, were interested, was for the Ohio and the Mississippi, not
the St, Lawrence ; and had the attack on the left flank of the French
at Quebec failed, it would by no raeans have prevented, or more than
temporarily delayed, one on the French centre, from a base of the
Atlantic, protected by the naval power of England, A war for tlie
great watercourses and the fertile lands on their banks would have
followed, and with the result usual in the contests for empire between
England and France, The French centre once broken, New Orleans
and Quebec would have been untenable.

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 151
thirteen autonomous states out of as many land com
panies. No doubt when America was discovered she
parted company with the undetermined ages in their
sluggish movement and east off iuto the rapid stream
of historic time ; but she was far from the centre of
the current, and in a new world soon formed one for
herself. Such, as it appears to me, has been the isolation and
direct development of the Independent governments of
America from colonial charters or their equivalents.
It was self -development, — • in New England primarily
on the basis of ecclesiastical independency closely in
terwoven with economic Independency, which out of
New England was the leading motive ; and Its history
gains in Interest and value as it reaches that point
when acts of incorporation and royal commissions
ceased to be such, and became potentially the basis of
governments proper, agreeably to the laws of growth,
usage, and necessity In a land remote from the old
world and having little connection with it.-*^
With this conception of the origin and historical
and political significance of the questions some
which were rife between 1768 and 1776, I ?°°^*'- ,
' tutional
pass to their relation to the Arnerlcan Revo- ques-
, ,. tions
lution. ^ ^ g^g^^.
Jefferson, In his declaration to the world i^ied,
of the causes which justified the assertion of colonial
independence, has given singular prominence to the
1 A signal interference by the home govemment with the colonies
was the revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1684, followed by
the Dudley-Andros interregnum, and that by the second charter ; but
the affair, neither in detail nor in mass, deflected the history of that
colony by a hair's breadth from the old line of development ; and we
look in vain for the scar of the wound which Charles II. in his anger
inflicted ou the body politic.

152 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
exercise of the king's prerogatives ; and his arraign
ment of him at the bar of public opinion seems like a
personal assault. Jefferson knew, and no one knew
better, that some of the real causes which warranted
the Declaration, such as the Navigation Acts and the
ecclesiastical laws in Virginia, had existed a hundred •
years before George III. began to reign; and that
for the later revenue measures he had only a divided
responsibility, such as arose from his assent to parlia
mentary acts the veto of which might have cost him
dear.i jjj ]y[p_ Webster's " Eulogy on Adams and
Jefferson " will be found the reasons which probably
influenced Jefferson In making the king the chief
offender. "The best of kings," as James Otis and
Samuel Adams somewhat profusely, and perhaps not
^ As to the king's constitutional responsibility nothing need be said,
for he, like the sovereign people, can do no wrong ; but with this dif
ference, that if he does, he can be decapitated : with the other, it is not
so ! As to his moral responsibility for acts done in his name, it should
be considered that his connection with them was often merely nomi
nal. An appeal from the decision of a colonial court to the king in
his bench was an appeal to the judges of the highest English court.
And so an appeal to the king in his council was an appeal to the min
istry. We read that the king settled the boundaries between pro
vinces, or vetoed their laws, or gave instructions to governors, or issued
his royal commission ; but so far were these acts from being the per
sonal acts of the king, that the probability is that he knew little about
them, except as he was informed by the secretary for the colonies of
what had been settled by the ministers ; and that both he and they,
in these cases, acted on the advice of the great law officers, aud fol
lowed precedents from which neither could safely depart.
The impersonal nature of the prerogative is shown by the fact that
though the government of New Hampshire between 1679 and 1774
with a short interregnum was based on the king's commission, appar
ently the written evidence of his personal wiU ,and revocable at his
pleasure, yet I doubt if any instance can be found where, on account
of royal dissatisfaction — which means the dissatisfaction of the min
istry — the tenor of his commission was changed. Though theoreti
cally otherwise, it was as permanent as a royal charter.

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 158
with entire sincerity, were in the habit of calling
him, was in no respect the worst of kings ; and when
free from the cruel malady which made hapless his
later years, he was tyrannical neither in his political
nor in his personal conduct ; ^ nor was he without
solicitous regard for the welfare of his American
subjects. It was his paramount purpose, as it was
Jackson's and Lincoln's under circumstances not dis
similar, to preserve the integrity of his empire ; and
in this he exhibited two qualities — courage and deci
sion — which stood for so much with the most popular
president of the United States when, in 1832, their
unity was threatened by a dissatisfied State.
Though Jefferson regarded with disfavor those who
exercised autocratic powers — especially If heredi
tary — until he came to exercise them himself, he
probably had no personal animosity towards the king,
but spoke harshly of him as he did, and regardless of
facts, from political necessity. The act which he un
dertook to justify before the world was renunciation
of allegiance to the king to whom, if to any one, it
was due, — not to the ministry, nor to Parliament,
nor to the British people."^ Therefore he sought
something In his conduct which would warrant the
1 So thought John Adams, See his Letter to Timothy Pickering,
1822, ^ The operative act which severed the colonies from the crown was
Lee's resolution of June 7, 1776, passed by Congress on July 2, and
was in these words : " Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of
right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved
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," And as the Declaration was merely an announce
ment to the world, on the 4th of July, of what had been enacted on
the 2d, Jefferson was obliged to follow Lee's resolution, Jefferson,
in his Autobiography (p. 12), gives a rdsum4 of the opinions of such

154 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
rupture of the empire. None of the real grievances,
such as the enforcement of the Navigation Laws,i the
revenue measures, or the Boston Port Bill, would serve
his purpose, because, apart from the constitutional
maxim that all the king's public acts were done under
the advice of his ministers, who were alone responsi
ble for them, the king, as a matter of fact. Instigated
none of those measures, and, as the veto power was
then regarded, he eould not have wdthheld his assent
to them without endangering his crown.
But every exercise of the prerogative, however far
from the fact, ostensibly as well as constitutionally,
was the sole act of the Icing, for which he was re-
men as John Adams, Lee and Wythe, who favored the passage of
the Resolution of Independence, to the effect that, " as to the people
or Parliament of England, ive had always been independent of them,
their restraints on our trade deriving efficacy from our acquiescence
only, and not from any rights they possessed of impairing them, and so
far, our connection with them had been federal only, and was now
dissolved by the commencement of hostilities ;
" That, as to the king, we had been bound to him by allegiance, but
that this bond was now dissolved " by certain acts more fully set
forth by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, and also in
the preamble to the new constitution of Virginia which Jefferson
had drawn, — Randall's Jefferson, i, 195,
The Declaration, as drafted by Jefferson, was no sudden, no novel
product. He had been over the whole subject, and was thoroughly
master of it, as appears from the draft of instructions which he pre
pared for the delegates to the Congress of 1774 (Autobiography,
i, 122), which, though not fully accepted, afterwards appeared in
A Summary View ofthe Rights of British America.
1 "I think it [the act of navigation], if uncompensated, to he a
condition of as rigorous servitude as man can be subject to," " They
found, under the construction and execution then used, the act no
longer tying but actually strangling them," — Burke's Speech on
American Taxation.
" I judge so from the system of monopoly and exclusion which
governs all your political writers upon commerce, except Mr, Adam
Smith and Dean Tucker — a system which is the true prime cause qf
your separation from your colonies." — Turgot to Dr. Price, 1778.

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 155
sponsible. Therefore Jefferson attacked him in an in
dictment consisting, as originally drawn, of twenty
articles, several of which contained two or more speci
fications. In nineteen of these he is made sole cul
prit ; and In one, the thirteenth In order, he Is associ
ated with the two Houses of Parliament ; seven relate
to the exercise of the veto power In one form or an
other ; two, to the appointment, tenure, and pay of
the judges ; one, to the increase of revenue officers,
and seven, to the abuse of his powers as commander-
in-chief of the army and navy.
Had the king been arraigned on these charges
before a court of justice, undoubtedly by advice of
counsel he would have demurred to the bill, which, I
hardly need say, means that admitting the facts to be
as set forth, still he ought not to answer, since the acts
complained of were done In the exercise of his consti
tutional prerogatives.
The charge, for example, that " he has refused his
assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for
the public good," Is, on constitutional grounds, with
out support ; for It was not only his prerogative right
so to refuse, but it was a right expressly reserved,
with two or three exceptions, in the very Instruments
to which the colonies owed their existence, and which
they had assented to by accepting them. Jefferson
would not have helped his case, as matter of law, by
insisting that it was the abuse, not the exercise, of the
powers of which he complained ; for of that the king
was sole judge.
Looking at the case, therefore, from the constitu
tional point of view, as Chalmers and the Tories looked
at It, judgment must have been for the king. That
is, by the British constitution the king stood on the

156 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
same ground as that on which the President of the
United States, the governors of most of the states,
and the mayors of many cities stand when they veto
legislative acts ; and no more than they are was the
king justly liable to Impeachment therefor.
By fiction of the British constitution the king sat
In person In his colonial courts, as well as in those
within the realm ; and when he required substitutes,
as well he might, to perform this ubiquitous and ex
acting service, he claimed the right accorded by the
constitution, to say by whom, and on what tenure,
and with what pay these vicarious services should be
rendered. The pay of the judges by the king was the
feature most obnoxious to the colonists. They cared
less who was judge, or how long he held the office, so
long as they could bring him to terms, as they often
did, or even drive him from the bench, by diminish
ing or withholding his salary. The result was that
when the king sued In his own courts for his revenues
or for trespasses on the timber land of the crown he
was generally cast in his suit. This question the Re
volution temporarily adjusted without settling. It was
left to us, and we are in doubt ; for there are intelli
gent people who take the Revolutionary ground, as
opposed to the Tory ground of that period which we
have generally adopted, that the judiciary, not less
than other departments of the government, ought to
depend upon the popular voice for their election, pay,
and tenure of office.
The king, like the president of the United States,
by his prerogative was commander-in-chief of military
and naval forces of his empire, and in peace as well
as In war determined their movements, posts, and
quarters. Regarded then as a constitutional question,

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 157
Jefferson's complaint on this head amounts to no
more than this : that George III., though he probably
bad little to do with it, directed the forces in the colo
nies for purposes and In a manner which was not
approved of by the colonists. But that Is seldom the
case with those whom the government undertakes to
reduce to subjection. Certainly it was not so In the
late Civil War, in which both combatants made loud
and doubtless just complaints against each other of
inhumanity and disregard of the laws of war ; and
Congress and the press and many very wise people
were more willing to take command of the army than
to allow the constitutional authorities the exercise of
that function.
Tory writers both at home and abroad sneered at
Jefferson's constitutional notions. Not that Jefferson
did not know the constitution ; few knew It better.
His difficulty was that In armed rebellion he was
obliged to fight the battle before the world, not as a
rebel, but as one contending for the rights of the colo
nists under the constitution, which, as he claimed, had
been Invaded by the sovereign. On that ground his
task was severe — perhaps beyond his strength.
If his situation had allowed, Jefferson doubtless
would have said what certainlv was true. The real
that the king, by advice of his ministers position
and bv virtue of his prerogatives and as a °^*^®
.•^ . colonies.
coordinate branch of the legislature, had
exercised his constitutional powers adversely to the
economic Interests of his colonial subjects ; and that
they, having petitioned and remonstrated without
redress, were compelled to sever those relations which
formed the basis of their allegiance to him and of his
power over the colonies. But that was revolution !

158 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
This was the real position of the colonists, and In
it was the justice and strength of their cause ; and we
may speculate whether they might not have better
taken It at the outset, since to that position have
gradually come the wise and dispassionate thinkers of
both countries in the present generation.
They followed English precedents, however. In the
course they adopted ; for I believe the opinion Is
gaining ground, adversely to Hallam and some other
English constitutionalists, that In many, perhaps most
cases, and notably In the case of ship-money, Charles
I. was within his strict constitutional prerogatives.-'
Nevertheless, the people rebelled and slew him as a
tyrant who claimed and exercised unconstitutional
powers, when his real offense was the exercise of con
stitutional powers without any warranting necessity.^
Jefferson was right In his main purpose ; but his
indictment of George III. is perhaps the only one
ever drawn In which the real offense is not even men
tioned, and where an Innocent party was vicariously
substituted for the real offender !
Nevertheless, Jefferson's arraignment of the prero=
gatlves In the person of the king did little or nothing
for their settlement, since they remain, even with aug
mented force, under the new order as under the old.
Prerogatives in a monarchy are the divine rights
^ Hall's Customs of England, i, 141, 145,
' Where great principles or even great interests are at stake, con
stitutional guaranties or restrictions are of little avail. How little
some of us know, who had no doubt in respect to the guaranties of
chattel slavery, but, nevertheless, deliberately disregarded them, and
gloried in doing so ; while many attested their sincerity by the sacri
fice of their lives. And so, as we look at it, and as I think the
world, including Great Britain, now looks at it, Jefferson was rin-ht
in his main purpose ; and if, on strictly constitutional grounds he
was wrong, like Csesar, " he was wrong in just cause,"

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 159
of the sovereign king ; under a democracy, the divine
rights of the sovereign people. This Is the unaayg
theory. Practically, under both forms of factory
, ,1 X r i_ results
government, they are grants ot power by ofthe
the people to their rulers ; and If the king's contro-
prerogatives were justly obnoxious to the
colonists, why did they, not many years after, invest
the President with power to appoint cabinet officers,
foreign ambassadors, judges, and the whole civil and
military service for a people since become sixty mil
lions ? 1 This is one of the questions which the Revo
lution did not settle, and it has been reopened again
and again, with a persistency which causes solicitude
in some quarters as to the result, especially in respect
to the judiciary.
Jefferson smote the claim of parliamentary supre
macy squarely in the face. He denied that Parlia
ment had any rightful authority over the colonies ;
and asserted that the exercise of such jurisdiction was
foreign to our constitution, unacknowledged by our
laws, and that all its acts were usurpations. This
opinion he had expressed before the Revolution, and
Wythe agreed with him ; but as he said, he could find
no one else who did. No wonder ; for the facts were
against them. In several Instances and on various
subjects Parliament had legislated for the colonies
with their assent, and even at their request. If Jef
ferson accepted the original doctrine that the colonies
were the king's colonies, subject to his direction to
the exclusion of all other, his position Is intelligible.
Franklin had expressed similar opinions ; but both
regarded monarchical power when opposed to popular
1 See Letter of John Adams to Roger Sherman in Boutell's Life
of Sherman, 315.

160 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
rights with aversion, and it is difficult to resist the
conviction that their utterances were merely political.
Jefferson's theory of the relations of the colonists
to the crown was as old as the colonies themselves,
and grew out of the public law of Europe in the fif
teenth century ; by that theory the king made laws
for them. If royal provinces, by the terms of his com
missions to their governors, and he regulated all of
them by the exercise of his prerogatives. Neverthe
less, from an early period the prerogatives had been
invaded by Parliament, so that at the time of the
Revolution they were In such doubt that statesmen
might well differ as to the rights of Parliament to tax
the colonies. They claimed exemption by arguments
to which Chatham and Camden gave assent, and
sometimes for reasons which illustrated the self-com
placency of the true Briton and all of his descendants,
especially In Massachusetts. ¦'
^ That people, says Mauduit (Hutchinson's Letters, 59, 2d ed., 1774),
pleaded the charter of 1691, in which it was provided that they
should have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and nat
ural subjects, within any of the king's dominions, his heirs, and suc
cessors, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever, as if they
and every of them were born within his realm of England. The
English subjects within the realm, they said, " have a right to choose
representatives for themselves, and are governed only by acts of Par
liament ; under our charter, therefore, we have the same rights as the
people of England have to choose our representatives, and to be gov
erned only by the laws made by our assemblies in which alone we are
represented ; and the Parliament of England has nothing to do with
us," This is ingenious. It is also very English and very American,
Both peoples seem to think that there are certain rights which Eng
lishmen and their descendants as such, distinguished from French
men, Spaniards, or Dutchmen, for example, carry with them into all
parts of the world, to be pleaded there against local jurisdiction,
" I am a Roman citizen," exclaimed Paul in a country remote from
Rome, but subject to its laws, " I am an Englishman," exclaims one
who travels in foreign parts where English law does not prevail, and

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 161
The dispute was mainly one of point of view. If
the colonists were without the realm, and _,
'_ The
merely the king's subjects, as was their re- British
lation by constitutional theory at least, par- ^
llamentary legislation affecting them was point of
usurpation ; but if they were within the em
pire, which was questioned argumentatively by the col
onists, though that was the opinion in England, and
if they were entitled to the privileges of the British
constitution, and subject to its burdens with all the
exceptions to its general provisions and frequent
departures from Its principles, then the rights and
duties of the colonists, as of those within the four
seas, were determined by precedents, judicial deci
sions, and opinions of the high officers of the law.
This, of course, was the legal and constitutional view
of the matter ; and had it prevailed, the colonists
were as much bound by the king's prerogatives and
parliamentary proceedings as were the home subjects,
five sixths of whom, notwithstanding the general
maxim that representation and taxation are correla
tive rights and burdens, had no effectual participation
in their own government, and least of all in the
power by which they were taxed.
This was the opinion of Mansfield, and finally of
Camden, and it was supported by arguments of such
expects his claim to be allowed. The real meaning of the charter
was, that any citizen of Massachusetts going to England or Jamaica,
or to any other of the king's dominions, should have the same rights
as though he were born in England ; but it did not mean that in
Massachusetts or Jamaica he should have the rights, general or
local, which he might have and enjoy in England, Such has been
the interpretation given to a provision in the fourth article of the
Articles of Confederation similar to that in the Massachusetts char
ter.

162 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
weight that some of the British liberals ^ were forced
implicitly to acknowledge Its legal validity.^
1 Burke's Conciliation with the Colonies. ( Works, Little & Brown
ed,, 1839, ii, 48,)
^ In 1765 Camden said that Parliament had no right to tax the
colonies ; in 1767 he affirmed that right, and accounted for his change
of opinion by the Declaratory Act which accompanied the repeal of
the Stamp Act. We who live under a written constitution which
divides and apportions the powers of government, and defines rights
and duties with exactness of phrase, have diflficulty in understanding
how the British constitution can be changed in an hour without re
ference to the will of the people. Bat a glance at our own history
makes it quite clear. For example : Nothing is more certain than
that the framers of the Constitution designed, by the machinery of an
electoral college, to remove the election of the President and Vice-
President as far as possible from popular influence ; and yet the
exercise of the power lodged in the college, according to constitutional
provision and intent, would at any time since the adoption of the Con
stitution have produced a revolution !
Again : more than half of the present territory of the United
States was acquired by a purchase not authorized by the Constitution,
as Jefferson, who consummated it, admitted ; but the precedent once
set, not even by the representatives of the people in Congress, but by
an usurpation of power by the executive, it virtually became part of
the Constitution, and without scruple has been followed by other ac
quisitions by purchase, by conquest, by treaty, and by joint resolution,
I say nothing of the extension and modification of the Constitution
by judicial construction which so alarmed and disgusted Jefferson,
and only allude to the high authority (Lodge's Webster, 176),
which admits that the vaUdity of Mr, Webster's opinions in 1830
respecting nullification rests upon what the Constitution had become
at that time rather than upon the intent of its framers in 1787, See
ing then the potency of precedent under a democracy as well as
under a monarchy, and in the case of a written constitution by its
terms changeable only by formal amendments, I can listen with re
spect, even if I do not assent, to the powerful reasoning of Mansfield
that the colonies, especially after the Declaratory Act of 1766, were
subject to parliamentary authority in all cases whatsoever,
*' Constitutional difficulties never will stand in the way of a major
ity, , , Even in so select a body as the Senate of the United States
a mere variation of phrase will contrive a loop-hole to escape from
the most bare-faced usurpation of power." John Qiuncy Adams's
Diary, i. 417.

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 163
Nevertheless, this is the British view. There was
also an American view which the Whigs had
a clear right to take, as they did when they -w^jg
questioned whether the British construction, point of
with the Declaratory Act of 1766, had been
acquiesced in by the colonists so as to give to it the
force of constitutional law binding on them in their
relations to the mother country.
There is also an entirely different view which
acknowledges the force of precedent and jojm
usage, and which seems to me conclusive Adams's
, , view,
so far as relates to the right of Parliament
directly to tax the colonies. It Is that presented in
the fourth article of the Declaration of Rights by the
Congress of 1774, drawn by John Adams, and claims
in substance the existence of colonial constitutions
as well as of the British constitution, and that the
former as well as the latter were the results of
growth, development, usage, and precedent ; and that
by these constitutions the power of Parliament did
not extend to direct taxation for revenue,-' but was
limited by the countervailing colonial constitutions,
which In that respect had become part of the gen
eral constitution, to taxes Imposed by the navigation
laws and some others, to which the colonists had
given their implied assent, and from which they had
received equivalent commercial protection. But direct
taxation was another matter. For a hundred and
fifty years the power, if it ever existed, had been in
abeyance, and the colonies had been allowed to grow
1 In a notable passage in Burke's " Speech on American Taxation "
(Works, Little & Brown ed,, 1839, i, 492), he distinguishes the consti
tution of Britain from the constitution of the British empire, con
ceding to the latter the power of taxing in Parliament as an instru
ment of empire and not as a means of supply.

164 THE AMERICAN COLONIES
and shape their governments and their policy and
manaare their affairs without direct contribution to
o
the Imperial exchequer even for their own govern
ment and defense.
I have said that the war settled none of the consti
tutional questions for which it was waged ;
stitu- nor did the new Constitution Itself settle
tional them except bv returnlner to the British con-
questions . '¦ •', . . ^
remain structiou. Ihis, it IS true, was brought
unsettled, ^^^^^ ^^^y with great difficulty; for there
was a large minority led by such men as George Ma
son, Elbridge Gerry, and Samuel Adams, who stren
uously contended that in adopting the Constitution of
1787 the people surrendered everything, except inde
pendence, for which they had fought seven years. If
the present Constitution Is evidence of such surrender,
It Is one more example of the tenacity with which the
race clings to the principles and essential forms of
government, no matter by what name they are called,
to which they have been attached, and with which are
associated their progress and their glory and even
their misfortunes.
If I have any difficulty In determining the validity
The true of the American position within the Consti-
taken in tutlon, either imperial or colonial, I have
the pre- none whatever In this : that the navigation
amble of , . i. , . . ,
the Decia- laws and acts of trade, taxation without re-
ratiouof presentation, the attempts to force an epls-
ence— copate on the colonies, and the exercise of
rair^ght' *-^® royal prerogatives, were so clearly at
of men to variance with the natural and acquired
settle . .
their own rights of the coloulsts, that at the time when
form of tJiey chose to assert and rely upon them they
ment, were clearly justified in armed resistance ;

THE AMERICAN COLONIES 165
and so were they if the British connection contravened
the sentiments of three millions of people as to what
constituted the pursuit of happiness. This, however,
is not in the light of constitutional law, but is an ap
peal to the rights of man. Here Jefferson was strong,
unassailable — In the preamble, if not in the body of
the Declaration. Jefferson is a great character and
needs a great stage around which may gather all the
races of men to hear what he has to say. He requires
no interpreter. For six thousand years the world had
been waiting for the words which he so spake that
all men heard.

REMARKS ON THE NEW HISTORICAL
SCHOOL

Eepbdjted fkom the Peoceedings of the Massachusetts
Historical Society, Jantjary, 1890

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL

Within the last decade there has grown up among
us a new school of history which has its principal seats
at the higher universities. It is now so well known by
its leading characteristics that a minute description of
it would seem like pretending to a new discovery. Its
promise is high, and even thus early Its work is more
than respectable as that of young men mainly of scho
lastic training, unacquainted with affairs, and without
opportunities for observing how the elementary facts
which make history are colored and even transformed
in legislative assemblies, by judicial decisions, and In
the tumultuous proceedings of the crowd. Gibbon
has recorded that his captainship in the Hampshire
grenadiers had not been useless to the historian of the
Roman Empire ; and every one knows how much the
historical insight of Clarendon, Hume, and Macaulay
was quickened, and how much their narratives gain In
closeness and verisimilitude by their participation In
government, diplomacy, and parliamentary affairs.
And so will it be with the new school of American
historians. Years and experience wIU add greatly to
the value of their future work.
Their methods are the comparative of Bopp and the
critical of the later scientists ; and these are some
thing more than new names for old processes. Hutch
inson, Belknap, Trumbull, and Ramsay were diligent
seekers and close observers. They did good work ; of

170 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
its kind none better has been since done. But their
field of observation was no wider than the subject in
hand, of which they gave the facts very exactly, but
not their relative values ; nor were they curious about
remote causes or the origin of institutions.
The new methods have produced surprising results
In history as weU as in science. The historian of the
new school, distrusting second-hand authorities, resorts
to original documents ; and If these are legal, which Is
more than likely to be the case in American history,
as our English colonies were based on legal instru
ments, and their constitutional history Is mainly to be
found in the legal Interpretation of those instruments,
he acquaints himself with the rules of interpreting
such documents. The neglect of this obvious duty has
often led to deplorable mistakes. At the same time
he considers how often, and how justly, legal argu
ments and conclusions are overruled by considerations
of public policy. This Is especially necessary in the
history of the period just before the Revolution
ary War, when the weight of purely legal argument
was mostly on one side, and on the other a weightier
colonial policy. Deeper than legal principles, deeper
even than questions of public policy, and more potent,
were the instincts and traditions of the race, though
voiced as they often were by wild cries of the mob,
unthinking and sometimes cruel, but generaUy right
in their main purpose. It was by his recognition of
these and by his appeal to them that Pitt, with vague
notions of constitutional law and sometimes mistaken
in his views of public policy, made his first adminis
tration the most glorious In British annals ; and that
Macaulay, gathering their varied expressions from re
condite sources, added to his narrative much which

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL 111
wiU be more valued than its brilliancy and pictur
esqueness. The methods of the new school are adapted to their
subjects of research ; and these, judiciously chosen as
yet, are those which require neither a large canvas nor
imaginative treatment, but rather, patient investiga
tion and thoughtfulness, — such as the origin and
growth of local institutions, municipal governments,
constitutions, and social science. Nor is this history of
our institutions limited to their beginnings and growth
on American soil, but the Inquiry is pushed into the
remote habitats and ages of our Anglo-Saxon race.
Nothing could be better than this, though not with
out its perils in treatment. In a large view the human
race is one ; its thoughts, desires, necessities, and
modes of action are similar ; and so, to that extent, is
its essential history. But such generalizations are
more safely used by the anthropologist than by the
historian. Nevertheless, there is a certain fascination
in tracing the unity of history. It pleases the reader
not less than the historian. There are few more effec
tive paragraphs in any history than those In which
Guizot affirms that " neither the English revolution
nor the French revolution ever said, wished, or did
anything that had not been said, wished, done, or at
tempted a hundred times before they burst forth ; . . .
and that nothing will be found of which the invention
originated with them, nothing which is not equally
met with, or which at aU events did not come into
existence in periods which are called regular." ^
I have spoken of this school as new, — new in its
methods and new In Its purposes ; and so, doubtless,
it is in this country, but not in Europe. Its prototype
1 English Revolution, preface.

172 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
is to be found there, and there its most distinguished
master. Dr. Edward A. Freeman. His view of our
history may be gathered from a paragraph In which he
says that " the early Institutions of Massachusetts are
part of the general institutions of the English people,
as those are again part of the general institutions of
the Teutonic race, and those are again part of the gen
eral institutions of the whole Aryan family." And
there he says he stops ; but he adds that his friends
do him no wrong who make such institutions common
to aU mankind.^
The new American school inclines to go no farther
than Freeman goes. But there is danger even in this.
It is frequently said that our emigrant ancestors
brought British institutions to Massachusetts ; and
with this notion we seek in English towns the proto
types of our own, and so back to those communities in
the German forests vaguely described by Tacitus and
Csesar. I think there are reasons for caution in ac
cepting the conclusions of some of our recent historical
writers based on the theory of Dr. Freeman.
Analogies do not constitute identities. Instincts
are not institutions ; nor does similarity of design or
adaptation of institutions Indicate heredity or even
relationship. When Englishmen sought new homes
on American soil, they doubtless came with the pur
pose of organizing society and government ; but they
would have done so without such antecedent purpose.
With forethought they brought many things. But
there is no evidence that they brought Institutions, or
had even meditated the form which they would give
them. They certainly brought with them the instincts,
' Introduction to American Institutional History (Johns Hopkins Uni
versity Studies), 13,

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL 173
traditions, and habits of their race, and these deter
mined their action In unwonted situations and gave
shape to their institutions. We know with some ex
actness what they brought with them. We have the
lading of the ships in which they came. Besides them
selves, their wives, their children and servants, they
brought clergymen, physicians, surveyors, mechanics,
with food to serve until the soil should yield it. They
brought clothing, furniture, tools, utensils, weapons
offensive and defensive, and animals. They brought
" Ministers, Men skllfuU In making of pitch, of salt,
vine Planters, Patent Under Seal, a Seal, wheat, rye,
barley, oats, a head of each in the ear, beans, peas,
stones of all sorts of fruits, as peaches, plums, filberts,
cherries, pears, apples, quince kernels, pomegranates,
woad seed, saffron heads, liquorice seed, roots sent and
madder roots, potatoes, hop roots, hemp seed, flax seed
against winter, connys, currant plants, tame turkeys,
and madder seed." But we nowhere find mention of
Magna Charta, the British Constitution, the Petition
of Right, or English Institutions. Nor is much said
about them In their books, sermons, diaries, or corre
spondence. But when they needed, they found them
directly enough in the traditions and instincts of their
race. While their general purposes were clear, there Is no
evidence that they had any definite and fixed plans as
to their government or institutions. The evidence is
all the other way. Their charter, the expression and
measure of their rights, gave them no power to set up
a government save for managing a land company. If
they intended to bring an English town with them, as
is so often said they did, they were singularly lacking
In care ; for when they had organized their common-

174 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
wealth governnient, and arranged themselves in sepa
rate communities for which corporate town powers
were necessary, no warrant was found In their char
ter, and to meet the necessity they were obliged to
usurp the power of forming corporations, for which
they were afterwards called to account, and greatly to
their cost.
So our English ancestors did not bring English
towns with them, nor English churches, nor vestries,
nor British Institutions. But on occasion they builded
for themselves, as Englishmen always and everywhere
had done and still do, according to the exigencies of
their situation and after the manner of their race,
just as the seeds they brought with them produced,
each after Its kind, but modified by differences of
soil, climate, and situation. And so doubtless was it
with their ancestors and ours, who came from the
forests of Germany to England ; but It is questionable
whether they brought German towns into England.
We must not be misled by analogies or resemblances,
nor assign to nationality what belongs to all races.
Wherever people are gathered In stationary com
munities, their communal wants wIU be essentially
the same, and will be provided for essentially in the
same manner. But it is quite probable that a fully
organized New England town differed In as many
particulars and as widely from an English town as
that from a German town, or as that from one In the
heart of Africa.
It is not to be inferred from what has been said
that the new historical school has generally fallen
into the mistake Indicated, though perhaps there Is
a tendency to do so.
One of those who adopted the extreme view as to

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL 175
the origin and powers of New England towns was the
late Professor Alexander Johnston. His opinions
took shape in a monograph entitled " The Genesis of
a New England State," published In 1883, which was
substantially incorporated into his history of " Con
necticut : A Study of Commonwealth Democracy,"
published In 1887. On the appearance of this work
I read It with interest ; but finding some statements
and opinions, presently to be referred to, which seemed
to me questionable at least, I made memoranda which
form the substance of what I am now saying. Pro
fessor Johnston possessed many qualifications for writ
ing history. He readily apjarehended and swiftly
methodized the facts appertaining to his subject, and
presented them in an attractive style. His views of
the origin and development of our institutions were
those of the new school pushed beyond their extreme
limits ; but his way of handling facts and drawing
Inferences from them was his own, and In my judg
ment not to be commended.
His views are best set forth In his own words, as
foUows : —
1. " Connecticut's town system was, hy a fortunate con
currence of circumstances, even more independent of out
side control than that of Massachusetts ; the principle of
local government had here a more complete recognition ;
and in the form in which it has done best service, its begin
ning was in Connecticut.
2, " The first conscious and deliberate efBort on this con
tinent to establish the democratic principle in control of
government was the settlement of Connecticut; and her
Constitution of 1639, the first written and democratic con
stitution on record, was the starting-point for the demo
cratic development which has since gained control of all

176 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
our Commonwealths, and now makes the essential feature
of our commonwealth government.
3. " Democratic institutions enabled the people of Con
necticut to maintain throughout their colonial history a
form of government so free from crown control that it
became really the exemplar of the rights at which aU the
colonies finally aimed.
4. " Connecticut, being mainly a federation of towns,
with neither so much of the centrifugal force as in Rhode
Island nor so much of the centripetal force as in other colo
nies, maintained for a century and a half that union of the
democratic and federative ideas which has at last come to
mark the whole United States.
6. " The Connecticut delegates, in the Convention of
1787, by another happy concurrence of circumstances, held
a position of unusual influence. The frame of their com
monwealth government, with its equal representation of
towns in one branch and its general popular representa
tion in the other, had given them a training which enabled
them to bend the form of our national Constitution into a
corresponding shape ; and the peculiar constitution of our
Congress, in the different bases of the Senate and House of
Representatives, was thus the result of Connecticut's long
maintenance of a federative democracy."
The foregoing propositions contain several matters
in respect to which I find myself not In accord with
Professor Johnston, but I shall advert to two only ;
and these are, first, his Ideas of the origin of Con
necticut towns, the functions assigned to them in the
formation of that Commonwealth, and their subse
quent relation to it ; and second, the alleged influence
in the Convention of 1787 of the Connecticut system
in giving shape to the Constitution of the United
States. Before giving further extracts from Professor John-

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL 177
ston's history, I will notice briefly the circumstances
of the settiement of the valley of the Connecticut,
detailed more fully by Palfrey.^
The most considerable emigration to Massachusetts
Bay which followed the coming of Winthrop in the
summer of 163(T was a party of East England people
who landed at Boston, September 4, 1633. Of these
the most conspicuous were John Cotton, Thomas
Hooker, Samuel Stone, and John Haynes, of whom all
except the last were clergymen, and aU except the
first were prominent In bringing about three years
later the exodus to Connecticut, and In setting up a
new commonwealth there In 1639. Hooker and Stone
were settled at Newtown, now Cambridge, as pastor
and teacher of the church there ; and In the summer
of 1636 they led many of their congregation as well
as the church to what Is now Hartford, where Haynes
joined them the next year. Warham, the Dorchester
clergyman, also carried his church and part of the
congregation to Windsor. These churches emigrated
as organized bodies, thus creating vacancies In these
several towns, which were filled by the formation of
new churches at Cambridge, under the charge of Shep-
ard, and at Dorchester, under the charge of Richard
Mather, the famous progenitor of the more famous
Increase and Cotton Mather. But the emigrants
from Watertown, Boston, and Roxbury, accompanied
by several eminent men, went as groups of people
unorganized either as church or community.
Thus, after three years' residence in the Bay, these
people went away to Connecticut. Indeed, they had
been settled only a few months before they conceived
and made known their dissatisfaction with things as
1 History of New England, i, 444, et seq.

178 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
they found them, and began to form plans for re
moval. The reasons they assigned for this desire
were as foUows : —
1. " Their want of accommodation for their cattle, so as
they were not able to maintain their ministers, nor could
receive any more of their friends to help them ; and here it
was alleged by Mr. Hooker, as a fundamental error, that
towns were so near to each other.
2. " The fruitfulness and commodiousness of Connecti
cut, and the danger of having it possessed by others, Dutch
or English.
3. " The strong bent of their spirits to remove thither." ^
In the two years before the emigrants led by Hooker
had reached Connecticut, a considerable number of
people must have gathered there ; for the General
Court, September 3, 1635, ordered " That every town
upon the Connecticut shall have liberty to choose
their own constable, who shall be sworn by some
magistrate of this Court ; " and on March 4 of the next
year appointed a commission to order provisIonaUy
for one year the affairs of the people there, and to
call a court of the Inhabitants to execute the authority
granted. When the powers of the Massachusetts
commissioners expired, the people of the several
1 Palfrey, History of New England, i, 445. Dr. Palfrey finds other
reasons than those assigned for their desire to remove to Connecticut ;
and his views are adopted by Charles M. Andrews, Fellow in History,
1889-1890, Johns Hopkins University, in his monograph entitled The
River Towns of Connecticut. It seems to me, however, that much
which has not been said may with good reason be said on the other
side. Under three heads, Mr. Andrews has admirably treated the
Early Settlement, the Land System, and the Towns and the People
of Connecticut. Mr, Andrews does not accept Professor Johnston's
peculiar theory in respect to the Connecticut towns, and quotes judi
cial decisions on the subject.

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL 179
towns chose their successors, and held courts until
the adoption of a constitution, January 14, 1639.
A material fact to be noted Is that in all of the pro
ceedings of the General Court of Massachusetts relat
ing to the Connecticut settlers, they are spoken of as
" our loving friends, neighbors, freemen, and mem
bers of Newtown, Dorchester, Watertown, and other
places, who are resolved to transport themselves and
their estates unto the River of Connecticut, and there
to reside and inhabit." No mention is made of any
" migrating towns."
I now return to Professor Johnston's narrative.
He says : —
" The independence of the town was a political fact which
has colored the whole history of the Commonwealth, and,
through it, of the United States. Even in Massachusetts,
after the real beginning of the government, the town was
subordinate to the colony ; and though the independence of
the churches forced a considerable local freedom there, it
was not so fundamental a fact as in Connecticut. Here the
three original towns had in the beginning left common
wealth control behind them when they left the parent
colony. They had gone into the wilderness, each the only
organized political power within its jurisdiction. Since
their prototypes, the little tuns of the primeval German
forest, there had been no such examples of the perfect
capacity of the political cell — the ' town ' — for self-gov
ernment. In Connecticut it was the towns that created the
Commonwealth ; and the consequent federative idea has
steadily influenced the colony and State alike. In Con
necticut the governing principle, due to the original con.sti-
tution of things rather than to the policy of the Common
wealth, has been that the town is the residuary legatee of
political power ; that it is the State which is called upon to
make out a clear case for powers to which it lays claim ;

180 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
and that the towns have a, prima facie case in their favor
wherever a doubt arises " (p. 61).
With these extracts before us we can state more
succinctly Professor Johnston's theory. He says,
though somewhat vaguely, that towns came from the
forests of Germany to England, and from England to
Massachusetts Bay ; and, more distinctly, that three of
them — Watertown, Newtown, and Dorchester, — as or
ganized towns, migrated to Connecticut, and there in
1639 set up a commonwealth as the result of their joint
corporate action : — that these towns, having created
a commonwealth, became the pattern for towns in
other commonwealths ; and so happily had their sys
tem of confederated towns worked, and especially In
relation to the commonwealth, that the Connecticut
delegation in the Convention of 1787 were able to per
suade that body to form the Constitution of the United
States on the same basis, — the Senate, with Its equal
and unalterable representation of sovereign States
answering to the Independent Connecticut towns ;
and the House of Representatives, elected by popular
vote, answering to the Connecticut Council, elected
in the same manner. Professor Johnston says : —
" And this is so like the standard theory of the relations
of the States to the federal government that it is neces
sary to notice the peculiar exactness with which the relar
tions of Connecticut towns to the Commonwealth are propor
tioned to the relations of the Commonwealth to the United
States. In other States, power runs from the State up
wards and from the State downwards ; in Connecticut, the
towns have always been to the Commonwealth as the Com
monwealth to the Union. ... In this respect the life
principle of the American Union may be traced straight
back to the primitive union of the three little settlements

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL 181
on the hank of the Connecticut River. ... It is hardly
too much to say that the birth of the Constitution [of the
United States] was merely the grafting of the Connecti
cut system on the stock of the confederation, where it has
grown into richer luxuriance than Hooker could ever have
dreamed of" (pp. 62, 322).
The fallacy of this scheme lies in his theory respect
ing towns, — their existence independent of some sov
ereign power.
This leads, then, to an examination of the nature of
towns. Three things seem necessary to constitute a
town, — territory, population, and corporate existence.
It must have definite territory with a certain per
manency of tenure. A military company, a camp-
meeting, or a tourist party — frequently more numer
ous than the inhabitants of some towns — occupying
territory for an Indefinite time and, it may be, observing
many regulations which govern towns, nevertheless
does not constitute a town. Nor does a migratory
body of people such as is found In pastoral regions ;
for when the Inhabitants of a town remove to another
locality they do not take their town with them, though
no town remains behind. Whether they go to a place
within the same jurisdiction or to one outside of It,
in either case on removal their corporate powers re
vert to the state, and they become a voluntary organ
ization unknown to the law and without rights before
it. They are relegated to their natural rights. Again,
the inhabitants of a town constitute a legal unit which,
for certain purposes at least, absorbs the Individual
ity of Its members. It is a corporation by express
creation of the state, or has become such by prescrip
tion ; and one of the tests of such a body-corporate Is
its power to sue and its liabUity to be sued in its

182 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
corporate name. When, therefore, certain inhabitants
of Watertown, Cambridge, and Dorchester migrated
to Connecticut, even though they constituted the ma
jor part of the inhabitants of those towns, and even
though they had carried the town records and other
evidences of their corporate existence along with them,
which they did not, they went simply as a body of un
organized people voluntarily associated for seeking a
new residence. They did not take the towns along
with them. After the migration the map showed no
vacancies with asterisks referring to the margin,
" Gone to Connecticut." They went, according to the
act authorizing their going, as " divers of our loving
friends, neighbors, freemen, and members of Newtown,
Dorchester, Watertown, and other places ; " and they
went under the government of commissioners author
ized, not to create towns, but to exercise certain
powers of state over them for the space of a year. So
little is the foundation for Professor Johnston's as
sumption " that three fuUy organized Massachusetts
towns passed out of the jurisdiction of any common
wealth, and proceeded to build up a commonwealth
of their own " (p. 12).
But were It possible and were It true that the
three Massachusetts towns migrated as such, it Is
neither true nor is it possible that they could have
set up a commonwealth, though their people might
have done so, and in fact did.
Professor Johnston caUs the town the political
cell from which the commonwealth was evolved.
But a town can be the germ of nothing but a
greater town ; never of a commonwealth. The rights
and duties of towns are communal, and for such
rights and duties they may provide; but even then

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL 183
these powers are delegated, not inherent. The state
may, and often does, attend to these matters. But the
rights and duties of the state primarily concern sov
ereignty, external relations, and general laws affect
ing the inhabitants of aU the state. Some of these
powers the state, for convenience, may delegate to the
inhabitants of towns, such as the election of consta
bles, who are officers of the state not of the town, and
whose legal relations are to the state not to the town.
On the other hand. It need not be denied that a
town may be something more, and like the Hanse
Towns become quallfiedly independent. But this is
not in consequence of the development or extension
of communal functions so as to include national func
tions. It is by taking on new functions. Where
these are exercised, it is not because they belong to
the town or city In its corporate capacity, but because
they are assumed by the people, and- their assumption
is allowed by neighboring states ; and even then they
owe a qualified allegiance to some sovereign, which is
inconsistent with the idea of an absolutely independ
ent commonwealth.
If we look at the natural order of towns and com
monwealths, it will appear that the latter is first. The
primary question of government which concerns every
community Is that of sovereignty. When this Is not
denied, the question Is In abeyance ; nor does It prac
ticaUy arise where communities, under a previously
settled order of relations to the sovereign power, pro
ceed at once to provide for their communal relations.
And so we find that the first act of legislative bod
ies is to provide for the safety of the body politic, and
later for communal affairs. They first establish the
state, and then erect towns.. Nor is this order ever

184 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
reversed. The genesis of the state is not from its
parts, — confederated districts, towns, or counties, — -
but from the sovereign people, who arrange them
selves into towns and counties.
The same is true of a confederacy of Independent
states, whether monarchical or democratic; for be
hind the resultant form of confederation are the
people, who assent to the proposed relation.
The genesis of American commonwealths Is histori
cally clear. (1) They originated with mere adven
turers for fishing, hunting, or trading, who without
territorial ownership or by state authority established
themselves on the coast. Among these, though with
other views, must be Included the Pilgrims driven
out of their course by adverse circumstances, as well
as the first settlers of Rhode Island and Connecticut.
(2) They originated with those who had purchased
lands and obtained charters. (3) They were founded
under proprietary governments. (4) They were
founded as royal governments. In aU these cases
we find that people first addressed themselves to their
foreign relations and to the perfecting of their auto
nomy. Neither towns nor town records appear until
much later. Nor does it change the order of these re
lations that the state simultaneously took upon itself
the direction of communal as well as of general affairs.
The town was not the primordial cell which developed
into a state, but the state was the mother of her
towns. Development is along the lines of original
constitutions, and seldom or never passes over into a
different genus.
In accordance with this order, whUe the three Mas
sachusetts towns of Watertown, Cambridge, and Dor
chester, with their records and corporate powers and

THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL 185
muniments, remain where they were first settled, it Is
true that a large number of their inhabitants, between
1634 and 1637, migrated to Connecticut and settled
as communities In places now known as Hartford, Wind
sor, and Wethersfield. They went as unorganized bod
ies of people, by permission of the Bay Colony, which,
for reasons stated in their commission, had assumed
jurisdiction over that part of Connecticut — a fact
recognized by the migrating parties. It is further
true that these same people, — not in any corporate
capacity, for that they lacked, — on the expiration of
the Bay Colony commission, chose commissioners for
themselves ; and In 1639, In the language of their own
constitution, " We the Inhabitants and Residents of
Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield ... do associ
ate and conform ourselves to be as one Public State
or Commonwealth." Such was the genesis of Con
necticut. Towns had absolutely nothing to do with it.
They did not even exist ; and It was not before 1639
that the unorganized communities which went from
the Bay Colony were set up as corporations. Instead
of being the creators of the commonwealth they were
its offspring. From the commonwealth they derived
all of their powers. Nor is their character In any
essential respect changed — they are neither more nor
less than towns — by the fact that the state, for the
convenience of towns more widely separated from one
another and removed from a common centre than
were those In the Bay, chose to delegate a larger share
of her authority to them than Massachusetts did to
her towns. In both cases they derived aU their
power from the state and conferred none upon it.
Nor were they any more " little republics," or more
Independent of state control than other towns In New

186 THE NEW HISTORICAL SCHOOL
England, because In apportioning representation to
the General Court town lines were used to express the
territorial unit of representation.
It would seem that Professor Johnston's theory of
town sovereignty was adopted to lay the foundation
for his fifth proposition, that In the Convention of 1787
the equal and unchangeable representation of the
States in the Senate of the United States was based
upon the Connecticut system of town representation.
So far from this being probable, the fact Is that while
the representation In the Senate of the United States
was state or corporate representation, the representa
tion In the General Assembly was not corporate repre
sentation, but essentiaUy the representation of the
people determined, not by corporate powers, but by
town lines.
We find nothing in the debates of the Convention of
1787 which warrants the view of Professor Johnston.
Theories of government were discussed, constitutions
of the several States were referred to, and some of
their provisions, notably those of Massachusetts, were
adopted; but the main features of the Constitution
were determined by the necessities of the situation and
the Interests of sections and of States, — as large or
small, agricultural or commercial, slaveholding or non-
slaveholdlng. The Connecticut delegation had great influence in
the Convention, first, because Sherman, Johnson, and
Ellsworth were very able men, and the only three very
able men from any State who worked together ; and
secondly, because Connecticut, being neither one of
the largest nor one of the smallest States, held a posi
tion of great influence as mediator between the two
classes of States.

THE
GENESIS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS
TOWN
TAKEN FROM A DISCUSSION HELD BY CHARLES
FRANCIS ADAMS, ABNER C. GOODELL, Jr.,
MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN, AND
EDWARD CHANNING
Reprinted from the Pkoceedings op the Massachusetts
Historical Society, January, 1892

THE GENESIS OF THE MASSACHU
SETTS TOWN

Mr. Adams, in presenting his paper on the " Gene
sis of the Massachusetts Town and the Development
of Town-meeting Government," has told us that It was
written as a chapter of his forthcoming History of
Quincy ; and that he had sent copies of It to several
gentlemen of the Society — to myself among others —
with the request that at this meeting they would ex
press their opinions respecting the conclusions which
he had reached.
This treatment of historical questions is a new de
parture which, so far as It tends to bring about a con
sensus of opinions, might be followed with advantage ;
but In the present Instance, inasmuch as the matters
contained in Mr. Adams's paper, as well as those in
an earlier one to which he has referred, have been sub
jects of correspondence between us, and as my general
views have been presented to the Society in a paper
entitled " The New Historical School," ^ there may be
no good reason for my saying more than this, — that I
regard Mr. Adams's paper as a valuable contribution
to the literature of the subject, and in general that it
accords with my own views. Nevertheless, before I
sit down I may advert to the few points on which we
appear to differ.
1 Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, series 2, v, 264.

190 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
In the mean time I wish to say something about the
parochial theory, which, though not new, is newly In
teresting from the prominence given to it by the dis
tinction of its recent advocates, among whom was Mr.
Adams ; but as he has relieved the ship by throwing
overboard the parish system as the most cumbersome
and least valuable part of the cargo, advised and as
sisted therein somewhat, as he frankly teUs us, by one
or two of the passengers who had made the voyage,
some explanation of the reasons which influenced them
seems due at this time.
The origin of the New England towns Is not a new
question. It has been discussed at home and abroad
by those whose training and predilection for historical
questions qualified them for such Investigations. I
propose, therefore, to mention those which have come
under my eye, and have aided me In forming the con
clusion that these towns were of domestic and secular
origin, owing little to English models, and least of all
to English parishes.
In 1845 Richard Frothingham,^ as the result of his
investigations, said that " England did not furnish an
example of New England town government ; " and
this seems to have remained his opinion twenty-five
years later.^
In 1857 Mr. Justice Gray of the Supreme Court of
the United States, then reporter of the decisions of the
Supreme Court of Massachusetts, In notes to the case
of Commonwealth vs. Roxbury ^ treated one phase of
the question with great thoroughness and ability.
In 1865 Joel Parker, formerly Chief Justice of New
^ History of Charlestown, 49,
^ Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, October, 1870,
* 9 Gray's Reports, 451,

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 191
Hampshire, then professor in the Law School at Cam
bridge, with wider scope inquired Into "The Origin,
Organization, and Influence of the Towns of New Eng
land." ^ Having myself some years ago and again
quite recently gone over the same ground in original
authorities, and without reference to his work, I find
that I am In accord with Professor Parker's views ;
and were it otherwise, I should venture dissent only
on the clearest grounds, and with the consensus of
those on whose judgment I could safely rely. For his
paper in substance, though not in form, Is the judicial
opinion of one whose practice as a leading lawyer at
an able bar or as judge in the highest legal tribunal
of his State led him to explore the origin of New Eng
land towns with the thoroughness and accuracy re
quired by his great responsibility.
I have also read Mr. Melville Egleston's " The
Land System of the New England Colonies," which
seems to me an admirable piece of work ; and not less
admirable and with wider range are the papers of Mr.
Charles M. Andrews, now professor In Bryn Mawr
College, on "The River Towns of Connecticut,"^
"The Beginning of the Connecticut Towns," ^ and
" The Theory of the ViUage Community." * Mr. Wil
liam E. Foster, of Providence, an accomplished writer
on historical subjects, has published a valuable paper
on " Town Government in Rhode Island." ^ Either

' Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, ix, 14,
^ Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political
Science, 1889,
^ Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
October, 1890.
* Papers ofthe American Historical Association, y. 47,
^ Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political
Science, 1886.

192 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
to mention or to commend in this presence " The
Origin of Towns in Massachusetts," by our learned
associate Mr. Goodell,^ would be equally superfluous.
The opinion of Professor Parker, that New Eng
land towns were essentially indigenous, has been
questioned, sometimes directly and sometimes indi
rectly, by the New Historical School, In which Pro
fessor H. B. Adams, the late Professor Johnston,
Professor John Fiske, and our associate Professor
Edward Channing, are leaders ; and therefore after
some hesitation I have concluded to review, though
not exhaustively, the origin of New England towns.
Mr. Adams's thoroughgoing paper makes It unneces
sary for me to go over the whole ground. There are
at least three theories In respect to them.
First, that they were native to the soil, and planted
by English emigrants with the instincts, traditions,
and methods of their race, but controlled, neverthe
less, by their charters, patents, or royal commissions,
and the conditions of situation utterly unlike those
which surrounded them in England.
Second, that they were copies of English proto
types, as those were of German, and these, again, of
those in remote regions Inhabited by the Aryan race ;
and that certain resemblances common to all are
specific and conscious imitations rather than those
forms and modes of action which arise spontaneously
in all ages and everywhere when men gather in per
manent bodies as vlUage communities or as organized
municipalities. One of the most distinguished of
those who have adopted this theory and pushed It to
its extreme limits was Professor Johnston, who
claimed that towns — not companies of men merely,
^ Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, series 2, v, 320,

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 193
but organized towns — migrated from England to
Massachusetts Bay and thence to Connecticut.^

1 In the paper on " The New Historical School " above referred to,
I said that in the cargoes shipped hy oar ancestors to Massachusetts
Bay no such thing as a town was to be found ; and this I hear has
been regarded as a denial of what no one ever thought of asserting,
I had in mind the following paragraph in Professor Johnston's The
United States : Its History and Constitution, 10 : " In New England
local organization was q[uite different, A good example is the town
of Dorchester, Organized (March 20, 1630) in Plymouth, England,
when its people were on the point of embarkation for America, it
took the shape of a distinct town and church before they went on
shipboard. Its civil and ecclesiastical organizations were complete
before tliey landed in Massachusetts Bay, and came under the juris
diction of a chartered company. Its people governed themselves in
all but a few points, in which the colony asserted its superiority. As
the colony's claims increased, the town's dissatisfaction increased. In
l(i35 the town migrated in a body, with its civil aud ecclesiastical or
ganizations still intact, into the vacant territory of Connecticut, and
there became the town of Windsor," This is what had been asserted,
and this is what I denied, — that a town came over with Winthrop's
fleet in 1630, The sole foundation for the assertion, so far as I am
aware, is the following passage from Blake's Annals of Dorchester, 7,
amplified somewhat from a similar passage in Clap's Memoirs in
Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay, 347 : " These good People
[those who came to Dorchester with Maverick and Warham] met to
gether at Plymouth, a Sea-port Town in y** S*^ County of Devon, in
order to Ship themselves & Families for New-England ; and because
they designed to live together after they should arrive here, they met
together in the New Hospital in Plymouth and Associated into Church
Fellowship, and Chose y' S^ Mr. Maverick and Mr, Warham to be
their Ministers and Officers, keeping y'^ Day as a Day of Solemn
Fasting & Prayer, and y' S'^ Ministers accepted of y^ Call & Ex
pressed y^ same," From this it seems to have been inferred that cer
tain persons who met at Plymouth, in England, with the intention of
going to Massachusetts Bay, by forming a church and choosing
church officers and expressing their purpose to live together on reach
ing New Engliind, thereby became a body politic, civil and ecclesias
tical, at Dorchester, Massachusetts, without having acquired that char
acter by prescription or by incorporation under the charter. So far
as this assumption applies to the town, it does not require serious
refutation ; nor am I sure that it is better founded in respect to the
church. The simplest idea of a church is that of a body of people

194 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
Third, is the theory which, while it denies or is
silent in respect to the Germanic origin of New Eng
land towns, claims that they are essentially reproduc
tions of the English parish, and their procedure that
of the English vestry. The late Kev. Mr. Barry, if
not to the fullest extent of this theory, goes very far
when he says: "The idea of the formation of such
associated tog-ether -with a common belief, having power to admit and
reject memhers, and to discipline them on charges which if not proven
might be actionable with damages, except for the immunity accorded
such bodies by the law of the place. That such a body can exist
proprio vigore without the permission, expressed or implied, of the
civil power, is, I confess, utterly at variance with my ideas on the
subject. Had it been so, what would have prevented any like num
ber of Baptists, Church of England men, or Roman Catholics having
right to allotments of lands under the Company, from forming them
selves into churches and transporting themselves to Massachusetts
Bay, with ecclesiastical rights and privileges in spite of the Puritan
church ? How the far less pretentious claims of tbe Episcopal
Brownes were met by Endicott and his Council is matter of history ;
and how the General Court regarded such voluntary associations even
by those whose theological tenets and church forms were unexception
able, may be learned from the following order of the General Court,
March 3, 1636 : " Forasmuch as it hath been found by sad experience,
that much trouble and disturbance hath happened both to the church
and civil state by the officers and members of some churches, which
have been gathered within the limiis of this jurisdiction in an undue
manner, and not with such public approbation as were meet, it is
therefore ordered that all persons are to take notice that this Court
doth not, nor will hereafter, approve of any such companies of men
as shall henceforth join in any pretended way of church fellowship,
without they shall first acquaint the magistrates, and the elders of
the greater part of the churches in this jurisdiction, with their inten
tions, and have their approbation herein " upon pain of being excluded
from admission as freemen. — 1 Colonial Records, 168.
I do not propose to discuss this theory further than I have already
done in " The New Historical School," chiefly because, if not given
up, it has at least been greatly shaken in late years ; but partly because
its critical examination leads me into fields with which I am not alto
gether familiar, and from which those who are, bring back widely
different and inconsistent reports.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 195
communities [towns] was probably derived from the
parishes of England ; for each town was a parish, and
each as It was incorporated was required to contri
bute to the maintenance of the ministry, as the basis
of Its grants of municipal rights." ^
Professor Fiske puts it unequivocally that the town
government in New England " was simply the Eng
lish parish government brought Into a new country
and adapted to the new situation." ^
If there be any doubt how far our learned associate
Dr. Edward Channing accepts this theory in his
" Town and County Government," he is here to re
solve it if he so chooses.
I have read these authorities with the attention
due to the subject, and with the respect commanded
by the learning and ability of the writers ; but if
they mean more than this, that the aptitude of the
English race for government Is greater than that of
the Latin and Celtic races, chiefly by reason of Its
experience In legislative bodies, among which may be
reckoned English town-meetings and parish vestries,
then I must dissent for reasons which I now proceed
to give. But first let us confront these theories with
the phenomena of admitted facts in regard to the
origin of New England towns.
The sporadic settlements In New England which
ultimately became colonies, or towns within them,
were not made on territory under the acknowledged
jurisdiction of any sovereign authority capable of
instant and effective protection in case of assault ; but
1 History of Massachusetts, i. 215,
2 Civil Government in the United States, 39, 41, 42, And see other
references by Mr. Adams to the Memorial History of Boston, i. 406,
427, and Brooks Adams's Emancipation of Massachusetts, 26.

196 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
on the contrary, proprietorship and jurisdiction were
claimed, on the one hand, by Indian tribes, and on
the other, by the French with whom the English were
chronically at war. This fact lay at the foundation
of origins, and had a formative influence upon de
velopments from them, since it forced the settlers,
whether families like those of Maverick at Winnisim-
met, Blackstone at Boston, and Walford at Charles
town, or groups like those at Falmouth and Saco In
Maine, and Portsmouth, Exeter, and Dover In New
Hampshire, and Plymouth, Salem, Boston, Groton,
Haverhill, Deerfield, Springfield, and Northfield In
Massachusetts, and Providence, Portsmouth, New
port, and Warwick In Rhode Island, and Hartford,
Wethersfield, and Windsor In Connecticut, to post
pone communal affairs, such as roads, local police,
care of the poor and schools, to affairs of state, such
as war and peace, limits of territory, jurisdiction and
defence. Each of these towns was the possible centre
of an Independent colony ; and five of them (Exeter,
Boston, Plymouth, Providence, and Hartford) be
came such.
This phenomenon in the origin of New England
towns may not be unique ; but to find anything like
it In the Old World, we must run back Into the
remote past until we meet a case where people leav
ing the protection of a settled government sought a
region foreign and remote ; and there, first asserting
and maintaining Independent statehood,^ finally rele-
^ To this fact of statehood common in the history of so many of the
early towns, I think is largely due that spirit of independence, as little
repubUcs, which sometimes asserted itself even against the paramount
government, but was always finally reduced to due subordination.
The mistake has been made of regarding this spirit of independence
— a survival from earlier days — as an ultimate fact of political inde-

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 197
gated themselves or were relegated into subordinate
communities, from which they developed into corpo
rate bodies having essential resemblance to those New
England towns which have attracted attention on
both sides of the water, as something the precise like
of which does not appear In recorded history.
The next phenomenon, though not peculiar to New
England towns. Is this, — that between their coming
together either subject to some paramount govern
ment or living independent of any such government
and their final incorporation as bodies politic, these
village communities exercised certain rights and per
formed certain duties not unlike those which after
ward appertained to them as incorporated towns.
By common consent. It would seem, they divided
some lands among themselves and held other lands
for common use, either for wood or pasturage, and in
both cases assuming corporate ownership so far at
least as to make good title in the allottees. They
also provided in respect to those communal necessi
ties which, few and simple at first, Increase with the
growth of village communities. Nor is it unlikely,
but on the contrary It Is most likely, that for better
understanding of their common Interests they came
together in assemblies, chose a chairman, appointed
committees, and delegated certain powers to a select
number of their body, just as they had done in their
pendence in later days, Nothing can he further from the truth.
Towns were sometimes obliged to assume the duties of the state, and
on the other hand, the state not infrequently discharged communal
offices ; but when their character as state or town was ultimately de
termined, each was relegated to its own proper functions. All the
powers and the very existence of towns are derived from the state.
At any time it may unite or divide them, enlarge or diminish theip
powers, or even take them away altogether.

198 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
English parish vestries, and for that matter as reason
able people in all nations and In all ages have done
and must still continue to do. In the absence of
records, the facts of this stage of communal life are
conjectural rather than determinate. From their
later records, however, we learn some things which
they did, but little as to the precise mode of doing
them. This experience doubtless had great Influence
in shaping the form, determining the character, and
regulating the conduct of towns after they became
incorporated bodies ; and Indeed, I think that the later
definition of their powers and duties by the state was
mainly in confirmation of what had come to pass from
the nature of things and their circumstances.
The third phenomenon is the erection of these com
munities into bodies politic by incorporation, not as
units of the sovereign state,^ but as dependent bodies
owing their corporate existence and exercising all
their delegated functions In strict subordination to
the paramount power.
The last phenomenon presented by New England
towns to which I shall advert is the promulgation by
Massachusetts as early as 1636 of their rights,
powers, and duties, with a completeness and precision
to which the advanced civilization of two and a half
centuries has found little to add. Of course new in-
^ I cannot regard towns as units of the state, as some do, I do not
see that the mere aggregation of like things produces an unlike thing,
as that several hundreds of towns of derived and limited powers con
stitute a state of sovereign powers, or that a hundred copper cents can
be constituent units of a gold dollar, or, in fine, that species by com
bination can form a new genus, I prefer to regard the state as an
aggregation in a body politic of those units capable of formino- a
state, — the duly qualified inhabitants thereof, upon whom in the
last analysis, monarchies and even despotisms, as well as republics
rest.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 199
stances and new applications of communal powers and
duties have arisen, and others doubtless will arise In
the future ; but the principle — that of incorporation
for communal purposes — remains the same as it was
in the beginning.
I now proceed to consider the attempt to affiliate
New England towns upon the English parish.
We all know what a New England town is to-day,
— its organization, the source of its powers and privi
leges, and under what sanction It performs Its duties.
But what an English town or an English parish Is, —
what their several jurisdictions, powers, rights, duties,
and relations to each other and to the sovereign
authority are, — It Is not easy to say with precision.
Their origins reach back to a remote and clouded an
tiquity, and they are what they are, not by written
laws, but by growth, prescription, and specially
granted privileges, so varied and anomalous that any
definition of them has almost as many exceptions as
there are cases Included in it.
There is another impediment to the successful in
vestigation of English institutional origins. With us,
in respect to our own, such questions excite no feeling
more poignant than a rational curiosity as to the
truth of history ; but with our English brethren simi
lar questions are burning questions. Involving in their
settlement either way not only the sacrifice of deeply
seated political and ecclesiastical prejudices, but also
Important political and pecuniary Interests. Hence
In the discussion of them, as In a lawyer's brief,
authorities which make for one side are set forth with
fullness, while those which make for the other side are
too frequently suppressed or slurred over.^
^ In his History of Representative Government, Guizot has no-

200 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
In England, time out of mind, there has been con
tention between those who, on the one hand, would
retain within parish control not only the prudentials
of the church, but also the maintenance of roads, the
care of the poor, etc. ; and those, on the other hand,
who would withdraw from an essentially ecclesiastical
body like the parish the care of matters purely secu
lar, and intrust the direction of them to that civil cor
porate body known as the town. This contention ar
rays people Into parties : one claiming that since, in
the order of institution, the towns antedate the church
and Include the great body of qualified Inhabitants,
by fair right they should control those secular inter
ests which belong to municipal bodies ; and the other,
denying the premises, and asserting that the parish is
not only the older institution but that It Is and always
has been a secular institution, demand that its control
of secular affairs be continued.
And so this historical question becomes an econo
mic question upon the settlement of which depends
the patronage of office and the disbursement of the
large sums annually expended in municipal affairs, —
whether they should be open to the whole body of
qualified Inhabitants of the town, or continue as they
have been, in the management of the parish, which,
though composed mainly of the same persons as the
town. Is nevertheless by Its possession of machinery
essentially ecclesiastical, and, under the Influence of
ecclesiastics beyond popular control, confines to a few
persons rights and duties which belong to all.
ticed the influence of political predilection in shaping the argument
and determining the conclusion both of Whigs and Tories  the
former in support of popularizing parliamentary representation, claim
ing for it a remote antiquity ; and the Tories, always wiUing to re
strict popular privileges, asserting that everything which sustains
these privileges was a late innovation.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 201
On any question of English local history fairly
treated, I defer to the English decision of It, however
at variance with any opinion I have drawn of original
authorities ; for I am aware that an American must
mainly read those authorities along the lines, and that
only a native Is privileged to read between the lines,
where the truest part of history is always to be
found. But I am not willing to accept any history, foreign
or domestic, written to serve a party or an Interest ;
and such, after careful examination, I think is Toul-
mln Smith's " The Parish," greatly relied on by those
who find the origin of New England towns in the
English parish of the seventeenth century.
Toulmin Smith claims that the parish antedates the
town ; that Its origin and functions were secular, not
ecclesiastical, but that this secular body had drawn to
itself certain ecclesiastical functions ; to all this Is op
posed authority equally high, at least, and the mani
fest tendency of ecclesiastical power everywhere and
In all ages to usurp secular powers.
Brande ^ says that " In the earliest ages of the
church, the parochia was the district placed under
the superintendence of the bishop, and was equivalent
to the diocese ; . . . But although parishes were ori
ginally ecclesiastical divisions, they may now be more
properly considered as coming under the class of civil
divisions." A late writer whose work^ Is commended
by our associate Dr. Channing, as " the best descrip
tion of the English parish at the present day," says :
" Though In Its origin the parish was probably framed
upon the old township. It soon became a purely eccle-
^ Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art, title " Parish."
2 Elliot's The State and the Church, p, 55.

202 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
slastlcal division, and the permanent officers were
ecclesiastics also. The church-wardens, with the par
ishioners In vestry assembled, presided over by the
clergyman, managed the affairs and administered the
parochial funds. Gradually the tendency increased
to treat the parish, for purposes of local administra
tion, as a unit as well as an ecclesiastical division ;
and it in particular acquired statutory authority to
impose rates to provide for Its poor and to elect offi
cers to collect and administer the funds belonging to
It ; whilst on the parish from the earliest times the
old common law had always imposed the duty of main
taining and repairing the public roads."
But against all this Toulmin Smith contends,^ that
the parish Is an essential part of the fabric of the
state ; that its original and main work and functions
were secular ; that those who seek to represent these
as being ecclesiastical are truly, though without al
ways intending it, enemies both to the religious and
civil Institutions of the country ; ^ that the parish was
made for the administration of justice, keeping the
peace, collection of taxes, and the other purposes
incidental to civil government and local well-being ;
that ecclesiastical authorities are very anxious to make
it appear that parishes took their rise from ecclesias
tical arrangements ; that ecclesiastics no sooner be
came established in parishes than they endeavored to
make their authority paramount ; that the old mean
ing of the word town was simply what we now call
parish, and that in country churchyards, In parishes
where there has never been any town In the modern
1 The Parish, pp, 11, 12, 15, 23, 26, 33,
" This and similar passages, I think, justify me in calling his work
a partisan affair.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 203
sense, inscriptions will be found, both of old and re
cent date, naming the parish, township, or otherwise,
as the town.^
Now, whatever may be the truth in this conflict of
authorities respecting the nature of towns and parishes
before 1600 or after 1630, It would be much to our
purpose If we could learn what the parish was between
those dates ; for then the education, character, and
prejudices of those who were to make New England
towns were mainly formed by their participation in
English parish affairs. What, then, during these
formative years was there In the conduct of English
parishes that would predispose our towns to accept or
to reject them with their vestry system of administra
tion, as models of their town organizations and the
conduct of their town-meetings ?
This question may be answered in part by a quota
tion from Toulmin Smith's book : " One of the most
daring and Insidious of ecclesiastical encroachments
has been the attempt to interfere with the election of
1 It is by such argument as this that Toulmin Smith endeavors to
prove the legal identity of the corporations in England known as
towns and parishes ; and to the same effect I have found, under some
mislaid reference, the following : " Memorandum that this year 1581,
by the consent of the parish of Stowmarket there was grant made to
two persons of the ground commonly called the town ground of Stow
market for the term of three years paying to the church-warden , , .
and the town further do condition, etc. ; " from which another writer
infers that the town and parish were interchangeable names of the
same body. In that case we should have the parish (that is, the
town) consenting to a lease made by the town (that is, the parish) ;
or, in other words, the town makes a lease, and then the town con
sents to its own act, which is absurd. The real transaction seems to
have been this : the town, one corporation and owner in fee, makes a
lease of the " town ground ; " and the parish, another corporation,
having some interest in that ground, for a valuable consideration
paid to the church-wardens, the parish representatives, consents to
the lease, thereby giving a clear title.

204 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
church-wardens, and to take the election of one of
them out of the hands of the 'temporal estate,' and
make the ofiice the donative of the parson. This
attempt was made by certain ecclesiastical canons
adopted by Convocation In 1603." ^ This was one of
the one hundred and forty-one articles of the Book of
Canons which passed both houses of Convocation in
May, 1603, and was ratified by the king, but was
afterward declared by the courts to bind only the
clergy, not having been confirmed by act of Parlia
ment ; ^ but long before this it had done its Intended
repressive work upon the Puritans, against whom it
was chiefly aimed. Besides the article already quoted,
designed to enlarge the power of the established
clergy In parish affairs, were others respecting parish
clerks. Among the duties of the parish were the
repairs of the church edifice ; and under cover of this.
Laud, some years later, caused the restoration of those
paintings and relics of superstition and idolatry, as
the Puritans thought them, which had been destroyed
after the Eeformatlon.^ And In general, the parish
vestry, sometimes legally and sometimes otherwise,
and always by the power and influence of Its officers,
became an effective instrument in the enforcement of
those cruel measures which caused so much suffering
to the Puritans, and finally drove them into exile in
New England. This, surely, was not precisely the
education, training, and personal experience which
would cause them to become so enamored of the par
ish system as to make It the model of their Massachu
setts towns. 1 The Parish, 291.
2 Neal's History ofthe Puritans, ii, 57.
8 Ibid. 240,

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 206
After the Reformation an English church with its
parish vestry performed a function of the English
government, and Its foundation was In the constitu
tion. A local church was part of a system co-exten
sive with England, recognizing no superior, no equal,.
no other.
The creed, ritual, liturgy, and discipline of one
church were those of every other established church ;
and all were ordained or sanctioned by Parliament, —
a secular, not a spiritual body.
Its ministers, each of whom was a corporation, were
not chosen by the local church or parish, but on
presentation of the patron in whom that right was
private property subject to sale or mortgage, and who
was not infrequently influenced by most unworthy
motives, were instituted by the bishops of the diocese ;
and their support was not by voluntary contributions
of the people, but mainly by tithes exacted from them
under parliamentary laws.
Its secular or prudential affairs were managed by
the vestry, whose powers, enlarged sometimes by law
and sometimes by ecclesiastical usurpations, had come
to Include matters having no relation to religion.
That the high-churchmen who settled Virginia
should adopt this system, as they did, would ac
cord with the fitness of things; but that Puritans
should do so was not likely nor in accordance with
the facts.
For the Puritans who came to Massachusetts Bay
were in revolt against both sides of the system ; and
no sooner had they reached Salem than they swept
away every vestige of it. And not long after Endi
cott, as has been said, shipped the Brownes back to
England for openly expressing what non-conformists

206 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
had professed, — loyalty and love for the Church of
England. So wide and profound was the change they
had undergone since leaving their native shores, that
those who had been non-conforming Puritans In Eng
land became Independents in Massachusetts Bay, and
ever after, In creed, discipline, and church order, were
in no essential respect distinguishable from the Sepa
ratists at Plymouth.
What, then, was the independency which Winthrop
and his people set up, and whence came it? The
Puritan church system established on New England
soil, regarded either as a protest against the Arminian
tendencies of the English Church, or as a mode of
ecclesiastical government having relations to civil
society, was an exotic brought from Geneva to Eng
land, and thence to New England. The Church of
England, at the time of the great emigration, was led
by the Arminian Laud ; the Puritan Church of New
England embraced the creed of Calvin as interpreted
and enforced by the Synod of Dort. The Church of
England was dominated by a hierarchy to which the
churches in every parish In England were in subjec
tion. A Genevan church chose Its own creed, estab
lished Its own discipline and order of worship, called
its own pastor and supported him by voluntary con
tributions. It was this simple Genevan system which the refu
gees from persecution in the days of Mary brought
back on their return from the Continent In the days
of Elizabeth and James; and it was this Genevan
system, theological and ecclesiastical, which Elizabeth
and James and Charles sought to crush by all the
powers of government, civil and ecclesiastical ; and It
was from the persecution brought on by the conflict

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 207
between the two systems that they fled to New Eng
land ; nor did It cease even there.^
They fled from the Arminian Laud ; what likeli
hood of their bringing Arminlanism to Boston ? They
fled from ecclesiastical exactions countenanced, and
in some particulars enforced, by the Church of Eng
land vestry and parish authorities ; what greater like
lihood of their choosing an English parish as the
model of a New England town?
Of course, in both systems — that which they left
behind and that which they built up in their new
homes — there was one common factor, an English
man ; an Englishman with the instincts, traditions,
and habits of his race, — - a race averse indeed to new
methods and Inclined to old methods, but, neverthe
less, never allowing them to stand long in the way of
needed reforms or to impede the course of essential
justice, as Strafford with the law on his side found,
and Charles I. with the constitution on his side, and
as did James II. when a convention assumed the
powers of Parliament and changed the succession to
the crown against the claim of divine right and es
tablished order. The Puritans were Englishmen In
England ; they were no more and no less than English
men in Boston Bay. We need not be surprised,
therefore, nor draw any unwarranted conclusions
^ The influences which prompted the movement of Laud in 1 634
to overthrow the Massachusetts charter may be gathered from Thomas
Morton's letter written from England, in May, 1634, to WUliam Jef
freys in Massachusetts ; ' ' which shows what opinion is held amongst
them [their lordships] of King Winthrop with all his inventions and
his Amsterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, marriages, and
other abusive ceremonies, which do exemplify his detestation to the
Church of England and the contempt of his Majesty's authority and
wholesome laws, which are and will be established in these parts,
invitci MinervS.." (New English Canaan, Prince Society ed, 63,)

208 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
from the fact that in their new homes they did some
things after the old fashion.
And because New England towns Issued warrants
and posted notices for town-meetings, and chose chair
men and conducted business precisely as they had
done In English towns or vestries, and as civilized
people everywhere do, it does not follow that they
modeled their towns to the pattern of an English
parish. What are the essentials of the two systems respec
tively ? In the English system the Church of Eng
land, with its associated parish, was a constituent part
of the English government, aud Its bishops were an
estate In the realm. In Massachusetts, on the con
trary, neither religion nor ecclesiasticism was a con
stituent in the constitution, — the charter of a land
company. Both were functions assumed by the Gen
eral Court, and were ultimately lopped off with no
remaining scar. However Influential the clergy may
have been, — and their Influence can hardly be over
estimated, — they had neither place Iiftcjovernment,
nor summons to the General Court, nl^' voice there
unless asked, and no more political pojver iu th^ affairs
of state, town, or church than other freemen. Nor
was their loss of comparative inffuence in later days
by reason of their elimination from the cc titutlon:
they were never In It. ich.*' -i^
What has been said of the clergy r^ri oe said
of the church. It had no part In tt t^government,
general or local. It sent no delegates to either house,
and even Its own synods were held only by express
permission of the General Court.
Of the forces formative of a constitution, that Is the
most original and dominating which longest survives.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 209
The potent has permanence ; the non-essential falls
away. And so In New England towns to-day the full
current of their democratic life-blood flows without a
strain from the veins of that composite ecclesiastical,
hierarchical, and civil body known as the English par
ish. Even Its name must have been distasteful ; for
it was sedulously avoided by people and legislators for
fifty years or more, and then came Into use with pre
cinct and district, chiefly to describe a part of a town
set off to form another religious society. ^
For the foregoing reasons I am not in accord with
those who trace the origin of New England towns to
English parishes or find essential resemblances be
tween them, 2
1 The relation of the town to the church within it came to be, out
side of Boston, the same as that of the modern religious society to the
church with which it is connected ; that is, it buUt and kept in repair
the church edifice, and its consent was necessary to the settlement of
a minister nominated by the church, and it determined the amount of
his salary to be levied on the taxable persons and estates within the
town. All these matters were transacted in town-meeting duly called,
and record thereof entered by the town clerk. When a town was
found too large, or its inhabitants too numerous to be accommodated
in a single church, or for other sufficient reason, it was divided terri
torially to form a second church. This second church, like the first,
in its secular affairs was based on the taxable persons and estates
within its limits ; and the new religious society was called the second
parish, district, or precinct, — precinct being, I think, its legal desig
nation. This new precinct was a quasi corporation for religious pur
poses, and, like the town, required a clerk to keep its records, and
assessors and collectors. Its powers and duties were defined by sta
tute ; and we then begin to hear the word " parish," • — a survival, and
the only survival I find of the English parish, — in common use as the
most convenient designation of the new division,
2 In this investigation I have not been unmindful of the danger
which lurks in general statements of facts, or in conclusions from them
in respect to the complicated and anomalous nature of English towns
and parishes at different times and in different parts of England,
Though I believe I have good authority for every statement I have
made, yet when I see that English specialists on the subject differ so

210 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
In the development of the autonomy of the New
England colonies there were three distinct forces aside
from soil, climate, and situation, all acting toward a
common end and dominated In a sense before unusual
by a common public sentiment, which formed the at
mosphere out of which neither could have lived and
done its appointed work. These were the state, the
town, and the church ; and these three, though in
some sense distinct, were not three states, but one
state, since the fundamental idea of a state implies Its
unity, however Its powers are distributed or by what
ever agencies its functions are executed. Yet they
were distinct In this sense : they were organizations,
not merely several collections of individuals perform
ing certain functions of government. They were cor
porate bodies, each having a life of its own, but
all working together for the common welfare. The
powers of neither were inherent. The state derived
Its powers from the crown ; and the town and church
theirs severally from the state.
I find, as I think, that the Puritan state and town
on New England soil were essentially indigenous, and
their development the outcome of life under the new
conditions. The charter of Massachusetts, it is true,
was of English origin and with English definition of
its powers ; but from Its start on Massachusetts soil
it swiftly developed from a land company Into a gov-
widely among themselves, notwithstanding their opportunities for local
study, and aided as they are by traditions and other sources of infor
mation not accessible to non-residents, I cannot hope to have avoided
errors. It may be observed, however, that if any historical question
is to be settled on general facts, — by the trend of the stream rather
than by its occasional windings and retrogressions, — it is the one be
fore us, in respect to which strong probabilities have a, determinative
force when the facts are disputed.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 211
ernment proper, exercising the powers and functions
of sovereignty with only nominal subjection to the
parent state ; and New England towns in like man
ner developed their autonomies with slight reference
to their English analogues, but mainly under the in
fluence of the new government, and entirely in its
spirit, — that of a new departure in a new world.
The very settlement and permanence of New Eng
land were due to influences not at all in accord with
the economic or political motives which before had led
to the formation of colonies with the permission of the
parent state. It was religion, but not the church, —
religion in the life of individuals, not religion as a cor
porate power. To it, as such, the colonists accorded
no independent place In their system, but held it In
strict subordination to the civil power.
Thus Massachusetts, in some respects unique in the
motives which led to Its settlement and original in
transforming its land-company charter Into a frame
of general government, ordered the founding and char
acter of its towns, churches, and other institutions on
the basis of an Independent commonwealth. But It
is the origin of her towns with which I am mainly
concerned. It Is not always easy to fix the beginning or the
end of an Institution. We may observe. Indeed, when
its sun rises and when it sets ; but where begins Its
dawn or when its twilight ends is quite another mat
ter, and not amenable to exact definition. And so is
it In respect to Massachusetts towns. If we refer
their origin to the first enumeration of their powers,
our search ends with the often quoted ordinance of
the General Court, March 3, 1636 ;i if to their
1 Massachusetts Records, i, 172.

212 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
power and liability to sue and be sued, then with the
statute of 1694 ; or If to their formal Incorporation
as bodies politic, then only with a search for nearly
two hundred aud fifty years, ending with the statute
of 1785.
The period of uncertain twilight, therefore, is
between the possible unrecorded action of Endicott
and his Council after the arrival of the charter at
Salem in 1628 and the ordinance of 1636 above
referred to ; and this period I shall now attempt to
explore with such lights as are afforded.
Of the several attempts to form settlements along
the New England coast prior to 1628 apart from
Plymouth, that at Sagadahoc, in 1607, was a total fail
ure ; those of Weston, Gorges, Morton, and Wollas-
ton, in or about Weymouth and Quincy, between
1622 and 1625, came to naught ; and those In New
Hampshire, by Thompson at Little Harbor and the
Hiltons at Dover, In 1623, after a sickly existence for
some years, were brought under the Massachusetts
jurisdiction In 1641, and so remained until their for
mation into a royal government, July 10, 1679,
These enterprises did not stand the strain of labor,
want, and sacrifice.
A few individuals with their families, as Maverick
at Winnisimmet, Blackstone at Boston, and W^al-
ford at Charlestown, — probably survivals of wrecked
companies, — maintained Isolated plantations ; but
the largest company of Englishmen north of Plym
outh were the remnants of those who, under the
direction of English capitalists, between 1623 and
1626 had undertaken to form a plantation In connec
tion with the fisheries at Cape Ann, from which they
removed to Salem.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 218
This settlement, for some time under the care of
Roger Conant, became the basis of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony ; and those interested In It — chiefly West
England people, — reinforced by London capitalists
in 1627, obtained from the Council of New England
a grant of land, March 19, 1628, which Included the
greater part of Massachusetts as now bounded, and,
June 20 of the same year, sent over John Endicott as
governor, who reached Salem on September 6 follow
ing. The next year, March 4, 1629, the king granted
them a charter.
This, it Is to be remembered, was a land company
formed as a business enterprise, whose policy deter
mined the nature of the first settlement, and finally the
character of the Massachusetts towns. Their plan
contemplated the building of one central town capa
ble of defense against foreign foes, and so regulated
that while it allowed the planting of other towns in
due time, it would nevertheless present an unbroken
front to Indian hostilities such as had devastated Vir-
glnla,! and threatened the sporadic settlers at Winni
simmet. This also ought to be remembered, — that when
Winthrop and the East England Puritans, in the
autumn of 1629, embarked their fortunes In the
enterprise, it assumed a more distinctively religious
character which did much to shape the character of
New England. For while the Company from the
first — greatly influenced, doubtless, by the very rev
erend and truly pious John White of Dorchester, by
1 " Be not too confident of the fidelity of the salvages , . , Our
countrymen have suffered by their too much confidence in Virginia." —
Cradock to Endicott, February 16, 1829, Young's Chronicles of Massa
chusetts Bay, 136.

214 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
some regarded as the real father of New England —
provided'for the conversion of the Indians,' Winthrop
and his associates seem to have contemplated the
grander scheme of a commonwealth in church as
well as in state.
As I have said, Endicott arrived at Salem early in
September, 1628, and as governor Immediately took
charge of the plantation. Before setting sail for his
government he was doubtless Instructed as to his
powers and duties ; but these instructions. If ever
reduced to writing, have not been preserved. We
may assume, however, that they were in accord with
those sent over to him In letters under date of Febru
ary 16, April 17, and May 28 of the next year, 1629,
and the accompanying ordinances.
A resume of these powers and duties In respect to
matters now In hand will give some Idea of the influ
ences which Endicott brought to bear In forming the
character of towns and churches before the coming of
Winthrop, and throw light upon proceedings after
that event, where the records are silent.
On April 30, 1629, the General Court In England
declared its Intention " to settle and establish an abso
lute government at our plantation " in Massachusetts
Bay, and In pursuance thereof elected Endicott (who
had been at Salem nearly eight months) governor ;
and he received a duplicate of the charter, and the
seal of the Company. With his council he had full
legislative and executive powers consistent with the
charter and not contrary to the laws of Ens;land ;
could seize and hold the lands claimed by Oldham
1 " And we trust you will not be unmindful of the main end of your
plantation, by endeavoring to bring the Indians to the knowledge of
the Gospel," — Cradock to Endicott, ut supra, 133.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 216
under the Gorges patent and expel Intruders thereon ;
could set up a government there and build a town and
choose a minister for It ; arrange with the old planters
in respect to the lands they occupied, allot lands and
convey them by the Company's deed under seal, build
a house for the ministers at the public charge, and
build one chief town and determine location of all
others. In the execution of these large and varied powers,
it Is not altogether likely that a man of Endlcott's
positive views and character, exemplified by his exci
sion of the cross from the banner of England and
the expulsion of the Church of England Brownes,
would find models for his towns In an English parish,
thus engrafting an anomalous and highly artificial
system on bare creation.
The population of Salem, Including those who came
with Endicott In September, 1628, was not above
sixty persons,^ to whom Higginson added two hun
dred the next year ; and all, " by common consent of
the old planters, were combined into one body politic
under the same governor."^ By sending Endicott
and Higginson with their companies to Salem, the
Company determined where " the town " should be
built, houses erected, and all to be fortified, as Hig
ginson informs us, with " great ordnance ; " and
thither came the greater part of Winthrop's fleet in
June, 1630. So the location of the principal town
was designated by the Company In England ; and yet
It shows the nature of this determining power, that
when the Company was transferred to Massachusetts
Bay and had examined the situation more carefully,
1 Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay, 13 and note.
2 Ibid. 259,

216 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
Cambridge, not Salem, was made the capital town.
Plans formed In England gave way to the exigencies
of the new situation ; and this was the case all
through their history.
Thus Salem was the first town established under
the Massachusetts patent. The next was Charles
town, and in this wise. Walford had been there
some years when Graves and Bright, probably with
the Spragues, were sent by Endicott In 1629, agree
ably to the instructions of the Company, to forestall
the intrusion of Oldham under the Gorges patent.
Graves was the Company's engineer, and went to
Charlestown to build the town ; and Bright was the
minister sent to preach to the people and presumably
to gather a church.
Such was the origin of the first two permanent
towns set up on Massachusetts Bay soil ; and what
ever else may be In doubt, such as the precise time
of the separation of communal affairs from the more
general charter government and their commitment to
the town as an organized body politic. It seems to be
clear that the choice of their sites, their laying out,
the building of their houses, their municipal and reli
gious organizations, whatever they may have been,
were by the authority and express order of the Gen
eral Court, and without the slightest reference, so far
as can be detected, to English towns or parishes.
And I think the sequel shows that this was also true
In respect to all later towns.
I have called these settlements at Salem and
Charlestown towns, and such they finally became ;
but at what time they assumed these communal func
tions does not clearly appear. They were never in
corporated even by giving them names, as was the

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 217
case with some other towns ; and if such naming
was equivalent to Incorporation, as Professor Parker
holds, the omission perhaps Implies that they were
regarded as already municipal corporations in 1630.
The emigrants to both places were entitled to lands
by allotment and conveyance thereof under the Com
pany's seal; but no evidence of such deeds, if any
were ever made, has survived, nor are there records of
such allotments until some years later, though there Is
ample evidence of private ownership and cultivation
as early as 1629, when Higginson came. It Is not
improbable that Endicott aUotted to each party the
land to which he was entitled, or for lack of such
allotment that each chose for himself, as had been
agreed that he might.
But neither the people gathered at Salem under
Conant nor the governments set up there ahd at
Charlestown by the Company constituted a town In
the modern sense of that word, and least of all In the
sense which has made New England towns famous In
history. For a time they were something more than
towns, and something less, — something more, since
they were centres of the charter government In whose
affairs they participated ; something less, because they
were denied the exclusive privilege of developing their
local autonomy. Circumstances determined their final
character. We must therefore widen the basis for generaliza
tion, and I now recall the circumstances which at
tended the settlements In and about Boston Bay.
The first emigration under the Company was led by
Endicott In 1628, the second by Higginson in 1629,
and the third by Winthrop In 1630. This last landed
at Salem, June 12, and found Endlcott's plantation

218 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
— or colony, as Dudley called It — "In a sad and un
expected condition, above eighty of them being dead
the winter before, and many of those alive weak and
sick ; all the corn and bread amongst them all hardly
sufficient to feed them a fortnight." ' No marvel
that Salem " pleased them not as a place for sitting
down ; " and five days later (June 17) Winthrop
with a party came over to Boston Bay to explore the
country. They sailed up the Mystic, and on their
return to Salem reported In favor of Medford, as is
supposed, for the site of " the town." A later party
preferred Cambridge ; and accordingly their people
and goods were brought around and landed at Charles
town, because from sickness they were too weak to
carry their baggage and ordnance up the river ; and
from August 23 to September 28 Charlestown was
the seat of government.
While in this deplorable condition — fifteen hun
dred people all weakened by the long voyage and
many sick of fevers and scurvy, without houses or
adequate shelter from the sultry heat of August, more
trying to Englishmen than the winter cold — news
came that the French were preparing to attack them.
There are few sadder stories than theirs. In this
complication of disasters, not less than a hundred of
their number, discouraged at the prospect before
them, returned to England in the same ships that had
brought them over.
In this exigency of their affairs, too weak to fortify
Cambridge against the enemy, they changed their
plans, and sought safety by " planting dispersedly,"
— some at Charlestown, some at Boston, some at
1 Letter to the Countess of Lincoln in Young's Chronicles of Mas
sachusetts Bay, 311.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 219
Medford, some at Watertown, some at Roxbury, some
at Saugus, and some at Dorchester.'
This was in August, 1630, less than a month from
their coming Into Boston Bay. A month later, Sep
tember 7, the Court of Assistants " ordered that Tri-
mountalne shalbe called Boston ; Mattapan, Dorches
ter; & the towne upon Charles Ryver, Waterton," ^
and this has ever since been regarded as equivalent
to their Incorporation. And thus we see that within
three months after coming to shore In a wilderness
the Company, contrary to their intention of building
only a single town at firsfj, were compelled by circum
stances to lay the foundations of five towns, and per
mit the settlement of three others. And this, I think,
is the origin of all later towns, — in the paramount
power of the General Court, modified by the clrcum-
1 Dudley, in Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay, 313,
2 Massachusetts Records, i, 75, This order suggests two inquiries. If
intended as an act of incorporation, as it ever since has been regarded,
why was Boston included, and Newtown, or Cambridge, omitted ?
It may have been that the Court deemed the establishment of the
government at Cambridge as an act of incorporation. And it is no
ticeable that some years after the capital had been transferred to
Boston the Court, in 1638, ordered " that Kewetowne shall hencefor
ward be called Cambrige," thus following the precedent in the text,
—Ibid. i. 228,
If the order was intended as an act of incorporation, why was it not
expressed in terms, that the inhabitants of the places named should
be bodies politic, with all the powers and subject to all the duties
of like corporations in England so far as applicable to their situation ?
As a lawyer, Winthrop knew that a corporation — which the Com
pany was — could not create corporations, that being the prerogative
of the crown ; and were this prerogative assumed, that it might be
an awkward fact, if explanation were demanded, as it was in respect
to so many things a few years later. In 1639 Winthrop told what his
policy had been, — as little positive legislation as possible ; but " to
raise up laws by practice and custom," as involving no transgression
of the limitations in the charter. Was this an instance of the appli
cation of his good policy ?

220 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
stances of each particular case. As further evidence
of this, on the same day of the foregoing incorpora
tion of Boston, Dorchester, and Watertown, It was
ordered " that no person shall plant in any place
within the limits of this patent, without leave from
the Governor and Assistants, or the major part of
them. Also, that a warrant shall presently be sent to
Aggawam, to command those that are planted there
forthwith to come away." '
What has been said accounts for the origin of Mas
sachusetts towns so far as relates to their planting.
If we now look forward six years to the Act of the
General Court of March, 1635, we shall learn how
their powers were recognized by implication, and
what they were.^
But I admit that we must go deeper into the mat
ter ; for it may be fairly said that the Act of 1686 ^
was essentially a recognition of the powers, rights, and
privileges already ^acquired and exercised by towns
at that date ; and If so, the question still remains.
What were the origin and development of towns in
the form In which they now exist?
What we desire to learn, however, Is not by what
principle of human nature, everywhere and at all
times apparent. It Is, that every body of men who
find themselves associated with a view to permanent
residence in a particular place, after sufficient assur
ances of not being molested from without, forthwith
1 Massachusetts Records, i, 76,
2 Ibid. i. 172.
^ It will be observed that this order confers upon towns no powers ¦
it is restrictive. The language is that the freemen of any town or
the major part of them shall only have power, and so forth. In the
Kevision of 1660 (p. 195) the law is made positive by striking out
"only."

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 221
prepare to meet those communal necessities which
arise In all communities ; but rather what there was
in the Inherited or acquired character or training of
Englishmen which differentiated the modes of devel
opment and results of their work from that of any
other people. If they had kept records of their pro
ceedings from the outset, we should be In a fair way
to learn what we desire to know ; but It was other
wise, for the earliest, those of Dorchester, began
some time in 1631, though with only a single entry
for that year, — a year after Its settlement, — and
those of Boston not until September, 1684, — four
years after its settlement. But the records from
what may be called the historic period, though mea
gre, throw some light upon the antecedent period, and
indicate that the first subject which engaged their at
tention was, as naturally would be the case with all
incipient communities, the distribution of their lands
and assurance of boundaries and title. Then would
follow simple police regulations, and regulations as to
roads, churches, and schools. The matters must have
been few and simple, for so they remained after they
found It desirable to keep records of them.
Now, In respect to the first and most Important of
these matters, they were not relegated, as all settlers
on territory not under a general government are, to
mutual agreenient, certainly not as to the quantity of
land to which each was entitled, for that had been
definitely fixed beforehand ; nor would the question
of quality arise until all desirable lands were taken
up. And so we find, after these records begin, that
party fences and use of common lands are subjects
of most frequent attention.'
^ It would be most interesting to learn precisely how they arranged

222 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
As has been said, the sites of the town within which
allotments were to be made were fixed by the Gen
eral Court, and the quantity of land to which each
party was entitled, by ordinances In the nature of
agreements between the Company and the settlers ;
and all that remained would be for each to receive
his allotment by the proper authorities, or, that fail
ing, to select for himself within certain prescribed
limits, as he was entitled. And neither In these nor
in any subsequent proceedings, whatever difficulties
might come, would they find guidance in their experi
ence In the affairs of an English town or parish.
The Dorchester records, which seem to be typical,
are instructive on this point. For the first three years
there are hardly a dozen entries, and these chiefly of
the character above described. At the end of their
third year they seem to have developed their autonomy
so far as to feel the necessity of bringing their action
Into regular and prescribed methods of procedure.
But it is a little remarkable that If they came over
as a fully organized English town and church, as
some have thought they did, or with only lively recol
lections of their experience in the working machinery
of an English parish vestry, they did not at once put
it in operation ; or If it be said that for aught we
know they may have done so, then It Is still more
remarkable that after three years' trial of It, a dozen
more years of tentative efforts were needed, as is
indicated by their votes in 1633, 1636, 1642, and
with regard to these allotments ; but the records, if any ever existed,
— which is not likely, — have not been preserved. Probably they did
the business in a very'informal, but apparently mutuaUy satisfactory
way ; for nothing is said about allotments (and the fact is noticeable)
for sorae years after the first settlements, — in Dorchester for more
than two years after, and in Boston for more than four.

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 228
1645, before they found that the requirements of their
situation were met. No ; as their situation and the
exigencies of their unwonted life were entirely new to
them, so they found it necessary to invent and de
velop new methods for a satisfactory adjustment.
The records of other towns show a similar state of
affairs, and the adoption of similar tentative efforts in
the development of their autonomies.
But lack of space forbids the present consideration
of the many interesting questions connected with the
general subject of the origin of towns ; and this espe
cially, — how far the conditions of development of
towns and town-meeting government In other New
England colonies differed — and I think they did not
essentially — from those Imposed upon them In Mas
sachusetts. In the foregoing observations I have not attempted
to traverse the whole ground covered by Mr. Adams,
nor, Indeed, have I confined myself to It ; but have
spoken chiefly of some matters which appear to me
to require a more critical examination than they have
yet received, so far as I am aware.
It now remains to say a few words on some points
in Mr. Adams's paper ; and In order to make clear
the matters on which we appear to differ, I will begin
with those on which we are agreed. We seem to
agree : —
1. That the development of the Massachusetts gov
ernment, under its charter, was on purely secular
lines, and mainly without reference to English pre
cedents or influence ; '
1 I have heard it said, for example, that the Massachusetts Senate
and House of Representatives, as two distinct houses, trace their

224 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
2. That the Massachusetts towns, neither in their
origin nor In their development, have any essential
relations to English towns, parishes, or vestries, but
were planted by the authority and under the direction
of the General Court ; and that they regulated their
communal affairs and modes of procedure therein
agreeably to the requirements of novel subjects and
unwonted conditions ;
8. That the Massachusetts church, though modeled
on the Genevan system in creed, discipline, and mode
of worship, rested on a civil and not on an ecclesiasti
cal basis, without independent powers or privileges,
but holding all in due subordination to the General
Court ; ' and
4. That the Massachusetts land system, or rather
titles and assurances of estates, was anomalous, and is
not easily to be understood at this day.^
origin back through the two colonial houses of the Magistrates and
the Deputies, to the Houses of the Lords and of the Commons. The
truth is, that the division of the General Court into two houses, sitting
apart from each other, in 1643, was owing to a strictly local and even
ludicrous circumstance,
1 Ralph Smith was not permitted to go out to Massachusetts Bay
unless he would bind himself '' not to exercise the ministrey within
the lymitts of our plantation, neither publique nor private, without the
consent and approbation of the government there established by us,"
and " to submit to such orders as shall be there established." J\Ias-
sachusetts Records, 37 f., 390, as quoted in 9 Gray's Reports, 505,
2 I yield to no one in admiration for Mr, Doyle's English in America,
but I should not select as an example of his best treatment of colo
nial subjects the following passage quoted with approval by Mr, Ad
ams : " In New England the soil was granted by the government of
the colony, not to an individual, but to a corporation. It was from
the corporation that each occupant claimed his right, , , , The New
England township was a landholder," This statement overlooks, first
the quite numerous and very large grants of land to leading men in
the colony, either as dividends on their stock or for eminent services
rendered. Secondly, it overlooks the orders of the Company in Eng-

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 225
Now for the matters in respect to which we appear
to differ.
The distinction between " inhabitants " and " pro
prietors," about which Mr. Adams and Mr. Goodell
seem to be at variance, raises a somewhat difficult
question which I am not quite sure that I fully under
stand ; but as far as I do, I think there are grounds
for Mr. Goodell's caveat. Mr. Adams's views respect
ing the origin, development, and autonomy of Massa
chusetts towns differ so widely. — and in my judgment,
for the better — from much that passes for history,
land to Endicott at Salem for the conveyance to individuals, as they
were entitlsd, of lands by the Company's deeds under seal ; and, as I
think, that all titles, whether by deed or allotment by the Company,
or by its agents, — which, as 1 conceive, were the towns pro hac vice,
— were holdings from the Company and not from the town. In no
just sense were the towns landholders ; that is, they neither bought
nor sold nor leased lands ; nor, save some common lands, did the towns
hold them for community use. In strictness of law, the towns not be
ing legally incorporated bodies politic, — for then, as now, one corpo
ration cannot create another corporation ; that being a prerogative of
sovereignty, — they could not take, and therefore could not make, title.
Those proceedings were, as I have said, anomalous, and hard to under
stand. Nevertheless, whatever they wished to do they found a way
of doing in sublime disregard of English law and usages. Doubtless
the General Court said from time to time that certain towns should
" have enlargement," or that lands should " belong " to them ; and it
is also true that the towns held such lands, some of which they distrib
uted by allotment, and others held for common use, and that these
titles are now good, but on what theory, unless that of long possession,
as the colonists claimed in Andres's time, it is difficult to understand.
It would seem, however, that all land-titles to-day within the limits
of Massachusetts Bay rest upon conveyances in some way from that
Company ; but there can be no question that the control which the
towns, whether owners in fee or implied agents of the great Land Com
pany, exercised in their distribution, had great influence in develop
ing and forming the character of their autonomy. And in this aspect
of the matter, Mr, Doyle undoubtedly well says, that " of the various
rights of the New England township the most important, perhaps, was
the territorial,"

b

226 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
that I am inclined to accept them not only as a valu
able contribution to the studies of the subject, but as
generally sound ; and yet. If I may dissent from some
of his positions, — and that, I suppose, is what I am
here for, — I should put some things a little differ
ently, or at least use a different nomenclature. For
example, I do not perceive the analogy which he per
ceives between the General Court and Court of Assist
ants on the one hand, and the " Inhabitants " and
" selectmen " on the other, in respect to the subjects
or to the modes of their action severally, — certainly
it was not institutional ; nor do I think that " freemen
or inhabitants " are Interchangeable terms equally
descriptive of the same class of people ; nor that " the
inhabitants of the towns were those owning lands, —
the freeholders, — who were all members of the con
gregation ; " nor that " Inhabitants " of towns " were
in the nature of stockholders In a modern corpora
tion." To me these and some similar expressions
convey Ideas foreign to the homely simplicity of those
early people and the nature of their affairs. As I
have said, the difference between us may be one
merely of nomenclature ; but my way of putting the
matter Is this, — and of course I prefer It to Mr.
Adams's way : —
My idea of a seventeenth-century Massachusetts
town Is that It was almost exclusively an agricultural
community, having little or nothing to do with manu
factures except of the simplest kind, or trade, or with
anything In which " stock " could be taken. Beyond
assurance of their own lands and of their Interest in
common lands, the just levy and economical expendi
ture of communal taxes, the education of their chil
dren and the care of their souls, their interests, wants,

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN 227
and desires were few and of the simplest kind, and
will not bear being raised by the imagination ;
That the " inhabitant " Included all male adults,
who, either by general laws or town regulations, were
permitted permanently to reside within the town lim
its, Irrespective of their ownership of lands ;
That the whole body of people within the town con
sisted, first, of those who had been admitted freemen
of the colony ; second, of those who by original volun
tary association or by subsequent vote, express or im
plied, had become permanent residents ; third, of that
miscellaneous class of people, who, as servants and
laborers, were mainly adjuncts to families and had
little stake In society ; and finally, of all other persons,
as women and children, not usually reckoned as mem
bers of the body politic of a town ;
That In the early years of towns, as their records
indicate, the first three classes above mentioned, with
out strict regard to their several rights, assembled " in
general meeting of the inhabitants," and there, with
out much formality In their proceedings, disposed of
their few and simple communal affairs ; but as these
became more complicated or of greater magnitude,
the legal rights of these several classes were more
sharply defined and strictly enforced. The freemen,
legally Inhabitants of the town, were the sole electors
of all colonial officers, deputies to the General Court,
and voters on questions of a public nature as distinct
from those merely communal ; and though there seems
to have been no uniform rule or practice in all towns,
that which appears to have been most common was
for all adult inhabitants, whether freemen or land
holders or otherwise, to vote on all questions of com
munal affairs ; and this was made law in 1641.

228 GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS TOWN
And with this simple array of their forces, these
towns, unique in their origin, lacking essential experi
ence of like circumstances, and without ecclesiastical
Interference or restraints save those Imposed by the
General Court, after a few years learned to manage
their municipal affairs with such wisdom and success,
that In the course of time they so enlarged their views,
but without overstepping the bounds the law had set
up, that they became a power which modified the
action of the government, and in the fullness of time
most effective agencies in the dismemberment of the
empire, and so famous throughout the civilized world.

POLITICAL MAXIMS

An Addkess demveked bepoeb the Bostonian Socibtt,
Decemeek 12, 1893

POLITICAL MAXIMS
ADDRESS BEFORE THE BOSTONIAN SOCLETY, DECEM
BER 12, 1893

James Otis's words arraigning the commercial
policy of Great Britain, so hostile to colonial interests,
were the first of their kind ever uttered before a judi
cial tribunal on this continent. They were heard far
beyond the walls of this room,' and to them John
Adams attributed a powerful Influence in bringing
forward the controversy which resulted in the sever
ance of the empire ; but to no single cause or agency
was that event attributable. A hundred years before
this it was said in legislative assemblies, by the far
mer's fireside. In the shops of mechanics, and by those
following the plough, that " The Rights of English
men follow them to the end of the earth ; " and " No
Representation, No Taxation." In no place on this
continent were these words heard earlier or oftener
than In the old State House, and this, perhaps, justifies
me in making them prominent in my present address
to the Bostonian Society.
However that may be, these political maxims soon
became the shibboleth of political action In thirteen
colonies, and were powerful in bringing on and car
rying through the American Revolution. They now
^ Otis's argument against writs of assistance was made in 1761,
before the Superior Court then sitting in the Council Chamber of the
old State House in Boston, where the present address was delivered.

282 POLITICAL MAXIMS
find place in Bills of Rights. They have shaped con
stitutions and colored history.
I shall return to them ; but first I wish to say a
word about the class of epigrammatic phrases to which
they belong.
In every age the wise have sought to express their
highest thought and deepest feeling in apothegms.
Men of science have their axioms ; jurists, their legal
maxims respecting the rights of persons and of pro
perty ; the great divines, their epigrammatic phrases
of doctrine ; literary masterpieces are full of epi
grams ; and the common people have their proverbs,
their songs, and their ballads. No class is without
them, and none which is not profoundly influenced by
them. Better far in the van of battle than the justice
of their cause are the national airs and patriotic max
ims of a people.
" I knew a very wise man," said Fletcher of Sal-
toun, " who believed that, If a man were permitted to
make all the ballads, he need not care who should
make the laws of a nation." It were worth inquiry
who was the " very wise man " whom Fletcher heard.
Not Bacon, certainly, for he was dead long before
Fletcher was born ; and for the same reason, not Sir
Philip Sidney, though the thought was not far from
Sidney's own, when he said, " I never heard the old
song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart
moved more than with a trumpet."
But though the words which caught Fletcher's ear
fell not from the living lips of Bacon, still I think that
in one of the most acute of his observations he has
given the reason why to song and ballad rather than
to maxim or proverb should be assigned a higher place
among those influences which govern mankind. For

POLITICAL MAXIMS 233
poetry, he says, " being as a plant that cometh of the
lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung
up and spread abroad more than any other kind. But
to ascribe unto it that which is due for the expressing
of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we
are beholden to poets more than to the philosophers'
works." '
The song of the people is neither polished nor pre
cise. Its power is its sincerity. Academic songs and
ballads seldom go deep into the hearts of the people.
To reach the popular heart, they must spring from the
people, or at least voice their sentiments. DIbdin's
sea-songs were worth more for manning the royal
navy than Campbell's matchless lyrics.
While song is true and sincere, proverbs, maxims,
and epigrams seldom express more than half-truths —
or truths not always true. But their power is none
the less on that account.
Bacon noticed this also ; and over again.st the max
ims he quoted he placed opposing maxims. And
Archbishop Whately, In commenting on Bacon, has
given examples, such as these : " Take care of the
pence and the pounds will take care of themselves ; "
" Be not penny-wise and pound-foolish ; " " The more
haste the worse speed ; " " Wait awhile, that we may
make an end the sooner ; " " Take Time by the fore
lock ; " and " Time and tide for no man bide." Cole
ridge noticed In his day that " the rustic whistled, with
equal enthusiasm, ' God Save the King ' and ' Britons
never shall be slaves.' "
Perhaps no legal maxim is more dear to those of
the English blood than Coke's " A man's house Is his
castle." It Is the security of his family, and associ-
1 Advancement of Learning, Book 2,

234 POLITICAL MAXIMS
ated with home-bred rights and joys, — a maxim
which gave occasion to what Lord Brougham regards
the finest passage In Pitt's oratory : " The poorest man
may In his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the
crown. It may be frail — its roof may shake — the
wind may blow through it — the storm may enter —
the rain may enter — but the King of England cannot
enter ! all his force dares not cross the threshold of
that ruined tenement." '
It has been said that maxims are seldom more than
half-truths ; and Dr. Johnson thought that " In all
pointed sayings some degree of accuracy must be sac
rificed to conciseness."
Political maxims, though generally true to the spirit
of law, are often contrary to its letter, and oftener
still, while true to sentiment, are false to fact ; but
sentiment rather than reason rules the world.
I once heard a distinguished orator scorn and ridi
cule the often-quoted English constitutional maxim
that " the king can do no wrong," as though It were
a rule of royal morals. It Is nothing of the sort. Its
equivalent Is and must be In every government. It
merely asserts that sovereignty reposes somewhere ;
and, inasmuch as there Is nothing higher than the
king in sovereignties, or the people In democracies,
the king In one case and the people In the other
must be presumed to be right. And therefore the
English say, "The king can do no wrong," and we
say that " The sober second thought of the people Is
always right."
The English people have one advantage, for If the
king should do wrong they can decapitate him — as
they once did ; and they drove another Into exile : an
1 Brougham's Statesmen.

POLITICAL MAXIMS 235
awkward piece of business for us, in case our sovereign
does wrong ! The maxim is a wise one for both peo
ples. Another English political maxim and perhaps the
most potent that ever fell from English lips Is this,
that " Englishmen carry English rights and privileges
with them to the ends of thS earth." This maxim
really expressed the correlation of allegiance and pro-
tectlon of English subjects wherever they might be ;
that wherever the Englishman went, he owed inde
feasible allegiance to his sovereign, and might always
claim his protection. In a word, once an Englishman,
always and everywhere an Englishman. Wherever
he goes, England requires his allegiance and may de
mand his services ; wherever he goes, he may demand
the protection of his sovereign, and fleets and armies
fly to his aid. That was the theory ; but our fathers
found it convenient to forget half of the maxim : they
claimed EnglLsh protection, but forgot English alle
giance ! This doctrine Englishmen and their descend
ants In this country have sometimes claimed and some
times denied, as was for their Interest. It lay at the
foundation of the right claimed by the British govern
ment to impress Its subjects though found on Ameri
can ships ; and in 1812 it had much to do with
bringing on the war. Our countervailing maxim at
that time was " Free Trade and Sailors' Rights."
But at an earlier day, whenever British legislation
affected the colonists unfavorably, they claimed that
they possessed all the rights of Englishmen ; that Is,
that whatever rights an Englishman living In England
might possess and enjoy, an Englishman and his de
scendants living In America might possess and enjoy.
An absurd claim. The maxim meant simply this and

236 POLITICAL MAXIMS
no more : that the King's subjects born In America,
on going to England, should possess and enjoy all
those rights and privileges that Englishmen born in
England and living there might possess and enjoy.
We have incorporated its just interpretation into our
Constitution : that " The citizens of each State shall
be entitled to all privilfeges and Immunities of citizens
in the several States."'
That is, a citizen of Massachusetts going to South
Carolina, for example, shall be entitled to all the
rights and privileges of a citizen of that State. It Is
hardly necessary to add that it does not mean that a
citizen of Massachusetts going to South Carolina car
ries <vlth him all or any of the privileges he enjoyed
in Massachusetts, though that was at one time claimed.
But whatever its true meaning, this maxim has done
more than any other to make England, next to Rome,
the greatest power for civilization the world ever saw.
It encouraged the spirit of colonization. For when
the colonists went forth, the British Lion stalked be
fore them, and over them floated the protecting ban
ner of England. This nerved their hearts In distant
and perilous expeditions which other people feared to
make ; and it inspired them with courage and con
stancy which no other people exhibited. It lent keen
ness to the edge, and firmness to the temper of their
swords. They went forth with insolence, and often
acted with brutality, as well as with courage and self-
reliance. They assumed that they had rights which
it would be preposterous for Spaniards, Frenchmen, or
Dutchmen to claim ; but they braved the perils of the
sea and of savage countries, and the sun now never
sets on English dominions !
1 Art, IV, Sec, ii, ,

POLITICAL MAXIMS 237
We Americans, of all people, should be the last to
quarrel with the pretentious claims of this English
maxim ; for without Its Influence in arousing the spirit
of adventure and sustaining the colonists amidst the
perils they encountered. It Is more than doubtful
whether the old thirteen colonies would have been set
tled by Englishmen ; and It Is certain that the day of
their becoming free and independent States would
have been long postponed ; for no sooner did our fore
fathers feel the restrictive commercial policy of Eng
land than they began to claim the rights of Englishmen.
Their claim was, that whatever rights and privileges
Englishmen living in England might possess and en
joy, the same rights Englishmen and their descendants
living In America should possess and enjoy. This was
their Interpretation of this maxim in the days of John
Winthrop;" it was the same in the days of Samuel
Adams ; and by the Declaration of Independence they
made it good. And to-day, all rights and privileges
which we obtained by war, and Incorporated In our
State and national constitutions, are only the " rights
and privileges which followed Englishmen to the ends
of the earth."
Another maxim which did us royal service from a
very early period, and contributed more than any sen
timent to bring on and carry us through the war of
the Revolution, was the cry which flew from one end
of the continent to the other — " No Representation,
No Taxation."
This is generally thought to have originated in the
days of the Stamp Act ; but In 1647, one hundred and
eighteen years before, Edward Winslow wrote : " If the
Parliament of England should Impose laws upon us,
having no burgesses in their House of Commons, not

238 POLITICAL MAXIMS
capable of a summons by reason of the vast distance
of the ocean, being three thousand miles from London,
then we should lose the liberty and freedom I con
ceived of English Indeed." ' And the General Court
of Massachusetts, October 2, 1678, said, " The sub
jects of his majesty here being not represented In
Parliament, so we have not looked at ourselves to be
impeded In our trade " by the Navigation Acts.^
Chalmers says this was the first announcement of the
doctrine.^ I hardly need say to one conversant with English
constitutional history that the maxim had no founda
tion In English law or practice ; for at the date of
the American Revolution not one ninth of the Eng
lish people had any voice In choosing the represen
tatives who made laws for them ; nor until the Re
form Bill of 1832 had such great cities as Liverpool
and Manchester any direct representation In Parlia
ment. Though the Massachusetts people held their lands
as of gavelkind In Kent, they did not accept as their
virtual representative an English member returned to
the House of Commons from a Kentish borough —
though such a member by the English doctrine repre
sented all England and the colonies as well.
Nevertheless, the maxim was In the spirit of the
Constitution, and that was sufficient for the colonists
and even for some of their friends In England.* Poli
tical maxims, whether true or false, either with or
1 Palfrey, ii, 178, n, ; v. 244, 270, 274.
2 Massachusetts Records, v, 200,
2 Annals, 439 ; Hutchinson, i. 322 ; Memorial History of Boston, i.
367, * Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors (Plula,, 1848, edition),
V. 210, 211, 220, 229, 243, 253, 429.

POLITICAL MAXIMS 239
without limitation, have generally been construed to
promote justice — not to thwart justice.'
The colonists claimed the rights of Englishmen, it
is true ; but when their Tory fellow-citizens — no
matter how respectable — invoked those rights to pro
mote ends not agreeable to public sentiment, their
appeal often ended In a coat of tar and feathers ; and
instead of the right of free speech, they were privi
leged to a free ride on a rail. So when the colonists
had achieved their independence, they listened with
no patience to those political maxims which had been
so efficient in raising the people to resist the king's
armies. These maxims were a good cry against the
king's government which they thought oppressive, but
not against their own, though the people were In dis
tress, as in the days of Shays's rebeUion.
It remains to speak of maxims which have gained
currency, entered into the national life and Influenced
the conduct of the people In our own times.
For a people great in many forms of literature, the
English have been singularly deficient In the gift of
epigrammatic expression. Few of their proverbs ori
ginated among themselves, and compared with the
French they lack those pointed sayings which every
one admires but which few are capable of producing.
Warburton's fine saying is one exception. In the
House of Lords, on the occasion of some angry dis
pute which had arisen between a peer of noble family
and one of a new creation, he said that " high birth
was a thing which he never knew any one to dispar
age except those who had It not ; and he never knew
any one to make a boast of It who had anything else
to be proud of." ^
1 See Burke in Brougham's Statesmen. ^ Whately's Bacon.

240 POLITICAL MAXIMS
There Is, however, one patriotic maxim which, con
sidering its author, the circumstances under which It
was uttered, and the Immediate and lasting effects It,
produced. Is worthy of a place among the great say
ings of the best ages. Indeed, neither in English nor
In any other language do I know any words not purely
literary or moral (and those I am about to quote are
essentially both), which an Englishman might have
been so proud to have uttered, as Nelson's signal
from the deck of the Victory at Trafalgar, " England
expects every man to do his duty." Their Immediate
effect Is historical ; nor do I think England has ever
forgotten them : certainly her soldiers with Welling
ton In his Peninsula campaign did not ; nor those
who held the mangled but steadfast squares on the
blood-stained heights of Waterloo, nor those others,
of whom It was said : —
" Theirs not to make reply.
Theirs not to reason why.
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the Valley of Death
Rode the Six Hundred ; "
nor those who withstood the siege of Luchnow ; nor
those who followed Gordon Into the Soudan.'
I would not over-estimate the effects of those words
on any part of the English people ; but it Is notice
able that not long after their utterance there came
into EnglLsh literature, thought, and conduct, a seri
ousness, an elevation and devotion to high Ideals, as
exhibited by Arnold of Rugby, Newman, Maurice,
^ "Where even the common soldier dares force « passage for his
comrades by gathering up the bayonets of the enemy into his own
breast, because his country expected every man to do his duty, and this
not after he has been hardened by habit, hut, as probably, in his first
battle," Coleridge's Friend, Vol, II, Essay ix.

POLITICAL MAXIMS 241
Robertson, Tennyson, and others, which have made
her history for the last sixty years, upon the whole,
the most illustrious in England's annals.
Our own countrymen have said memorable words,
some of which at least became household words.
When Charles Cotesworth Pinckney said to Talley
rand " MiUions for defense but not one cent for tri
bute," he spoke for the nation; and so spoke Law
rence dying on the deck of the Chesapeake, in those
pathetic words, " Don't give up the ship." The most
venerable and lUustrlous of living Americans,' still
to be occasionaUy seen in our streets, once gave as a
sentiment, " Our country however bounded." A pa
triotic maxim, though in the heat of party politics I
believe it subjected Its author to some obloquy ; and
so did Seward's " Irrepressible conflict " and his
"Law higher than the Constitution." Sumner's
" Nothing is settled until It Is settled rightly " is a
moral rather than a political maxim ; and Chase's
" An indestructible union of indestructible states,"
though constltutionaUy true, lacks the ring that
reaches the popular heart. Jefferson's self-evident
truths formulated in the Declaration of Independence
were addressed to the race and to the ages, and there
fore belong rather to political philosophy than to
patriotic maxims.
But we, more than other English-speaking people,
have patriotic maxims which satisfy the head of the
statesman and the heart of the people. What every
American ought to remember, and some time wiU, is
that one, once a citizen here, but now sleeping by the
sea at Marshfield, made, — not Indeed the songs of
the people, but what are next best, — all our patriotic
1 Robert C, Winthrop, who died November 16, 1894,

242 POLITICAL MAXIMS
maxims which stir the heart and form popular senti
ment; for all such In this century (save the dying
Lawrence's " Don't give up the ship ") sprang from the
lips of the great orator. John Adams had said, " Sink
or swim, survive or perish, I give my heart and my
hand to this vote;" and when the Fourth of July
beUs pealed just before he died, he exclaimed, " Inde
pendence forever." But from Webster's lips in Fan-
euU Hall, these words winged their way to the heart
of the nation. WhoUy his own were those other
words, " Our country, our whole country, and nothing
but our country ;" " Liberty and Union, now and for
ever, one and Inseparable ; " " The people's govern
ment, made for the people, made by the people, and
accountable to the people." These last express with
precision Webster's theory of the national govern
ment, and Lincoln's also, for he adopted them In his
immortal speech on the field of Gettysburg, and they
are now quoted oftener than any of his own words.
Nelson's " England expects every man to do his
duty " wrought nobly at Trafalgar, and has since in
spired her sons to noble deeds ; but Webster's words
— words which winged the shot that Grant fired —
wrought results vastly greater than those of the
famous sea-fight.
Great services may be forgotten, but maxims defin
ing the patriotic relations of the people to their coun
try, and of the government to the people, and of both
to civil liberty — maxims which sank deep into the
national heart In the day of their utterance, and since
have been a saving power — are not likely to be for
gotten ; nor is Daniel Webster, from whose fertile
brain and patriotic heart they all sprang.

EEMARKS
AT THE DINNER OF THE SONS OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION
CoNCOKD, Massachusetts, Apbil 19, 1894

REMARKS BEFORE THE SONS OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION

APRIL 19, 1894

It Is a high honor for me, as I gratefuUy think,
Sons of the American Revolution, though not of your
number, nevertheless, to join with you as a guest In
the celebration of April 19, 1775.
That was Indeed a 'day made forever memorable by
events of great Import to that age and people, and as
the years roll on, not unlikely to be counted among
those events which will affect the political condition
of no inconsiderable part of the human race.
It was neither unexpected nor unprepared for.
The Provincial Congress, adjourned from Salem, met
at Concord, in this venerable church edifice, October
11, 1774. As I look over the roll of Its members
gathered from all parts of the province, and recaU
the earlier and later history of some of the most dis
tinguished of them, It was, as it appears to me, one of
the ablest bodies of statesmen ever assembled on
Massachusetts soil; nor am I unmindful of later
representative bodies, nor even of the three great
conventions assembled for the formation or amend
ment of the constitution of the Commonwealth.
Among Its members were Thomas Cushing, Samuel
Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, William
Heath, Benjamin Lincoln — the last two afterwards

246 CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1894
major-generals In the Continental Army — Samuel
Dexter the elder, John Pickering, Samuel Holten,
Elbridge Gerry, Samuel Osgood, Nathaniel Peaslee
Sargent, Nathaniel Gorham, Richard Devens, James
Prescott, Joseph Hawley, James Warren, George
Partridge, Robert Treat Paine, WiUiam Baylies,
James SuUivan, Timothy Bigelow, Jedediah Foster,
Joseph Henshaw, Artemas Ward, Moses Gill, Samuel
Freeman, Samuel Thompson, John FeUows, and John
Paterson. John Hancock was President and Benja
min Lincoln Secretary.
Such were some of the men. This was some of their
work : By October 12 the Congress was f uUy organ
ized, and on the 18th it addressed Governor Gage. It
recognized preparations for war in "the rigorous
execution of the Port Bill ; " in the " acts for altering
the charter and the administration of justice in the
colony," manifestly designed to abridge the people of
their rights ; " In the number of troops In the capital,
increased by daily accessions drawn from the whole
continent, together with the formidable and hostile
preparations you are making on Boston neck," — mea
sures which " greatly endanger the lives, liberties, and
properties, not only of our brethren in the town of
Boston, but of this province In general." The Con
gress met the crisis with a prescience, wisdom, and
practical sklU to promote the popular interests and to
neutralize the efforts of the loyalists, never surpassed
and seldom equaled ; and within sixteen days arranged
to seize the revenues of the province ; practicaUy an
nulled the acts of 1774 subverting the charter ; voted
to inquire into the state of the provincial army, to
appoint a Committee of Safety, to send an agent to
Canada to secure its cooperation, " to provide a stock

CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1894 247
o£ powder, ordnance, and ordnance stores now ; " re
commended " that the militia companies elect officers,
equip, and hold themselves in readiness, on the short
est notice from the Committee of Safety, to march to
the place of rendezvous," and " for the choice of three
general officers." In a word, the Provincial Congress
bad recognized the probability of war and prepared
for it six months before April 19, 1775.
But this Is not all. Hancock, Adams, Gerry and
Paine, in May, 1775, fresh from their labors at Con
cord, were in the Continental Congress at Philadel
phia, and, as the journals of that body warrant me In
saying, made possible, on a wider theatre of continen
tal affairs, that which was done six months earlier in
this little town of Concord.
Do we claim too much, therefore, in saying that
this edifice In which the Provincial Congress sat, and
in which we are now sitting, — sacred alike to religion
and liberty, — in which the substantial foundations of
independence were laid in 1774, ought to be no less
dear to New Englanders, at least, than that hall In
Philadelphia in which Independence was declared
July 4, 1776 ? Citizens of Concord, this Is your
shrine. It ought to be the shrine of a nation. Invoke
for it Divine protection from lightning and tempest ;
provide for it protection from fire and the wasting
tooth of time !
Of the events of April 19, 1775, I need say but
little. They have passed Into history. Every year
they are recounted In our public journals. They are
household words.
My purpose Is not to rehearse them, but to ask
what these events meant for the colonists at the time ;
what they have since meant, and what they may mean

248 CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1894
for future ages. On the first question I have some
direct authentic InteUigence from an actor in those
scenes. When the action at Lexington on the morning of
the 19th was known at Danvers, the minute men there,
under the lead of Captain Gideon Foster, made that
memorable march — or run, rather — of sixteen miles
in four hours, and struck Percy's flying column at
West Cambridge. Brave but incautious In flanking
the red-coats, they were flanked themselves and badly
pinched, leaving seven dead, two wounded, and one
missing. Among those who escaped was Levi Pres
ton, afterwards known as Captain Levi Preston.
When I was about twenty-one and Captain Preston
about ninety-one, I " Interviewed " him as to what
he did and thought sixty-seven years before, on April
19, 1775 ; and now, fifty-two years later, I make my
report — a little belated perhaps, but not too late I
trust for the morning papers !
At that time, of course, I knew aU about the
American Revolution — far more than I do now !
And if I now know anything truly. It is chiefly owing
to what I have since forgotten of the histories of that
event then popular.
With an assurance passing even that of the mod
ern Interviewer — If that were possible — I began :
" Captain Preston, why did you go to the _ Concord
Fight, the 19th of AprU, 1775 ? " The old man, bowed
beneath the weight of years, raised himself upright,
and turning to me said : " Why did I go ? " " Yes,"
I replied ; " my histories tell me that you men of the
Revolution took up arms against ' intolerable oppres
sions.' " " What were they ? Oppressions? I did n't
feel them." " What, were you not oppressed by the

CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1894 249
Stamp Act?" "I never saw one of those stamps,
and always understood that Governor Bernard put
them all In Castle WUliam. I am certain I never
paid a penny for one of them." " Well, what then
about the tea-tax? " " Tea-tax ! I never drank a drop
of the stuff; the boys threw It all overboard." "Then
I suppose you had been reading Harrington or Sid
ney and Locke about the eternal principles of liberty."
" Never heard of 'em. We read only the Bible, the
Catechism, Watts's Psalms and Hymns, and the Al
manack." "Well, then, what was the matter? and
what did you mean in going to the fight ? " " Young
man, what we meant In going for those red-coats was
this : we always had governed ourselves, and we
always meant to. They did n't mean we should."
And that, gentlemen, is the ultimate philosophy of
the American Revolution. It correctly assigns its
underlying cause, it explains and accounts for the
action of the patriotic party. Doubtless there were
subsidiary causes affecting localities and interests,
especially on the sea-coast and In larger commercial
towns ; but the yeomanry of the interior felt none of
those grievances. And yet, from Maine to Georgia,
they were among the first to resist the British preten
sions. Thomas Paine once said something like this :
" The British ministry were too jealous of the colo
nists to govern them justly, too Ignorant to govern
them well, and too far away to govern them at all."
That puts the matter very neatly ; but Levi Preston,
the Danvers yeoman, put it far better ; for no other
words known to me ever expressed the actual con
dition of affairs with more historic truth or more
tersely. For the attitude of the colonists was not
that of slaves seeking liberty, but of freemen — free-

250 CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1894
men for five generations — resisting political servi
tude. And as Mr. Webster (who must often have
conversed with his father on the subject) once said,
with his usual historical accuracy and with a felicity
aU his own : " While actual suffering was yet afar
off . . . they went to war against a preamble. Tliey
fought seven years against a declaration." The pre
amble was that of the Stamp Act : " Whereas it is
necessary to raise a revenue from the colonies for
their defense." The declaration was, " that the power
of Parliament over the colonies extends to aU cases
whatever." Yes, the men at the North Bridge knew well
enough what It meant to them, but not quite so well
what it means to us ; the men of ' 61 explained
that quite fuUy ; but neither the men of ' 61 knew
nor do we who survive know just what It may mean
to future ages. Few events In the world's history
have been of more tremendous consequences than
those of the 19th of April, 1775 ; and nothing but a
completed cycle In the world's history wiU reveal their
full significance.
It was no new thing to overthrow dynasties or to
disrupt empires. It was no new thing to make con
quests or to repel invasions. But the battle-fields on
which the condition of any considerable part of the
human race has been permanently changed are few ;
and fewer stiU those on which has been instituted a
new principle of government apparently destined to
affect the whole human race. Thermopylae saved for
a time the civilization of Greece, but It did not ad
vance the civilization of the world. Waterloo merely
restored the old status of Europe. The wars of the
great English Revolution did not bring into the Brit-

CONCORD, APRIL 19, 1894 251
ish constitution true representative government —
that came two centuries later with the Reform BIU of
1882. But the Concord fight, as Levi Preston sub-
stantiaUy said, preserved, if it did not inaugurate,
what Webster called " a government of the people,
for the people, and accountable to the people."
The 19th of April, 1775, was Indeed notable in the
progress of national autonomy and representative gov
ernment. Other days come and go. The sun rises
and hastens to its setting. But on the 19th of April
no second morn wiU rise. Its sun once risen never
set. It still rides high and clear. Its prescribed
arc is not through the visible heavens, but over the
ages !
A mile away from us is the North Bridge. We
are familiar with the scene and the Incidents which
make It memorable. We see Major Buttrick with
his little band of farmers moving down to dislodge
Captain Laurie's company. We see Isaac Davis and
Abner Hosmer faU. We hear Major Butter Ick ex
claim, " Fire, feUow soldiers, for God's sake, fire ! "
That was the fight at Concord Bridge. That was the
" shot heard round the world," the shot that will re
sound through the ages, forever vibrate in the air,
forever quicken the pulses of the human race.

PALFREY'S PEOPLE OF NEW ENGLAND
Reprinted fkom " The Nation " of July 10, 1890

PALFREY'S PEOPLE OF NEW ENGLAND

Dk. Palfrey's diligence has not added much that
is essential to what was known about the period
covered by his fifth volume. The field had been too
thoroughly reaped for profitable gleaning, and his
views on American history too often expressed to war
rant expectations of novel treatment. It is a com
pact and convenient resume of the history of the
" Great Awakening," the " French Wars," and of the
events which led to the outbreak at Lexington in
1775. And it is something more : it completes Dr.
Palfrey's " History of New England," one of the most
considerable historical works coming from any Amer
ican. Few historians have shown greater industry
in gathering original materials, or a firmer grasp of
complicated masses of facts, or greater skill in arran
ging them in perspicuous order and presenting them
in a narrative always clear and often felicitous.
Dr. Palfrey's scheme of a history of New England
was fuU of difficulties. The people of the New Eng
land colonies were of the same race. It is true, and
doubtless of a similar way of thinking on political and
theological questions ; but from the outset diversities
of opinion or interest, or both, led them to seek dif
ferent localities in which to develop their several au
tonomies. Nevertheless, from the coming of the PU-
grims to the withdrawal of Washington's army from

256 PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND
Boston in 1776, the watersheds of New England's his
tory Inclined towards Boston Bay, and In Massachu
setts was the main stream to which all other streams
were affluent. But Dr. Palfrey's purpose was wider
than is Implied by his title: not merely to write a
history of the several colonies as organized political
bodies, but " the history of the people of New Eng
land," and, as we learn from the preface of his last
volume, to show that " the work which In five genera
tions was done in New England for the continent and
the world, was done by Englishmen of Puritan train
ing," and that, " as far as human judgment may trust
Itself, no other class of men contemporary with them
was equal to the achievement."
This makes Dr. Palfrey's " History of New England "
quite another matter. It no longer prirdarlly con
cerns the foundation and erection of States, but the
original and developing character of the people, and
the Ideas, principles, and conduct of those who did
what no five generations of their contemporaries had
done, nor as Dr. Palfrey thinks could have done.
Assured of his purpose to set this forth, his reader
reviews his entire history with new Interest ; and if
not a descendant of the New England Puritans, then
with pardonable scrutiny of the facts, and of Dr.
Palfrey's qualifications for pronouncing a judgment
so affrontive. Even those who may be supposed to
accept it most complacently are aware that though
history Is not science, nevertheless, the writer of it Is
amenable to the laws of scientific investigation. If
his Insight is at fault, or his methods uncritical, or
his statements of facts one-sided, or he is blinded by
prejudice, his work will not be accepted as final.
For writing this history Dr. Palfrey possessed

PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND 267
many qualifications, but his defects were serious.
Without originality or special historical insight, he
accepted the conventional theory of New England
civUization, and did not go very far beneath the sur
face, or deal satisfactorily with facts which did not
agree with his preconceived notions. The history of
the New England colonies rests on patents, charters,
or royal commissions ; and for the Interpretation of
these, legal training or natural legal Insight, such as
Belknap, Trumbull, Ramsay, and Deane possessed, is
indispensable. Dr. Palfrey lacked both, and his consti
tutional discussions do not command respect. His im
agination formed no pictures of domestic or social life,
and we turn his pages in vain for the causes which
in five generations changed Englishmen to Yankees,
or to learn how, for example, living amid scenes of
danger, they lost their inheritance of British pluck,
and at the same time managed to preserve their moral
courage and stamina unimpaired while acquiring
wealth by slave-trading, piracy thinly disguised as pri
vateering, and smuggling.
He says of the Puritans that " the rank, the wealth,
the chivalry, the genius, the learning, the accomplish
ments, the social refinements and elegances of the time
were largely represented in their ranks. . . . The
Earls of Leicester, Bedford, Huntington, and War
wick, Sir Nicholas Bacon, his greater son, Walsing
ham, Burleigh, Mildmay, Sadler, KnoUys, were spe
cimens of a host of eminent men more or less friendly
to or tolerant of Puritanism." The wealth of Eng
land, he adds, was on the side of the Puritans, and so
were many of the landed aristocracy, many of high
rank In the army and navy ; and if few of the Eliz
abethan dramatists or writers of lighter literature are

258 PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND
found among them, they may justly claim such names
as Selden, Lightfoot, Gale, and Owen, and such poets
as Spenser, Milton, and Marvell. Nor were they
wanting in the amenities and graces of social life ;
and he records with satisfaction that Colonel Hutchin
son could dance and fence, loved music and played
the viol, shot guns and bows, and delighted in paint
ing, graving, and the liberal arts. He completes what
he has to say about the Puritan by adding that he was
"a Scripturist," " a strict moralist," and "in politics,
the liberal of his day."
The reader acquainted with the character of the
New England Puritans is ready to ask what all this
has to do with them. If this was intended as a de
scription of them, and there Is no other, nothing could
be more misleading, or could more strikingly mark the
uncritical methods of the historian. Puritans of this
stamp were not the founders of New England, and
they dropped out of English affairs even, with the
coming of CromweU and his Ironsides. A few of
them came over, but not to stay. Neither the society
In which they found themselves, nor the work for them
to do, was to their mind.
Doubtless Puritanism divided English society by a
vertical line, on both sides of which were men of all
classes and conditions. So far Dr. Palfrey is accu
rate. But there was difference In Puritans. Those
who came to New England formed a horizontal stra
tum, not a vertical section, of English society. They
were selected Puritans : above them, the nobility and
the gentry ; below them, the peasantry and the rabble.
Among them were two or three families of rank, and
a few conventional gentlemen, who either died early
or returned to England. No poets came ; none ad-

PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND 259
dieted to art, science, or literature, save theological ;
none distinguished in statesmanship or arms, and but
few who led the social life of Lincolnshire or of Suf
folk. Some of their leaders were men of affairs and
acquainted with law ; a larger number were Calvinls-
tlc clergymen, and a half dozen had some pretensions
to gentility ; but mainly they were yeomen, trades
people, mechanics, and servants.
Dr. Palfrey says that " the spirit of Puritanism was
as old as the truth and manliness of England." This
is quite true. Dr. Storrs has just told us that Moses,
and several of the patriarchs, and Christ, and many
notable pagans were Puritans. This is also true.
But such truths do not describe the character or the
work of those who came to New England. We may
imagine, if we will, the statesmen, poets, and divines
whom Dr. Palfrey has mentioned, engaged in ordain
ing party fences, the ringing of swine, or In an expe
dition against the Pequots and burning them when
found, or in trying Mrs. Hutchinson for heresy, or in
specting Mary Dyer's monstrous birth for evidence
of a special providence, or we may imagine Colonel
Hutchinson and his family dancing and playing cards
about Boston Bay ; but such imaginings are not the
history of the Puritan New England. Puritanism
there was "the truth and manliness of England"
speciaUy vitalized and intensified by the Five Points
of Calvinism enforced by the Synod of Dort. There
were " State Puritans " and " Doctrinal Puritans " In
old England, but only the latter found their way to
New England. When Calvinism came into England,
Arminlanism came also ; and between these two grew
up a deadly hostility which did much to form the New
England Puritans for their work, civil as well as

260 PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND
ecclesiastical. King James, a renegade from Calvin
ism, aUIed himself to the Arminians ; and so did
Laud and his party who hounded the non-conforming
clergy, — a strange conjunction of liberalism in creed
with absolutism in politics, which cost Charles I. his
head, and, with other causes, George III. his colonies.
All this and more Dr. Palfrey knew, but It was not
an agreeable phase of his subject, and he left It alone.
Nor is it altogether grateful to learn, not from Dr.
PaKrey's history, for he is silent on this also, that
the New England Puritans in their acceptance of the
Resolutions of the Synod of Dort, deliberately re
jected the richest legacy of Greece to the modern
world, — the validity and finality of human reason
when at variance with authority, even the highest.
Neither Is it grateful to learn that it Is with Hooker,
in defense of reason and law as Its most valid expres
sion, that the modern world, including the last two
generations of the Puritans, is in accord, rather than
with Calvin and the first two generations, who rejected
the Common Law of their race for the Mosaic Code
of the Hebrews.
The New England Puritans were narrow and In
tolerant, not because the age was narrow and intoler
ant ; they were so from choice. They discussed the
matter, and knew the difference between tolerance and
illiberality quite as weU as we do. Their testimony
on this point is clear and explicit. They acted as
sincere believers always act when great Interests are
at stake. They believed that conformity led to eter
nal death. Therefore they crushed it out as our
fathers crushed out the Tories, and as we crushed out
the Copperheads. Conscious of their mission, they
made no apology for their principles ; but they wished

PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND 261
to be understood. It was their singleness of purpose,
their absolute sincerity of belief, their utter convic
tion that happiness here and hereafter depended upon
the acceptance of the Calvinistic scheme, which gave
the New England Puritans their power and success
where others failed. Dr. Palfrey's misapprehension
of this vital quality of New England Puritanism per
vades his whole work, and no part of it more than the
fifth volume. He treats " The Great Awakening "
with entire candor, but as he would treat a modern
revival of religion. He sees In It no connection with
primitive Puritanism, or permanent influence upon
other events of that day or of later days. He has
noted in the second generation a declension from the
high political spirit of the emigrants, apparent In the
rise of parties at the revocation of the first Massa
chusetts charter and during Dudley's administration,
and he attributes this to the influx of commercial ad
venturers and the Increase of wealth and luxury ; but
he fails to notice that this declension was rather In
their theological belief, as Is evident from the fact
that the Mathers, Danforth, and others, the champions
of civil and ecclesiastical liberty, and who as such
merit and receive his commendation, were " faithful
among the faithless found " in asserting and maintain
ing, with pathetic earnestness, the old Calvinistic doc
trines. There can be no doubt about the declension. It
was manifest among the godly in the acceptance of
the halfway covenant and In some departures from
discipline. Ratcllff, the Church of England chaplain
of Andros, had preached in the Old South, and not
without hearers ; King's Chapel, Christ Church, and
Trinity marked the growth of Episcopacy ; Harvard

262 PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND
College, having repudiated the Mathers, relegated
herself to the mild doctrines of the " Dudlelan Lec
tures," whose founder scrupled not at " Episcopal
ordination ; " and even more alarming to those of the
ancient faith was the circulation of a book inculcating
whispered belief In the salvation of all. To arrest
" the great and visible decay of piety," a synod was
called In 1725 ; but the Episcopal clergy of Boston,
through the Bishop of London, invoked the royal in
terdiction. There was mourning in Zion, nor com
fort, until Edwards, at Northampton, seizing live coals
from the altar of Calvinism,^ touched the hearts of his
own people. Then came Tennent and Davenj)ort in
New England, and Whitefield from Georgia to Maine,
preaching predestination, election, free grace, and the
wrath to come upon the ungodly. The effects were
instantaneous. By estimation there were forty thou
sand converts in New England alone. Old profes
sors were quickened to new life ; Calvinism had free
course. And to Dr. Palfrey this was the end of It.
But It did not end thus. One of Its later effects
was manifest In the expedition against Louisburg In
1745 — more like a crusade than a military movement
— when the undisciplined yeomanry of eastern New
England, inspired by the preaching of Whitefield,
who Inscribed their banner with " Nil desperandum
sub duce Christo," attacked the French Catholics be
hind the bastions of Louisburg with the zeal of the
Christians against the infidels In the Holy Land.
Another effect of " The Great Awakening " was this :
it was the " relay " of the electric current of Calvin
ism which, beginning with Winthrop, unloosed the
bands of the English hierarchy, and coming down to
1 Doyle's English in America, i, 132,

PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND 268
tbe days of Samuel Adams unloosed the bands of
the British empire. There was still another effect.
The Puritanism of New England far more than that
of old England, owing In part to local causes, was not
merely a creed, but a habit of mind which became
hereditary as character, and has survived to the pre
sent day. This was so caused by the recurrence in
the middle of the last century of Influences like that
of the Synod of Dort In the previous century. And
there was still another effect. Calvinism in New
England, differing from Puritanism in old England,
was much more than a creed. The creed has changed,
but character remains ; and the constancy, zeal, and
singleness of purpose, and intolerance already spoken
of — In a word, the Calvinistic spirit — of the remote
ancestor reappears even in those whose measure of
liberality is the intensity of their dissent from oppo
nents, or who limit the universality of salvation to
such as accept the doctrine. Character thus formed
was the greatest legacy of the New England Puritans
to their descendants, for by that they have prevailed.
Of this transforming and sustaining power of Calvin
istic Puritanism Dr. Palfrey gives us no hint. As he
frankly Informs us, with Geneva he had no sympathy.
It may be so with us, but the facts remain.
More than half of Dr. Palfrey's fifth volume is
given to the causes and events which led to the Amer
ican Revolution. It affords little evidence of Insight,
and is disfigured by singular misstatements of essen
tial facts. No doubt the causes which led to forcible
resistance, whether originating In Great Britain or In
the colonies, were earlier and more effectively opera
tive in New England than In the other colonies. But
it is nowhere noticed by Dr. Palfrey as extraordinary

264 PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND
that, on the arrival of the news of the passage of the
Stamp Act, months before it was to take effect, and
therefore not as against " intolerable oppression," as
he says, the people from Maine to Georgia declared
their determination to resist it by violence to persons
and property vvhich there was no effort to prevent or
arrest. It is obvious, therefore, that there must have
been other causes operative anterior to that event, and
not confined to commercial centres quick to discern
whatever was likely to Interfere with their interests,
but pervading agricultural communities remote from
centres of business or intelligence. The only abso
lutely sincere and universally operative cause of the
Revolution was the desire and determination of the
majority of the colonists to be free ; a desire common
to all branches of the Anglo-Saxon race wherever
found ; a desire quickened in the American branch by
remoteness from the home government, and a growing-
consciousness of ability to set up and maintain one
for themselves. With this desire and determination
they left their English home ; and If these motives
were sometimes In abeyance, they were never given up
until they became accomplished facts. Against this
view of the case are their profuse and not altogether
sincere professions of allegiance. They were, indeed,
sincere on one condition : that they should have their
own way, which was generally the case down to the
close of the war in 1768. When the Revolution came
It was Inevitable, and it was conducted as rightly as
revolutions ever are. The exigencies of the cause
required and justified the " thorough " measures of
the Whigs and the application of Samuel Adams's
theory of politics : " Put your enemy In the wrong and
keep him there ! " To conduct a revolution on such

PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND 265
grounds is doubtless good practical politics and even
good statesmanship. But to write history In that
spirit gives no promise of its continuance. Another
interesting fact not adverted to by Dr. Palfrey, not
withstanding his frequent reference to events passing
in England, was the contemporaneous English Revo
lution, going forward almost with equal step, and
with the same general purpose of enlarging popular
liberty against prerogative, which reached results
more surprising, if possible, than those which followed
the American Revolution. In both countries the re
volution was brought about by agencies acting effi
ciently in the British Parliament as In the colonial
assemblies. Still more extraordinary is it that Dr. Palfrey no
where thinks it necessary to state that the American
Revolution — as was the case with the contemporane
ous English Revolution — was the result of party
action, not of unanimous popular action. He has,
indeed, something to say about government officials,
placemen, and commercial adventurers opposing what
he would have us think was the grand movement of
an entire people towards their objective point, — colo
nial Independence. This view of the Revolution may
have arisen from Dr. Palfrey's theory respecting the
New England settlers and their descendants. In his
judgment the work was mainly theirs, and one which
no other contemporary generations of men could have
done. At times they may have been a little too
strenuous, a little Inclined to magnify smaU causes of
discontent with the mother country or her representa
tives ; but even in these respects it was an excess of
a noble spirit of liberty without taint of self-interest,
or an unwillingness to share common burdens with

266 PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND
others, or to submit to regulations necessary and rea
sonable for the commerce and government of an
empire of which they were parts. On the other hand,
they were loyal and dutiful subjects, glorying In the
name of Britons, and " without the most distant
thought of Independence." But when, after the close
of the French war, the British government unconsti
tutionally undertook to tax them, then, and for the
first time, as one man, on axiomatic principles of Eng
lish liberty enunciated by Hampden, Sidney, and
Locke, they resisted the king and Parliament, and
took the field for a seven years' war.
This is the old, conventional theory of the origin
of the American Revolution. But, by the estimate of
John Adams, two fifths — some others say three fifths
— of the colonists. Including a large proportion of the
cultured classes, were Tories, who, by an organized
system of terrorism not easy to be understood In these
days, were obliged to flee the country or to faU In
with measures of the Whigs, Free speech was not
allowed, nor would silent adherence to their convic
tions answer. They must speak — speak loudly, and
only in one way. They must act — act promptly in
accordance with the most vehemently expressed senti
ment. Now it agrees neither with reason nor with
the facts to represent this party, as Dr. Palfrey does,
as made up of British placemen, colonial office-holders,
mercantile sojourners, and a few men ^ like Hutchin
son, Oliver, Samuel Quincy, Jonathan Sewall, Daniel
Leonard, Timothy Ruggles, and the greater part of
the Episcopal clergy, who malignantly sought the
¦* It would seem that he never read Sabine's American Loyalists, and
counted their number or estimated their character and standing in
society.

PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND 267
destruction of their native land, which they had done
much to Improve, and in which were their dearest
Interests. Yet such Is the general impression one
gets from his history.
The degree of Dr. Palfrey's partisanship would be
incredible without proof, but a few examples must
serve. The Seven Years' War had added more than
£800,000,000 to the British debt ; and " was It not
equitable," Dr. Palfrey represents the British govern
ment as asking, " that the North American colonists,
as subjects of Great Britain, should pay their propor
tion of it ? " especially since the argument might be
plausibly maintained that part of It had been In
curred In their defense. Dr. Palfrey ought to have
known — and with the statutes before him It would
seem that he must have known — that the British
government never asked, nor, so far as appears, ever
contemplated asking, the colonists to do any such
thing.i They were asked to pay one third of the esti
mated expense of their future defense. The pre
amble of the first revenue act of 1764 and that of
the Stamp Act set forth the purpose to raise money
" towards defraying the expenses of defending, pro
tecting, and securing the colonies and plantations."
Such was the purpose, — not to pay the British debt
or any part of it ; and neither in the Parliamentary
debates nor elsewhere Is there any warrant for Dr.
Palfrey's amazing statement. Of like nature is his
assertion that the duties coUected from the Sugar
Act, after certain deductions, were to be remitted to
the royal Exchequer in hard money, thereby draining
the colonies of their specie. Not a penny was to go
abroad. The sums collected were to be paid into the
1 Massachusetts Historical Collections, yi. 194 ; ix, 2'70,

268 PALFREY'S NEW ENGLAND
receipt of his Majesty's Exchequer by certificates to
be entered apart from all other moneys, and applied
from time to time by Parliament to defraying the
expenses above mentioned.
Of wiUful perversion Dr. Palfrey was utterly In
capable. On the contrary, no historian ever wished
to be more accurate. He had his theory of New Eng
land history, and according to that the prevailing
party at every stage of it were right in their princi
ples, purposes, and mainly in their measures ; and the
other party were entirely and malignantly wrong,
with nothing to excuse or palliate their conduct.
The history of New England neither requires nor will
it bear such treatment. It will bear telling in its
entirety from 1620 to 1787. It has its seamy side,
as has the history of every period, however glorious ;
and this It Is neither wise nor necessary to conceal as
Dr. Palfrey occasionally does ; nor to place it In a
wrong light, as he frequently does ; nor to apologize
for It, as he Invariably does, — sometimes on grounds
of necessity, which has always been made to condone
some of the most flagrant acts of political and ecclesi
astical tyranny recorded in history.
Dr. Palfrey's Insight into the essential character of
men is no more trustworthy than his Insight as to the
causes and relations of events. Nor is he impartial.
He conceals the well-known blotch on the character
of Samuel Adams, and dwells upon charges, now
known to be false, against the character of Hutchin
son. He performed a great service In writing the
history of the New England colonies, so that It need
not be rewritten; but the history of "the people of
New England " requires an historian of a different
order.

McMASTER'S HISTORY
OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES
From the "Andover Review" of June, 1886

McMASTER'S HISTORY OF THE PEO
PLE OF THE UNITED STATES

Me. John Bach McMastee has undertaken to
write the history of the people of the United States,
from the Revolution to the Civil War, In five vol
umes, two of which, bringing the narrative down into
Jefferson's administration, have already appeared.
The first, published in 1888, was favorably received
by critics as weU as by the public ; and the second,
which has recently appeared, shows no loss of vigor
in its execution or of Interest In its materials. A
new history of the United States should be Its own
excuse for being. Mr. McMaster's work Is undoubt
edly a positive contribution to history, and by its
excellences no less than by its defects will provoke
criticism. This should be so ; for one of the pro
mises of a better literature is our discontent with what
we already have.
It need not be said of the first edition of a work
dealing with a great variety of facts, that errors have
crept into it, or that some things essential to com
pleteness have been overlooked, or that some unwar
ranted conclusions have been drawn from authorities
cited in their support. Such errors and defects are
inevitable. Mr. McMaster possesses manifest qualifications for
writing history. To say of an historian that he is
honest, that he coUects his materials Industriously

272 McMASTER'S HISTORY
and allows them to stand for what they are worth,
without foisting upon them a partisan or sectarian
theory, ought to sound as strange as when said of a
judicial magistrate. But it does not ; and when sucb
things can be truly said of a writer of history, It is
very high praise. Mr. McMaster's industry is mar
velous, even to those familiar with similar researches.
He overlooks some things, but he conceals nothing.
We may conjecture the direction of his sympathies In
respect to the great political parties which were form
ing during the early stages of his history, but there
Is no lack of candor In dealing with them, and he
dares to look even Washington in the face. This
has not always been so. Charles Thomson, the patri
otic secretary of the Old Congress, wrote its history,
which he intended to publish ; but his courage failed
at the pinch, and he burnt It. We might guess his
reasons, even If he had not given them, when we read
the " Diary of John Adams."
Mr. McMaster entitles his work " A History of the
People of the United States," and thereby Indicates
an intention which Is more fuUy avowed in his intro
ductory chapter. He says that In the course of his
narrative " much, indeed, must be written of wars,
conspiracies, and rebellions ; of presidents, of con
gresses, of embassies, of treaties, of the ambition of
political leaders in the senate-house, and of the rise
of great parties in the nation. Yet the history of
the people shaU be the chief theme."
He makes no claim to originality in drawing this
distinction between the history of the people and of
the nation to which they belong. In 1879 John
Richard Green, whose early death was a loss to let
ters, published a " Short History of the English Peo-

McMASTER'S HISTORY 273
pie," in which he proposed " to pass lightly and
briefly over the details of foreign wars and diploma
cies, the personal adventures of kings and nobles, the
pomp of courts, or the intrigues of favorites, and to
dwell at length on the Incidents of that constitutional
and social advance in which we read the history of
the nation itself." To Mr. Green's authority for this
theory of what makes the history of the English peo
ple Mr. McMaster has now added his own for a
similar theory of the history of the people of the
United States. But Mr. Green's Ideas upon English
history appear to be questioned by high authority,
presently to be adverted to ; and it Is proposed to
offer In this paper, some special considerations which
make them less applicable to the history of the
United States.
The success of Mr. Green's history was immediate
and brilliant, ¦ — only equaled by that of Macaulay's
historical essays and of his " History of England."
But this success was due. In part at least, to Mr.
Green's rare historical Insight, to his condensation
and artistic grouping of materials, and to his singu
larly pure and attractive style. His theory also gained
adherents as a protest against that class of historical
compositions in which wars, the doings of courts and
parliaments, and foreign relations were treated as the
staple of history, while the progress of literature, and
of science, of art, and of manners was relegated in
brief summaries — as notably by Hume — to the end
of a chapter. Hildreth, whose history is one of the
best, rigorously excluded from it everything like a
theory of politics, and, to make amends, published an
excellent one as a separate treatise, and cynically com
mended it to the attention of " such critics as have

274 McMASTER'S HISTORY
complained that his history of the United States had
no ' philosophy ' in It."
But Mr. Green's scheme of history seems to be
challenged by Professor Seeley in his " Expansion of
England," who regards the progress of a people in
literature, art, and manners as properly belonging to
the history of the " general progress that the human
race everywhere alike, and therefore also in England,
may chance to be making;" and that such matters
would be more fittingly treated, as they have been, in
the history of literature In England.
On the other hand, he considers " that history has
to do with the state ; that It Investigates the growth
and changes of a certain corporate society, which acts
through certain functionaries and certain assemblies.
By the nature of the state every person who lives In
a certain territory is usually a member of It, but his
tory is not concerned with individuals, except In their
capacity of members of a state. That a man in Eng
land makes a scientific discovery or paints a picture
is not in Itself an event In the history of England.
Individuals are important In history in proportion not
to their intrinsic merit, but to their relation to the
state. Socrates was a much greater man than Cleon,
but Cleon has a much greater space in Thucydides.
Newton was a greater man than Harley, yet It Is Har-
ley, not Newton, who fixes the attention of the histo
rian of the reign of Queen Anne."
These extracts indicate that Mr. Green and Pro
fessor Seeley were not In accord respecting the scope
and proper limitations of the history of England ;
and yet neither could push his views to extremes.
Although Mr. Green passes lightly and briefly over
foreign wars and the Intrigues of courts, they form no

McMASTER'S HISTORY 275
inconsiderable part of his history when comprised in
a single volume, and a still greater part when, in a
new edition, that volume is expanded into four. And,
on the other hand. Professor Seeley would often find
himself in the presence of unorganized forces, not
belonging to the state and having no direct relation
to it, yet visibly affecting it, and therefore to be taken
into historical account.
But even if Mr. Green's theory of the history of
England is correct, it does not follow that it is appli
cable to that of the United States ; for there Is a
vyide difference between the two nations, and an
appreciation of this difference Is essential to the ver
ity of our history. Louis XIV., without exaggeration,
might exclaim, " I am the State ; " and there was a
time In England when the phrase " King, Lords, and
Commons " expressed the existence of a deep gidf
between these factors in the Constitution and the elec
tors of the Commons. They constituted only one
sixth of the people, and did not include the citizens
of such great towns as Liverpool, Manchester, and
Birmingham. And there was a still deeper gulf be
tween these electors and the great body of unrepre
sented people. Nor was there on one side of this
chasm knowledge, wisdom, and virtue, and on the
other weakness, Ignorance, and vice. For neither
literature nor religion, save so far as It was political,
had recognized relations to the state, or direct Influ
ence in the management of Its affairs.
But Mr. McMaster finds no such state of affairs
here. From the day when Englishmen first appeared
on this continent in organized societies, the people
and the state have been Interchangeable terms ; and
everything included in one is also included in the

276 McMASTER'S HISTORY
other. Nor will the history of either permit the
exclusion of wars, conspiracies, or rebellions, or of
according to them less than their just prominence
among those causes which have made the United
States what they are to-day. What things constitute
the proper subject of history, and their relative Im
portance In Its narrative. Is determinable only by the
completeness and verity of history.
The history of the United States Is without pa
geantry or splendor, but it is unique ; and upon a due
appreciation of Its character, and a conformity to the
requirements of a truthful setting forth of It, wIU
chiefly depend its usefulness not only to us, but to
foreign nations, which seem to be sensible to the value
of the facts which lie behind it, if not to the felicity
of their literary expression.
This history may be briefly outlined. The English
colonies In North America, with some political and
religious diversities, began their organic life on this
soil under substantially the same conditions, which
continued down to the Revolution. Whether they
were crown-provinces, or had obtained charters from
the king, or from the proprietaries, or had organized
under their patents, they had moulded these various
powers into constitutions of government which. In
1775, gave a higher sanction to armed resistance to
royal authority than any wrongs they had suffered, or
any wrongs they feared. A strange, unique history !
Thirteen Incorporated land companies — for such was
their legal character — developed, with only a nomi
nal adherence to' their acts of incorporation. Into thir
teen independent, constitutional governments. This
is what they had accomplished at the close of the
Revolution : not union, then, or nationality. These

McMASTER'S HISTORY 211
in all but the name, belong to our own day ; and, like
the first, are the results of civil war.
When we look at these colonies as organized soci
eties we find, as we find nowhere else, that the people
and the state were identical. The state was the peo
ple " as a mode of action." In other lands a king, or
a king's mistress, or a cabal, made wars, invaded per
sonal and public rights, and ruined finances ; but If
an American colony was turbulent or disobedient. It
was the turbulence and disobedience of the people ;
if wars were waged, or embassies dispatched, it was
by their order ; if schools, colleges, or churches were
set up and maintained. It was because the people
willed It ; and If, at one time, the covenant was held
in its rigor, and at a later time, in a modified form,
it was the voice of the people speaking through the
General Court, or a synod, that so ordained.
Contrast this state of affairs with what prevailed
even In England, In which alone, of the European
nations, popular ideas had made any considerable pro
gress. On the side of the political organization caUed
the state were arrayed many prerogatives no longer
based on reason ; the power of making war and peace
irrespective of popular sentiment, and all those agen
cies which were clothed with the insignia of national
ity. Apart from and over against the state, but
having certain relations to it, were the people, among
whom might be found art, science, literature, and all
those social and moral forces which do not depend
upon the state for their efficiency. Where such dis
tinctions exist between the people and their govern
ment, a history of the English people may be some
thing apart from the history of England; but the
essential correlation of the people and the government

278 McMASTER'S HISTORY
for the United States — in fact, their identity — makes
the history of the people, so far as It Implies a dis
tinction, a political and historical solecism.
Apparently Mr. McMaster Intended such a distinc
tion, to judge by the title of his history, and from the
fact that in the history itself, he has passed over In
silence, or relegated to a subordinate place, those mat
ters which do not have a direct relation to what Is
caUed the progress of society, using the term compre
hensively. Mr. McMaster's history opens In the midst of a sad,
shameful period of our national life, if we accept the
pictures he paints of It ; and that they are drawn with
a general fidelity to truth there can be no doubt. But
it Is equally true that the people suffer undeservedly
In reputation by this division of their history In the
middle of an important epoch, the whole of which is
essential to a right understanding of its parts. The
treaty of peace in 1788, with which Mr. McMaster's
history opens, Is an apparent. Instead of a real, land
mark in our history. EssentiaUy, It was a political
recognition of a fact accomplished by the capitulation
of CornwaUis nearly two years before. By beginning
his history at the time which he has selected, the peo
ple are not only denied the period of their glory, but
also of the presentation of those circumstances which
extenuate their shame. On the 19th of April, 1775,
the war for Independence opened with spirit, and It
was carried on with courage and self-devotion. For
undisciplined soldiers, the troops generally fought
fairly well ; and the officers were patriotic, if not par
ticularly weU educated for the profession of arms.
Congress and the colonial assemblies exerted them
selves with vigor, and the people did not lag behind.

McMASTER'S HISTORY 279
High-water mark of patriotism was reached in those
efforts, public and private, which were crowned by the
surrender of Burgoyne's army in October, 1777. With
this event the people hoped the war would end ; but it
turned out otherwise, and the disasters at Brandywine,
in September, and at Germantown, in October of the
same year, fell with disheartening effect upon the
country. This soon began to appear. The strength
of the army graduaUy feU off from 46,901 In 1776 to
18,882 In 1781, the last year of the war ; and the
actual payments on military account, during the same
period, dwindled from 121,000,000 to $2,000,000.1
The people were becoming tired of the war, with Its
merciless drain upon their resources; and when the
French army, with its ample military chest, took the
field, there was danger lest the further prosecution of
the contest would depend upon French men and
French money. Jobbery and self-seeking were as
rife as in the last years of the late Civil War. The
unpaid soldiers were mutinous, and traitors near
Washington's person corruptly revealed his plans to
Clinton almost as soon as they were formed. Con
gress was torn with dissensions, and its proceedings
were marked by Incapacity and indecision. And the
colbnial assemblies were no better. In the dire ex
tremity of the army, — • its ranks depleted, Its mili
tary chest empty, the soldiers destitute of food and
clothing, requisitions were treated with indifference
and almost contempt. This was the beginning of a
state of affairs which continued some years after the
time at which Mr. McMaster opens his history of the
1 These and similar figures in this paper express facts only in a
general way, and for any more exact purpose are to be received with
caution, although found in respectable authorities.

280 McMASTER'S HISTORY
people. Few more humiliating stories than those he
relates can be found In the annals of the Anglo-Saxon
race ; the treatment of the old soldiers ; the barbarities
practiced on the refugee loyalists ; the continual dis
regard of congressional requisitions for the support of
the government ; the Newburgh Address ; the violent
resistance to the administration of justice ; the hostile
legislation between the colonies ; the proposed issue of
Irredeemable paper-money for the purpose, openly
avowed, of defrauding creditors. These, and other
similar acts, threatened political and social anarchy.
Nevertheless, the people did not faU into anarchy.
On the contrary, government performed Its functions,
and steadily moved forward in the development of
more complete and efficient forms. And if the history
of the people in Its entirety from 1774 to 1789 be
taken Into account, as In fairness it ought to be,
though sorely tried, they were patient, courageous, pro
digal of themselves and of their money, and worthy of
the highest encomiums. Their history Is the history of
a period. Men who signed the Address to the King In
1774 also signed the Constitution of the United States
in 1787 ; and during this time — less than half that
assigned to a generation — what labors and sufferings
did they not endure, what depths of humiliation did
they not sound, what heights of glory did they not
tread, — these men, less than three millions, who, in
resistance to parliamentary taxation, put, it has been
asserted, nearly three hundred thousand troops into
the field, raised and paid out from the general trea
sury above a hundred millions of dollars, proclaimed
and secured Independence, changed their colonial gov
ernments without passing through a period of anarchy,
quelled Intestine commotions, entered into union, and

McMASTER'S HISTORY 281
established a national government which secured their
prosperity and happiness. What people. In a time
so brief, ever achieved so much ? Nevertheless, they
were very human. Sometimes they faltered ; some
times they lost heart, and even their heads ; but they
recovered both in season to prevent Irretrievable dis
aster, and finally accomplished their great purpose.
Now anything less than this history in its entirety,
however faithful it may be In details, is injurious to
their just fame, and loses Its value for example or
warning. Their mistakes and weaknesses and vacil
lation undoubtedly form a part of their history ; and
so do those great achievements and characteristics by
which they finally triumphed. The remnant that
were wise, constant, and virtuous were the people, —
the Washlngtons, Greenes, and Sumters, not the
Arnolds, Conways, and Parsonses. In determining
the character of the people of the Revolution, as a
whole, it is not a question of majority. The men are
to be weighed, not counted. On the side where the
ultimate force majeure was found, there the people
were to be found, — whether in the majority or in the
minority no matter; and if the outcome of their en
deavor was success, then were the people intelligent
and wise ; and If It was beneficent, then were they
virtuous. The period from 1774 to 1789 was a period
of rebellion, revolution, and reconstruction. But It
wIU never be understood so long as It Is regarded as
an exceptional epoch In our history ; for from the
first day that organized English colonies were planted
on American soil they began to rebel, to make revolu
tions, and to form constitutions. This they continued
to do In clear political sequence, with scarcely a break,
down to the day when they found themselves under a

282 McMASTER'S HISTORY
stable government of their own. This is true of all
the colonies, and the essential political history of each
is the history of every other. The history of their
governments and of their peoples Is one and insepara
ble ; and their several peoples were one people, — an
organism with functions of scarcely distinguishable
honor or usefulness. There were no rich, no poor ; no
high, no low ; no wise, no ignorant ; no virtuous, no
vicious, in the European sense of these terms.
It Is doubtful, therefore, whether this history can
be adequately told in a series of monographs, or If
the history of the people be severed from that of the
political constitutions which expressed the popular
sentiment. But if this is attempted, the series cer
tainly should include one on the people themselves ;
for few subjects are more Interesting or Instructive
than the changes In the character of the people of the
United States between the landing at Jamestown and
the period which closes Mr. McMaster's second vol
ume. For such a history we could weU spare, or pass
lightly over, some other matters. History ought to be
made Interesting, if verity In the general effect can be
preserved. But many entertaining subjects are of sec
ondary importance. We need not be told — certainly
not with much detail — that in a new country, remote
from great centres of wealth and civilization, roads
were bad, bridges few or none, hotels execrable, books
rare, and newspapers lacking their modern features.
Such a condition of things marks only a stage of mate
rial progress, — not of civilization. Refined and cul
tivated communities have often found themselves sur
rounded by similar circumstances in the past, and so
will others in the future. The essential character of
the people Is vastly more Important.

McMASTER'S HISTORY 288
At the time Mr. McMaster's history opens. Eng
lishmen and their descendants, with slight admixture
of other blood, had lived for a hundred and fifty years
on this soil, under climate and influences widely differ
ing from those to which their race for a thousand
years had been accustomed. What changes had these
new conditions produced in the physical, intellectual,
or moral character of these Anglo- Americans ? On
its native soil the race had wrought great things and
acquired a great character. Less by military genius
than by courage and Indomitable pluck, it had waged
successful wars. Rapacious in conquest and greedy of
the commercial results of colonization, yet it was the
most equitable of nations In dealing with its depend
encies, save Ireland, and most benign in forming
governments for them. Nor was this greatness of
the past alone ; for, recently, under the inspiration
of Pitt's genius, its spirit, bursting insular bounds,
had shone with unsurpassed splendor. There was no
continent and no clime that did not witness it. In
Europe, on the field of Rosbach, it had upheld the
hands of Frederick the Great, as he repeUed the last
assault on continental Protestantism. At Plassy it
had opened a new empire In India. On the sea It had
humbled the power of Spain ; and on the Plains of
Abraham it had destroyed the empire of France In
America. No people in modern times had reached such heights
of national glory. Nor were their moral victories less
splendid. The nameless horrors of prisons were abol
ished ; the slave-trade was destroyed ; the penal code
mitigated ; a reform bill passed, and moral Instruction
carried to the cottages of the lowly, — achievements
which conferred lustre on such names as Howard,

284 McMASTER'S HISTORY
Clarkson, Wilberforce, Burke, Romilly, and Hannah
More. With such affiliations, with such inheritances, with
such stimulating examples In the elder branch of the
race, how did the younger branch bear itself in Its
western home ? From their first coming to these
shores to the fall of the French empire in America
their work, though difficult, had been simple : to sub
due a wilderness and Its savage inhabitants ; to develop
self-government under the conditions Imposed by their
charters ; and to promote religion, education, and
social progress. But after the fall of the French
power a new, complicated, and difficult problem con
fronted them : to subvert the disastrous commercial
policy of the empire, peaceably If possible, but to sub
vert It at all hazards ; to disrupt an empire when the
necessity became inevitable ; to declare and maintain
independence ; to change colonial governments into
independent states, without Intervening anarchy ; to
form and establish union under a frame of government
which should recognize the autonomy of states, while
it embraced them all under a federal jurisdiction.
No people had ever undertaken a more difficult
work, or accomplished It more successfuUy. England,
In the days of Cromwell, attempted a permanent
change of her government, and failed conspicuously.
Later, France also failed In a similar endeavor prose
cuted by methods at which mankind stood aghast.
But the American people have succeeded where
those of England and of France miscarried. Chance
and circumstances doubtless had something to do with
this difference in results, but it was mainly owing to
difference In character. The Anglo-American had
acquired an element of character which did not belong

McMASTER'S HISTORY 285
to his British progenitor. Whatever he may have lost,
he had gained the power of organization ; and without
this power he must have failed. This requires expla
nation. To the typical Englishman, the unit of force
was the individual man ; to the typical American, It
was an organization. The force which reformed Eng
lish prisons was John Howard ; the force which re
formed American prisons was the Prison Discipline
Society. And something like this difference in modes
of action has characterized the two branches of the
race in those great movements which constitute the
glory and the hope of the age.
This change in methods of action began In neces
sity. The first comers recognized It at once, and, with
that practical sagacity which has always characterized
them, they proceeded to organize themselves Into a
state-militant as a protection against an insidious foe ;
into a church-militant to deal summarily with intrud
ing heretics ; into town governments for the conduct
of communal affairs ; into school districts to carry
education to every man's door ; Into watch-and-ward
divisions for protection against fires and midnight
marauders. And these people have lived and breathed
and had their being In organizations ever since, and
with manifest advantages, especiaUy at the outset ; for
not only was every man utilized, leaving none super
fluous or Idle, but utilized for every conceivable exi
gency of the state, of which he became a part in a
manner before unknown. And the value of this per
vasive system of organization was even more manifest,
when. In the fuUness of time, barely two millions and
a half of people were arrayed In resistance to the most
powerful empire of the world. Never did any race
exhibit such power of organization, or put It to such

286 McMASTER'S HISTORY
efficient use, as did the colonists during the American
Revolution. Town governments, committees of safety,
committees of correspondence, Inter-colonial associa^
tions, extemporized provincial congresses, and even
organized mobs, kept well in hand by Samuel Adams
and Isaac Sears to strike in exigencies where legal
methods were inefficient, not only successfuUy resisted
the power of Great Britain, but subverted the royal
provincial governments, without violence, by provin
cial congresses which took their place ad interim.
We can seldom trace a national habit to its origin,
but in this instance we may. It was due to the co
lonial charters ; for the acceptance of a charter was in
itself an act of organization, and the corporate exist
ence In conformity to its provisions compelled the im
mediate organization of all those institutions, or their
equivalents, such as legislatures, courts, towns, military
companies, and the like, which on English soil, in the
course of ages, had grown up vnthout organization.
A new necessity formed a new habit. And the habit
once formed, the people organized themselves In aU
possible relations to the colonial state, and finaUy to
all religious, social, and moral enterprises. Happily
for them, also, the acceptance of charters changed
their natural relations to the parent country into or
ganic political relations to the crown which engaged
the power of the state for their protection from do
mestic anarchy and foreign foes. The lack of this
advantage, which can hardly be overestimated, is
manifest in the unhappy condition of those colonies
— of which Rhode Island is an example — which were
without charters, or acquired them too late. This was
not fully understood by either party at the time ; but
we now see that when Charles I. signed a colonial

McMASTER'S HISTORY 287
charter, he signed an instrument which. In the hands
of the colonists, became an Incipient declaration of
independence to disturb all his successors ; and the
fact that the English colonies were lands held of
the crown, or were corporations within the realm, for
extra-territorial purposes, and as such creating certain
reciprocal rights and duties, is the master-key which
unlocks their political history from Jamestown to Lex
ington. This acquired faculty of organization still abides,
and is used for the accomplishment of every conceiv
able purpose, and perhaps threatens to impair the
force of individual action in great enterprises. But
it ought not to be overlooked In the history of the
people of the United States ; for the people owe to it
their independence. It Is their greatest contribution
to the science of practical politics, and its use is be
coming common and efficient in other lands.^
But it is in the state that our history mainly centres,
and there it must be sought ; for by the government
' De Tocqueville ojiens the Xllth chapter of his first volume pf
Democracy in America with these words : " In no country in the world
has the principle of association been more successfully used, or applied
to a greater multitude of objects, than in America ; " but he states
the fact as he found it when he wrote, without tracing its historical
origin. In chapter V, of his second volume, he recurs to the subject
and asks, " Is this the result of accident ? or is there in reality any
necessary connection between the principles of association and that of
equality ? " Apparently he thought there was. But association in
America is au historical fact which antedates by sixty years the opera
tion of politico-philosophical causes. The first act of social existence
in the dominating colony of New England was an act of association
which made necessary all successive steps in that direction. Equality
was scarcely a genetic force in a close corporation of landholders into
which the prime condition of entrance was membership in the estab
lished colonial church. Of the general correctness of De Tocqueville's
view, however, there can be little doubt.

288 McMASTER'S HISTORY
have been accomplished those ends which most power
fully affected not only the material prosperity of the
people, but also their national character. It was by a
foreign treaty that the people gained a recognized
position among the nations. By the same treaty their
rights in the fisheries were restored, and thus was
formed a nursery of hardy seamen who, when free
play was given to their spirit, challenged England's
assumed sovereignty of the seas. And It was the same
treaty which opened the Mississippi to the turbulent
commerce which poured down from Its tributaries.
The Ordinance of 1787 — which Mr. McMaster has
passed over without endeavoring to unravel its intri
cate history, and with only slight recognition of Its
character — excluded slavery from the Northwest, and
made It the home of freemen who now have grown to
prosperous millions. It was by treaty that Louisi
ana was purchased In 1803, including territory which
more than doubled the area of the Union, and saved
to Anglo-American laws, customs, and manners the
vast regions beyond the Great River. It was through
the Assumption Act and the Funding System that
Hamilton "touched the dead corpse of the Public
Credit, and It sprung upon Its feet," — acts whose
moral significance is found In the fact that the public
credit has ever since been without stain, that specie
payment was resumed, and that justice was done to
the veterans of the Civil War.
Such are some of the themes — " of congresses, of
embassies, of treaties " — which enter Into the real
history of the people of the United States, and consti
tute Its chief value for the citizen as well as for the
student. They ought not to be crowded into a corner.
On the other hand. It Is noticeable that from the

McMASTER'S HISTORY 289
peace of 1788 to the close of Washington's adminis
tration such matters as are embraced In the phrase
" the progress of society " were almost of necessity in
abeyance. For during this period the States were per
fecting the machinery of their several governments,
and the general government was determining its own
powers, and adjusting its relations to the States. The
people were chiefly occupied " with wars, conspiracies,
rebellions ; with presidents, with congresses, with em
bassies, and with treaties," which Mr. McMaster re
gards as of secondary Importance.
But though they were chiefly so concerned, never
theless molecular action was going on which affected
their moral and inteUectual character; It was due,
however, neither to the state nor to popular action, but
to forces entirely overlooked by Mr. McMaster, or so
treated by him as to afford no indication of their
power. For when George Whitefield, John Wesley,
Francis Asbury, John Murray, Elhanan Winchester,
and Joseph Priestley died, the people of the United
States were something quite different from what they
would have been had these Englishmen never lived
and labored on American soil. Asbury's influence,
doubtless, was the most widely and most powerfully
felt.; and it is, perhaps, no exaggeration to say that he
saved the West and the Southwest to civilization. For
as the hardy but illiterate people who from the hlUs
of Virginia and the Carolinas scaled the AUeghanies,
and from their western slopes descended into the val
ley of the Mississippi, it was Asbury and the three
thousand Methodist preachers ordained by him who
met and organized them into religious societies, so that
within twenty years from the peace of 1788 these
trans-AUeghanean communities were nearly as weU

290 McMASTER'S HISTORY
supplied with religious institutions as the older States
from which they had emigrated.
The labors of Murray and Winchester, the apostles
of Universalism, also, were too considerable to be
passed silently by in the history of the people of the
United States, and the same may be said of the
rehabilitation of Episcopacy by Madison, Seabury,
Parker, Bass, and White.
Of Priestley's scientific and political influence we
are told something, but nothing of his theological
opinions which a little later convulsed New England
churches, and gained adherents from whom came the
greater part of our imaginative literature even to the
present day.
No reasonable exception can be taken to Mr. Mc
Master's low estimate of colonial imaginative litera
ture, and he doubtless places a just value — which is
high — upon the theological speculations of those
days, which for acuteness and depth were not sur
passed by any similar work emanating from the Brit
ish Islands. But the historian should not under
value the political pamphlets of Otis, Hutchinson, the
Adamses, Jay, Dickinson, and Livingston, for they
have not been surpassed either in the discussion of
great principles or in their application to practical
affairs. The legal erudition of those times, also, Is
almost phenomenal, when it is considered that from a
people without training in legal principles and with
a profound distrust of lawyers there sprang almost
at a bound, when needed, men such as Gridley, Prat,
Adams, Parsons, Jay, Dulaney, Wythe, and Marshall,
either of whom, with a little special training, would
have filled with credit the place of Mansfield, of
Camden, or of Eldon.

McMASTER'S HISTORY 291
The causes of the literary poverty of men of such
large and varied general ability opens up an Interest
ing field of speculation, but not to be entered on at
this time.
It is easier to raise questions respecting the history
of the people of the United States than it is to answer
them. Nevertheless, such questions are legitimate.
For example, Mr. McMaster tells us that " in the
Southern States education was almost wholly neg
lected, but nowhere to such an extent as In South Car
olina." And yet, from Virginia and the Carolinas
emigrated to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi a
race of men like Daniel Boone, Andrew Jackson,
George Rogers Clarke, and John Sevier, who not only
wrote good hands (as their early autograph letters,
preserved in coUections, show), but who seemed to be
fairly educated for civil affairs, and able to carry for
ward in their new homes a civilization differing in
some respects from that of the East, but In no respect
inferior to that of the communities they left behind
them. These were not the. sons of wealthy planters,
educated at Eton, at Winchester, or Harrow, or even
at William and Mary ; or of parents able to provide
for them private tutors. The educational history of
these emigrants Is an interesting subject for investi
gation. The modification of the character of the descendants
of Englishmen on this soil, already spoken of, was
brought about mainly by their situation. But during
the last quarter of the eighteenth century there had
come Into their life a new force, — faith in the power
of ideas. Down to that time Anglo-Americans, like
their progenitors, were men severely practical and
averse to general propositions. Their faith in the

292 McMASTER'S HISTORY
power of creeds and dogmas, religious and political,
was steadfast. They believed In heavy battaUons and
serried ranks, but with them faith in the power of
ideas was not even a conception. Their legislation
related to affairs, not to systems ; and the doctrinaire
was not known within their borders. But for the last
century It has been different, and this difference is due
to Jefferson. Where Jefferson got his Idealism is a
mystery ; for though he has many disciples, he had no
known master. It is usual to attribute It to the In
fluence of French writers — • Rousseau especiaUy ; but
the vitality and permanence of this element in his
character suggest an original rather than an acquired
force. About Jefferson as the head of a party, as an
administrator, and even as a man, opinions may differ ;
but there can be little doubt that he was the first
statesman who had faith in the sufficiency of Ideas not
merely as tests of the validity of political Institutions,
but as a power to subvert arbitrary government and
overthrow errors, however strongly Intrenched In an
cient wrong. In this respect perhaps he stands first
among thinkers, and certainly among the greatest of
those who have profoundly and beneficently modified
the character of an entire people. His influence
seems destined to affect the thought of mankind.
De TocquevIUe has noticed this change. " The
Americans," he says, " are much more addicted to the
use of general Ideas than the English, and entertain
a much greater relish for them : this appears very
singular at first, when it is remembered that the two
nations have the same origin, that they lived for cen
turies under the same laws, and that they Incessantly
interchange their opinions and their manners.
They have no philosophical school of their own

McMASTER'S HISTORY 293
yet they have a philosophical method common to the
whole people." The way may have been prepared for
this change, as he suggests, by their democratic habits,
but Jefferson was the founder of the school of poUtlcal
idealists. He struck the key-note, first heard in his
" Summary View," In 1774, and with a louder strain
sent it round the world In the great Declaration. If
one would see the change produced by Jefferson, let
him read the Declaration of Rights by the Congress
of 1774, and then the Declaration of Independence of
1776. One is a specification as cold as an indictment
to be tried by a petit jury ; the other, a trumpet caU
to the race and to the ages. It was the comprehen
siveness of Jefferson's immortal Declaration which
made it powerful in one generation to sever the bands
of an empire, and In another to break the shackles of
four millions of slaves, and In the present — but who
shaU forecast the future of Ireland or limit the po
tency of Jefferson's words ? To redress the balance
between England and her colonies he Invoked the
power of ideas. He thus added to the armory of a
struggling people a new weapon, — now the dynamics
of nationalities, — restless, resistless, unassailable by
fleets or armies !
This force, which Jefferson set In motion, sometimes
took a direction which he did not contemplate and of
which he would not have approved. The real inspi
ration of the young statesmen who forced the War of
1812 was less the local cry of " free trade and sailors'
rights " than an aspiration towards nationality, caught
not from Jefferson, Indeed, — for the father of state
rights was not a nationalist, — but for which they
were Indebted, nevertheless, to Jefferson's idealism :
an aspiration to which Webster gave utterance at

294 McMASTER'S HISTORY
Bunker HiU In words never forgotten, " Our country,
our whole country, and nothing but our country ; "
and again, even more effectively. In the Senate Cham
ber, In those other words, " the Union, one and insep
arable," taken up by the people and reaUzed after
four years of civil war.
The advent of such a force into the life of a people
is rare, and when apprehended in Its fuU significance
It Is one of the most Impressive events in their history ;
and Its recognition Is a test of historic Insight. It is
America's contribution to political philosophy ; and
if it be thought to belong to politics rather than to
history, it Is, nevertheless, an event inseparably con
nected with the history of the people of the United
States, and is fast becoming a part of the history of
the human race. As the race moves down through the
ages, it has a life and progress which includes the life
and progress of every nationality. Into this mighty
stream are affluents which bear on their surface traces
of the soil and vegetation of their sources, and these
mark the differences between nations.
Mr. McMaster's book Is a valuable contribution
to our history, and will be the cause of work better
than its own. His Industrious collection of materials
and his effective arrangement and courageous presen
tation of them cannot fail to stimulate other workers
in the same field. But he does not always discrimi
nate as to the value of authorities, and his history
suffers somewhat In consequence. Observations in
science, unless made under conditions which insure
accuracy, are of little value ; and this Is beginning to
be recognized In respect to history. No conclusions
should be drawn from the unsupported testimony of
such travelers as Anburey or Brissot ; and sectarian

McMASTER'S HISTORY 295
and party prejudices often render worthless the works
of native historians.
With these observations we take leave of Mr. Mc
Master's history. Where we have received so much
and of so great value, it is ungracious to ask for more
or for something different ; but our just claims upon
Mr. McMaster are limited only by his ability. His
series of historical monographs Is accepted with grat
itude ; but if he has "... . left half-told
The story "
which he is able to tell in full, — and certain vital
signs leave little doubt on that point, — he must for
give us If we are not entirely satisfied with what he
has already done.

JOSIAH QUINCY, THE GREAT MAYOR
An Address before the Massachusetts Society fob
PROMOTING Good Citizenship, at the Old South
Meeting House, Boston, February 25, 1889

JOSIAH QUINCY, THE GREAT MAYOR

Iisr front of the City Hall in Boston are two statues
In bronze — one of Benjamin Franklin and the other
of Josiah Quincy. The artist has represented Frank
lin in his old age and the culminated splendor of his
fame, revisiting, as he had often expressed a desire to
do, the city of his birth, and standing In reverential
attitude, with uncovered head, before the spot hal
lowed by memories of the old Boston Latin School,
In which he received the rudiments of his education.
No better site could have been chosen. With equal
felicity of position Josiah Quincy, In the prime of
manhood, stands on the opposite side of the Inclosure,
before the most august symbol of the city which he
had done so much to build up and adorn. As works
of art these statues provoked the vituperative elo
quence of Boston's most gifted orator, and I hear that
they divide the opinions of experts. However this
may be, the characters they commemorate gain In
respect with the passing years and the spread of
letters. In some circumstances of their lives Benjamin
Franklin and Josiah Quincy resembled each other;
in others, they were strongly contrasted. Natives of
the same town, each represented the class from which
he sprung, and each had no Inconsiderable influence
In shaping the institutions of Philadelphia and of

800 JOSIAH QUINCY
Boston, in which they severaUy resided. Franklin
was of the people, without fortune or interest or
social position ; but by self-culture and Industrious
use of his powers and opportunities, he became dis
tinguished at home and abroad, and here, If nowhere
else, is known as "the Great Bostonian." Josiah
Quincy, on the other hand, was of " good family " —
a phrase which denoted the highest distinction of
rank accorded in the Boston of those days. His for
tune, "counseling Ignoble ease and peaceful sloth,"
was ample ; but closing his ears to the sirens, he bound
himseU to laborious days, and, having acquired repu
tation in national affairs, so successfully promoted the
development of municipal Institutions that he is now
best known as " the Great Mayor."
The life of Franklin, often written, has been read
in many lands, and thousands, foUowing his precepts
and example, have lived successful lives. Josiah
Quincy's life by his son, a model of literary skill and,
as a fiUal biography, unsurpassed if ever equaled. Is
less known than it ought to be; for in the field of
civic affairs, everywhere now assuming importance, I
know of no more instructive or exemplary life ever
lived In America. That phase of It — its Instructive
and exemplary quality — is my theme this evening.
He was born here In Boston, on the easterly side of
Washington Street, a few doors southerly from Milk
Street, February 4, 1772 ; was graduated at Harvard
CoUege In 1790 ; admitted to the bar In 1798 ; and
married In 1797. In May, 1804, he was elected to
the State Senate, and In October of the same year, at
the age of thirty-three, a representative to Congress,
where he sat until March 4, 1813. Declining further

JOSIAH QUINCY 801
service in that body, with the exception of several
terms In the General Court and the session of the
Constitutional Convention of 1820, he was in private
life, giving much attention to the cultivation of his
ancestral acres at Quincy, until his appointment In
1821 as judge of the Municipal Court of Boston,
over which he presided for two years. From May,
1828, to January, 1829, he was mayor of Boston.
Failing of reelection, he was chosen president of Har
vard CoUege in 1829, and held that office for sixteen
years, residing at Cambridge. After his resignation
of the presidency In 1845, he returned to Boston,
resuming his summer residence at Quincy, and there,
in his house overlooking the sea, he died, July 1,
1864, at the great age of ninety-two years, four
months, and twenty-seven days.
Few of our public men have lived so long or
through so many extraordinary events. His life be
gan little less than a year before Samuel Adams In
Faneull Hall reported the " Rights of the Colonists,"
in one of the most Important state papers of the
Revolutionary period ; and It ended little less than a
year before Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox
Court House. At the first period the Revolution,
which severed an empire and made thirteen subject
colonies independent States, had become inevitable;
at the second, the last slave shackle In Anglo-Saxon
lands had been broken, and the decree of God was on
the wing which reunited the great Republic as one,
free and inseparable. What momentous events Inter
vened ! The first shot at Lexington and the bloody
carnage at Bunker HIU ; the Declaration of Independ
ence and CornwaUIs's surrender at Yorktown; the
Treaty of Peace, in 1783, and the framing of the

802 JOSIAH QUINCY
Constitution of the United States, In 1787 ; the acqui
sition of Louisiana, including territory west of the
Mississippi, more than doubling the area of the Re-
pubUc ; and the War of 1812, which first aroused the
spirit of nationality in the people, and on the sea
compelled the respect of the world ; the adoption of
an economic system developing antagonism between
the manufacturing North and the cotton-gi-owlng
South, at one time seriously threatening the Union,
and the beginning of hostility to slavery which finally
led to its extinction by civil war.
At the beginning of the Revolution Josiah Quincy
was too young to have inteUigently observed what
was passing about Boston between 1774 and 1776, if,
during these years, there had not been found a more
safe retreat for him at Norwich, Connecticut ; but
from the adoption of the Constitution nothing of pub
lic interest escaped his notice.
There was, however, one Interesting event of which
he may have had a vague recollection. It was the
" tea party " of December 16, 1773. In the after
noon of that day, his father, standing here in the Old
South where I now stand, and speaking to those who
sat where you now sit, said In words which have be
come historical : " It is not, Mr. Moderator, the spirit
which vapors within these walls that must stand us in
stead. The exertions of this day call forth events
which wiU make a very different spirit necessary for
our salvation" — words true now, and as applicable
to affairs In this city to-day as they were more than a
century ago when they reechoed from these walls. In
the evening of that afternoon the Infantile ears of his
son must have heard, though they heeded not, the
tramp of men hurrying past his father's door to gather

JOSIAH QUINCY 803
in this place ; and they must have heard the war-
whoop which came up out of the darkness of the street
and was responded to by shouts from these dimly
lighted galleries. Then Griffin's Wharf; then the
Boston Port BiU ; then Lexington and Bunker HIU ;
then the Siege of Boston and the Declaration of Inde
pendence — events which he could have known only
as we know them.
Though Josiah Quincy doubtless knew Samuel
Adams, It does not appear that he sought his society.
Samuel Adams was much the older, and they were of
different political parties. But with John Hancock,
who married Dorothy Quincy, his father's cousin, he
was better acquainted, and once at least was his guest
in the old Hancock House, now unfortunately no
longer standing. Honor to the man, the President
of this Society, who, with a just sense of the value of
patriotic associations to good citizenship, did so much
to save the Old South !
He knew Washington also, and so did Mrs. Quincy.
Their estimates of the personality of that great man
were widely different, she regarding him as "more
than a hero — a superior being, as far above the com
mon race of mankind In majesty and grace of personal
bearing as in moral grandeur ; " and he, forsooth, as
not unlike " the gentlemen who used to come to Bos
ton in those days to attend the General Court from
Hampden or Franklin County, in the western part of
the State — a little stiff in his person, not a little
formal in his manner, and not particularly at ease In
the presence of strangers." In this difference of esti
mate we see one touch of nature which makes aU mar
ried couples kin.

304 JOSIAH QUINCY
I have given you a mere outline of Mr. Quincy's
life. It was long, useful, honorable. In whatever
field of labor he entered he soon became distinguished ;
but when, in May, 1823, In the second year of the
city, Josiah Quincy became its mayor, he found the
place suited more than any other, I think, to his tal
ents and his moral qualities; and In the six years
that he served the city he did the work which gave
him his highest fame, and In the retrospect of a long
and varied career the most satisfaction.
His new office certainly was less conspicuous as a
theatre of action than the floor of the House when
filled by Randolph of Roanoke, Clay, Calhoun, Web
ster, and Macon ; and the proceedings of the city gov
ernment attracted less attention, if any, in Europe
or in this country, than national affairs from the
Embargo of 1807 to the Peace of 1815. And when.
In 1828, Josiah Quincy, In the prime of life and In
the fullness of his great powers, reengaged in public
affairs as the chief magistrate of a smaU city. It Is not
unlikely that his old associates at Washington, whom
he had led in attack, and some of whom had felt the
vigor of his onset, regarded the change of position as
a descent. Even in this day of grace the mayoralty
of a great city, which with Its grand possibilities to
all sincere men might weU seem the summit of a
career. Is too often looked upon as a stepping-stone.
On the other hand, when, in 1829, he became presi
dent of the oldest and most conspicuous college in
the land, and not unknown In Europe, it was doubt
less thought that Mr. Quincy at length had reached a
position more worthy of his great abilities and of his
rich and varied culture. But it Is a fair question
whether during the eight years he was in Congress,

JOSIAH QUINCY 305
where, encountering Henry Clay without discomfiture,
he delivered a series of speeches. In the judgment of
Webster the best of that period, or during the sixteen
years when he was president of Harvard College and
rescued it from financial peril, reformed Its adminis
tration, and placed it on a firm basis, he did a work
so peculiarly his own, or one so far beyond the powers
of other men, or by which he desired or deserved to
be remembered, as that of the six years when he was
mayor of Boston.
Mr. Quincy, voluntarily retiring from Congress on
March 4, 1818, never officIaUy reengaged in national
affairs, to the regret of his friends and, as his son
suggests, possibly to bis own In later years. I think
we need not share that feeling. Doubtless with
opportunity he would have acquired great distinction,
and possibly be more widely known to-day. We now
see, however, that John Quincy Adams accomplished
everything In diplomacy or in national administra
tion that Mr. Quincy could have done, nor could Mr.
Webster's senatorial career have been surpassed. But
what other American known to history could have
equaled Mr. Quincy's work In municipal affairs; or
who will presume to determine Its relative Importance
to that of either of his great compeers ?
I have no desire to magnify the subject assigned
to me. Certainly I have none to overestimate the
relative value of different periods of service In Mr.
Quincy's life, and still less to underrate the service of
those who, from John Phillips to the present hour,
have filled the mayor's chair with honor. Boston has
been fortunate In the selection of her chief magis
trates ; but by any standard and by any comparison
Mr. Quincy's work as mayor was a great work of

306 JOSIAH QUINCY
enduring value, and his place is high up among able
and useful men of his age and country.
I think we may safely go farther, and say that in
the department of American municipal affairs no one
of his countrymen ever had a wider, more j^rofound,
more permanent, or more beneficent influence than
had Josiah Quincy as mayor of Boston. This was
due In part, no doubt, to the fact that Boston was one
of the earliest incorporated cities In the country, and
perhaps the first to bring all departments of Its gov
ernment Into that harmonious adjustment which made
it a pattern for other cities in the United States, and.
In certain particulars, for some In Europe. It is
equaUy true that Josiah Quincy, like aU men essen
tially great, recognized the advantages of his position
and made the most of them ; and so far as he made
Boston what it was, and as widely and permanently
as it has influenced the Institutions of other cities, so
wide and permanent ought to be his just fame. Such
was his opportunity. Then came his hour ; and I
think he made it an epoch In the history of municipal
government. Who and what then was Josiah Quincy ; how did
he equip himself for his work ; for what do his life,
his character, and his services stand to us ?
Here was a man in rare combination of birth, tal
ents, personal accomplishments, and estate — the most
enviable man of his day in America. That was his
good fortune. It is our fortune, if we so will, that
there was nothing in any of the essential circum
stances of his life, or his character, or conduct, which
we cannot Imitate, adopt, and follow. And it Is lust
this imitable and exemplary quality which makes him

JOSIAH QUINCY 307
on the whole, the best model hitherto appearing in
our American life upon which to form ourselves.
The consummate genius of Henry Clay, who first
aroused the spirit of nationality in the people, or
of W^ebster, who moulded the Constitution to It, or
of Lincoln, who called a million of armed men to
its defen.se, so far transcends the limits of ordinary
rational aspiration as to make imitation ridiculous.
Had Mr. Quincy belonged to that class of men. In
despair we might turn off the lights and, in the seclu
sion of our homes, giving rein to Imagination, vainly
identify ourselves with those rare spirits who have
appeared to dazzle, to delight, and to elude us. Hap
pily for us, in what he did for good government, or In
what his example may inspire us to do for good gov
ernment, he was of a different order, though I think
we shall quite as soon see another Henry Clay, or
Daniel Webster, or possibly Abraham Lincoln, as
another Josiah Quincy. Each In some particulars
surpassed him. But in the genius of character — in
the combination of intellectual and moral qualities —
he has had no superior In our American life. And
it is character which finaUy prevails; which moulds
institutions and forms a people for greatness ; which
gathers to itself and expresses what Is best and most
permanent in race qualities. It is the dominating
and permanent influence on society. The stream finds
its path, not by the lights which glitter along Its
course, nor by sun, moon, or stars above, but by Its
headlands and firm-set shores. Our Puritans pre
vailed, not because of the Intellectual greatness of
one, but because many were great in character ; and
so it must ever be. Great as were Mr. Quincy's abU
ities, his preemlnerice was in character. And it is

308 JOSIAH QUINCY
this which draws us to the Old South to-night ; not
to search his life for entertaining anecdotes — of
which there are many — • or points effective in biogra
phical description. With set purpose I shaU pass
over everything, however attractive, which Is not pro
fitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, or for
instruction in the righteousness of citizenship. I wish
to discern In his life and character and services, if I
may, whatever wIU Instruct and Inspire us to the for
mation of like character, to undertake similar services
so far as our circumstances allow, and to act with
the same fidelity to duty. Failing in this, I fail
utterly. Mr. Quincy did not, like Franklin, raise himself
from poverty to affluence and power ; but he was ex
posed to perils which Franklin escaped — perils which
most of us escape ; perils of social position as the
only son of an eminent revolutionary patriot enroUed
by great services and early death among the martyrs ;
of his singularly attractive personality — a fatal gift
to one of less austere self-control ; of his fortune, per
mitting a Ufe of elegant leisure elevated by no sincere
purpose ; of an hereditary domain crowned by an his
toric mansion hospitable to Illustrious visitors from
other lands, as weU as his own, including three Presi
dents of the United States — a social distinction satis
fying to a moral sense less robust, less exacting than
his own. How many have been wrecked by perils
which Josiah Quincy avoided ; how few have acknow
ledged the obligations he assumed ; how many have
laid dovni the burdens he carried nearly a hundred
years ; how many, withholding, or In disgust with
drawing, themselves from public affairs for which
they are eminently fitted by education, fortune, and

JOSIAH QUINCY 309
social position, have yielded to the seductions of plea
sures, not always innocent, and lived their lives and
exhausted their gifts with no results of value to them
selves or to others !
Franklin and Quincy were both great men ; and It
is not their least — perhaps it is their highest — claim
to grateful remembrance that each, pushing aside the
obstacles and escaping the perils which beset him,
made the most of his powers and opportunities.
Higher honor no man ever gained than this; than
this of no man God requires more. Seldom has the
same town produced two such men, each recognized
as the best type of some characteristic trait of its
people — Franklin of their thrift, the result of right
conduct ; Josiah Quincy of their fitness for citizen
ship, which for two hundred years, in peace and in war,
had made Boston a most conspicuous and influential
municipality ; himself to become more widely known
as the rights and duties of citizenship are accorded
their just place in the education and life of the peo
ple, as they must Inevitably be with the development
of republican government.
Mr. Quincy's talents were great, so great that more
safely than most men he could have dispensed with
laborious preparation for his public work ; but, save
John Adams and his son, John Quincy, I know no
one of our countrymen who so assiduously prepared
for It. From early manhood he fitted himself for
citizenship with very clear notions of its value and
just demands ; and he cultivated his powers by an
exhaustive study of every question likely to engage
them. Although completely equipped for office, Josiah
Quincy, so far as I can discover, never sought it ; nor,

310 JOSIAH QUINCY
what is quite as much to his credit considering his
easy fortune, did he ever refuse it. I think we may
safely say that he never accepted office for its honors
or Its emoluments, nor declined it to escape Its labors,
its responsibilities, or even Its obloquy. When he
accepted the mayoralty it was not that he might make
himself famous, but, as he hoped, that he might
make the city eminent for good order, for honest
government, and for the prosperity of its people —
make it " Athens the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable ; "
nor did It change his determination or his conduct by
a hair's breadth when he foresaw, as he did from the
beginning, that after such services the people would
reject him.
He succeeded John Phillips as mayor, In May, 1828,
and held the office six years. The history of his admin
istration being in some sort a " Tract for the Times,"
I desire to preface It by recalling to your recollection
the state of municipal affairs In Boston in 1821, at the
time the people were discussing their fundamental
government — whether it should remain, as for two
hundred years It had been, essentially democratic, or
be changed more completely to a representative gov
ernment. An Interesting question not only In Boston
but elsewhere ; for, about the time when Mr. Quincy
was giving attention to the subject, Guizot, who had
been of the ministry of Louis XVIII., In which he
took an active part In the establishment of represen
tative government In France, was preparing a course
of lectures, afterwards expanded and published. In

JOSIAH QUINCY 811
1852, as " The History of the Origin of Representative
Government in Europe." Guizot believed in repre
sentative government, and yet when he published that
work he had witnessed the bad fortune of the experi
ment in France In 1820, the severer test of It In 1830,
and its disastrous failure when Louis Napoleon seized
the government In 1851. Nevertheless his faith en
dured, and In the wreck of hopes and reasonable ex
pectations, with sublime serenity he said that " among
the infinite illusions of human vanity we must num
ber those of misfortune ; whether as peoples or indi
viduals, In public or in private life, we delight to
persuade ourselves that our trials are unprecedented,
and that we have to endure evils and surmount obsta
cles previously unheard of. How deceitful is this
consolation of pride and suffering ! God has made
the condition of men, of all men, more severe than
they are willing to believe ; and he causes them at all
times to purchase at a dearer price than they had an
ticipated the success of their labors and the progress
of their destiny. Let us accept this stern law without
a murmur ; let us courageously pay the price which
God puts upon success. Instead of basely renouncing
success itself."
It heightens our respect for Mr. Quincy that, though
he was opposed to a city charter and resisted It by
speech and pen as long as there was any chance of
defeating It, yet, when it was adopted, with sincerity
and untiring labor he devoted his powers and his time
to make It successful.
Like some other able men of his day, he believed
the pure democracy of the town meeting more suited
to the character of the people of New England and
less liable to corruption and abuse than a more com-

312 JOSIAH QUINCY
pact government, which, with all Its checks and bal
ances, checks after the collision and balances after the
load is overturned quite as often as before — a system
which breeds confidential clerks and sweUs the popu
lation of Montreal — a sort of " Waterbury watch "
affair, out of which you get no more time than you
put Into It !
After nearly seventy years of representative city
government it Is premature to say what form it will
ultimately take ; whether it will return to the old
democratic simplicity, if some practicable scheme can
be devised, or still further simplify representation by
abolishing all intermediaries, such as the Board of
Aldermen and Common Council, and. Intrusting every
thing to the Mayor, with such heads of departments
as he may choose, hold him responsible for good gov
ernment. This has one advantage of a monarchy. If
the people dislike the monarch they can decapitate
him, as they often have done ; with representative
bodies this Is not quite so convenient, though often
quite as desirable and necessary !
It took six thousand years to ascertain whether,
by just law, the sun should revolve around the earth
as a centre, or the earth around the sun. Copernicus
settled that question ; and we await the advent of an
equal genius to adjust the revolution of political bod
ies agreeably to the divine order. In the mean time
we must wait, but not idly. As we ourselves have to
do, so did Mr. Quincy take things as he found them
— not altogether as he would have chosen. When he
came to the government he found matters much as
they are now. Then there were proportionally as many
who pleaded, as we do. In excuse for declining par
ticipation in public affairs, that their opinions, tastes

JOSIAH QUINCY 313
and what seemed to them right modes of action, were
so different from those of a large part of the people
and so unlikely to result in success that It was hardly
worth while to waste their energies In the vain endea
vor to secure good government ; that matters were iu
a bad way doubtless, but that they could better bear
the ills of bad government than afford the time re
quired for their correction ; that a few right-minded
people were of small account among so many wrong-
minded, and at worst that they were as well off as
others. Mr. Quincy had quite as good reason as we
have for Impatience, discouragement, and disgust with
popular Ignorance, unreasonableness, and caprice, with
the greed of the selfish and the indifference of well-
to-do people.
The change from the old town government to a city
government, requiring a surrender of methods dear
to the people by immemorial usage and the adop
tion of new methods necessarily abridging many of
their former liberties, caused discontent, which in
creased rather than diminished after their first year's
experience of the new system. For two hundred
years the town government had performed its func
tions, upon the whole, with results satisfactory to
the people. It was their own — to them a great
merit; for In it they made their power felt without
much dilution by passing through a representative
medium. It was economical — another merit ; for
the people were economical. They treated the un
fortunate and vicious classes with slight regard to
health, comfort, or their possible restoration to better
conditions. Streets were narrow, IU paved, unswept,
and drainage dIsgracefuUy Inadequate ; but wide
streets, well paved, well Ughted, and well drained

814 JOSIAH QUINCY
were costly luxuries, to be had only by taxation.
They had rebelled against British taxation, and quar
reled with the domestic article. They disliked the
thing, by whatever name. Consequently their legisla^
tion was from hand to mouth, with little regard to
system or prevision of remote consequences, good or
bad. This was a serious embarrassment to Mr. Quincy,
whose broad and forecasting mind projected measures
requiring time for their perfection and for yielding
their best results. Of course the people were not un
aware of the impracticability of 7,000 voters assem
bling In one place, usually Faneull HaU, to choose
town officers, levy taxes, and determine with due
deliberation the various and complicated legislative
and executive affairs for a population of 40,000 ; and,
as we shall see, they had delegated some of the more
important functions to executive boards. Neverthe
less, five times between 1784 and 1821 they had re
fused a charter, and finally accepted it only by a
majority of 1,500 of the 5,000 voters who took the
trouble to express their wishes at the polls.
The government had changed, but the people re
mained the same. Old habits were strong. They
missed their March meeting — a sort of festival day
on which they had assembled in Faneuil Hall, chosen
town officers, and done their town business, as had
their fathers for two hundred years, and outside ex
changed friendly greetings and the news, and now and
then made sharp bargains. For the young were frolic
and sport and gingerbread and fire-crackers, dear to
boys. How different from all this were cold. Isolated
ward rooms, with no debates and no James Otis, or
Samuel Adams, or Harrison Gray Otis, the most bril-

JOSIAH QUINCY 815
llant of orators until Wendell Phillips arose in Faneuil
Hall to electrify the peninsula and recall the austere
virtues of the Puritans.
Nor was sentimental attachment wanting. The
town meeting had endeared itself to the people In
affording opportunities for resisting every form of
royal predominance, civil or ecclesiastical, which inter
fered with their rights, real or imaginary, and by its
agency In bringing on and carrying forward the Revo
lution. Some of the older men had seen how effec
tively, how wisely, Samuel Adams had handled It, and
generally, though not always, how unselfishly. It had
been the palladium of their liberties, and they were
sorry to give It up.
Now these principles, reasons, and prejudices, al
though shared by Josiah Quincy, were a serious hin
drance to his government, into which they were car
ried by the people, and made themselves more and
more manifest as the stringency of new rules interfered
with old customs and Interests. There was laudation
of old ways and much carping at the new, chiefly be
cause they were new.
From a very early day many legislative and execu
tive powers of the town government had been given
over to Selectmen, Overseers of the Poor, Board of
Health, FIrewards, and Assessors ; and It came to pass
that the first three of these boards constituted a
Finance Committee, which determined appropriations,
assessment of taxes, and expenditures. Although they
owed their election and nominally their powers to the
people, practically they were self-perpetuating oli
garchies, which claimed to carry their functions Into
the new city government in 1822, and were only sup
pressed by the tact and persistence of Mr. Quincy in

316 JOSIAH QUINCY
asserting the just authority of the new government
under the charter.
When Mr. Quincy became mayor the new govern
ment had been running a year. The first mayor, an
able and worthy gentleman, does not appear to have
given much attention to municipal affairs ; and other
public burdens, with failing health, prevented his
grappling with troublesome questions. He left them
with Mr. Quincy. The charter, as drafted by the
late Chief Justice Shaw, was a model. But paper
government was one thing, and a working govern
ment was quite another thing — a machine needing
adjustment. This was no easy matter. An Indolent,
easy-going mayor, to whom conscience was of less
account than comfort, caring less to have matters run
correctly than smoothly, and more solicitous respect
ing his reelection than for the public interests, would
have got on with a tithe of the trouble which Mr.
Quincy took to himself.
In everything relating to the construction or work
ing of the charter and to the management of city
affairs, he had a way of his own. He studied sub
jects until he knew them better than any other man.
Of this, I dare say, he was conscious, and perhaps he
was opinionated. Nevertheless, he was a just man,
judicially just, determined, Infiexible, steadfast. No
thing escaped his eye, and in labor he was untlrlno-.
Here was the right man for the place, yet very
much In the way, — In the way of all wrong-headed
people ; of those whose private interests conflicted
with the public interests ; of all who had jobs ; of aU
who wished to be left alone In pursuit of their selfish
courses or passions, regardless of the general weal.
In giving an account of the new mayor's work I

JOSIAH QUINCY 817
cannot go very fully into details ; but in general
terms, and with due regard to facts, I think I may
say that there was no one of our public institutions,
nor anything In the mode of conducting them, which
gave rank to Boston among cities quite out of pro
portion to Its territory or population, and made It a
model for other cities, which either did not originate
In the Inventive mind of Josiah Quincy, or owe to his
shaping hand completer development and more benefi
cent action. His work covered public morals, health,
education, convenience, and comfort ; streets, sewers,
and water ; penal, reformatory, and Industrial Institu
tions ; markets, police, fire department, and an in
cipient public garden. With efficient coadjutors and,
in a general sense, the public support, yet he was the
greatest factor in every work. He inspired, he led.
Before bis time mayors were often merely presiding
officers, — ornamental figure-heads. Executive pow
ers had fallen into the hands of boards. Lack of
unity and efficiency followed. Mr. Quincy deter
mined to be mayor. Therefore he gathered up all the
powers which the charter, in express terms or by fair
construction, gave him, and he used them with results
before unknown ; not to engross power, but, as he
said, " to produce and fix in the minds of all influen
tial classes of citizens a strong conviction of the ad
vantages of having an active and willingly responsible
executive, by an actual experience of the benefits of
such an administration of their affairs ; and also
of their right and duty of holding the mayor respon
sible In character and office for the state of the police
and finances of the city."
Such were Mr. Quincy's views respecting good gov
ernment. To bring it about taxed his powers to the

318 JOSIAH QUINCY
utmost. He succeeded, and his success was the best
solution of the problem of city govemment hitherto
presented. The sequel is worth noting. After he
left the mayoralty, in 1829, there set in a departure
from his views, which finally became wide. Old jeal
ousies between the different departments of govern
ment revived. The legislative branch claimed a share
In the powers of the executive department, and both
in those of the mayor. The General Court yielded to
the clamor for popular rights ; and after a time we
came to have a government which, lacking unity of
power and consequent responsibility, did not govern.
Matters finally came to such a pass that. In 1885, the
Legislature again intervened and remodeled the char
ter so as to act more nearly In the spirit in which Mr.
Quincy administered it sixty years before.
When Mr. Quincy had established the government
on a good basis, he Instituted a series of reforms,
more than a score in number, which gave to Boston a
high rank among municipalities, and made it in many
respects a model city ; a model of institutions for the
criminal, the improvident, and the unfortunate ; of
well-paved, clean-kept, and well-lighted streets; of
sewerage and systematic removal of public and pri
vate offal ; of administrative measures concerning
public health, education, police, and markets ; of the
preservation of natural scenery, such as the islands In
the harbor, and for the Inauguration of a park system,
now unfolding itself with promise to public health
and morals and the sense of beauty.
Without order of time, and grouping some related
measures, I now specify a few of Mr. Quincy's ser
vices. If to-day, or at any time before to-day, Boston

JOSIAH QUINCY 319
has or has had the reputation of being one of the
cleanest and most healthy of large cities, it is due
mainly to Josiah Quincy. He took the matter In
hand soon after his inauguration — and there was
need. Conflicting boards claimed sole authority to
clean the streets and remove offal. Consequently the
work was not well done. The powers Inefficiently ex
ercised by these boards were transferred by legislative
authority and municipal consent to the mayor and
aldermen, who got to work with such effect that " for
the first time, on any scale destined for universal
application, the broom was used upon the streets ;
every street, aUey, court, and household yard, how
ever distant and however obscure, was thoroughly
cleansed." The death rate was lessened and the com
fort of the people Increased.
With like vigor, and with similar discouragements,
Mr. Quincy overhauled criminal and pauper institu
tions. There was an almshouse in the heart of the
city. Its inmates, allowed to wander through the
streets, some intoxicated, some begging, had become a
public nuisance. For nearly a hundred years their
care had been Intrusted to the overseers of the poor,
excellent gentlemen, with old-time notions of their
powers as weU as of the management of paupers.
With this board he had a contest. He won ; and,
as a result, there were set up on spacious grounds at
South Boston, amidst healthful Influences, a House of
Correction, a House of Industry, and a House for the
Reformation of Juvenile Offenders. This change,
salutary to their Inmates, promoted the security and
comfort of dwellers in the city proper. Several of
these institutions have since been removed to Deer
Island. The House for Juvenile Offenders, which

320 JOSIAH QUINCY
originated with Mr. Quincy, attracted the attention
of De TocquevIUe, sent by the French government
in 1832 to inquire into the penitentiary system of the
United States.
Before Mr. Quincy's time some of the leading reli
gious societies had derived considerable revenue from
the sale of burial rights In tombs beneath their church
edifices. Resj)ectable medical practitioners said there
was no harm in this ; but Mr. Quincy effectually op
posed Its continuance on the score of public health,
and this led to the establishment of extra-mural ceme
teries, now so common, of which Mt. Auburn was the
first. Public morals, no less than public health, engaged
his attention. There was a district of the city, now
quite respectable, then congested with jail - birds,
thieves, miscreants, and the most abandoned of both
sexes, who haunted houses of Ul-fame, and, issuing
therefrom, committed all sorts of crimes. Including'
murder, and in their Boston Alsatia defied the police.
Mr. Quincy took them In hand, and shortly the worst
offenders were In the House of Correction at South
Boston. The district was restored to good order and
respectabllltj', and the city became more secure.
Mr. Quincy's work appears at Its best only in the
fullest details, though time does not allow their re
cital. Nothing within municipal authority escaped
his attention ; there was no department which, after
his six years of service, did not show the effect of
masterly organization and administration. There are
two subjects, however, which even in a cursory survey
of Mr. Quincy's labors ought not to be overlooked.
Every one knows, generally at least, that Boston
owes to Josiah Quincy what Is now best known as

JOSIAH QUINCY 321
Quincy Market ; but unless he has studied the sub
ject, no one knows the change effected In that section
of the city, or the labor by which private Interests
were satisfied and the people Induced to engage In
an expensive work which resulted In the erection of
" a granite market house, two stories high, 435 feet
long, 50 feet wide, and covering 27,000 feet of land.
Including every essential accommodation, at the cost
of $150,000. Six new streets were opened and a
seventh greatly enlarged. Including 167,000 square
feet of land, and flats, docks, and wharf rights were
obtained to the extent of 142,000 square feet ; and
all this was accomplished In the centre of a populous
city, not only without tax, debt, or burdens upon
its pecuniary resources, notwithstanding that in the
course of Its operations funds to the amount of up
wards of $1,100,000 had been employed, but with
large permanent addition to Its real and productive
property." It is perhaps less well known that Mr. Quincy
extinguished private rights to lands at the foot of the
Common, since become part of the Public Garden,
which secured what was then one of the most repul
sive, now one of the most beautiful, spots In the world,
and made practicable the policy of the State, in lay
ing out and filling up the Back Bay and opening
public squares, for which the people were not then
prepared. It has been often said by some who were citizens of
Boston during Mr. Quincy's administration that the
trait of his character which most strongly Impressed
them, as exhibited on many occasions, was courage,
and that he might well be best remembered still as

322 JOSIAH QUINCY
" the Fearless Magistrate." There was one occasion
on which he gave an example of moral courage which
even in this sketch ought not to be passed over. It
was in respect to the fire department. This organiza
tion held an important relation to the property and
the lives of the jDcople. Numbering twelve hundred
young men, bound together by common associations
and common dangers, impatient of new ways and jeal
ous of any infringement on their customary privileges,
they were a power at the polls quite out of proportion
to their numbers — a power which they were not slow
to exert on occasion. Mr. Quincy's efforts in redu
cing the department to stricter discipline, and even
more, his insistence upon the use of hose Instead of
buckets and cisterns instead of pumps, and his bring
ing from Philadelphia and New York new and Im
proved fire engines, had caused IU feeling which
showed Itself In insubordination and acts of violence.
This state of things prepared the way for an outbreak
in the last year of Mr. Quincy's administration on
the appointment of a chief engineer not to the fire
men's liking. Mr. Quincy's resoluteness in meeting
this exigency, and the promptitude and efficiency with
which he filled the places of those who expected to
force the mayor's position by tendering their reslgnar
tion, showed the people how fearlessly he could dis
charge his duty even at the cost of his reelection, as
he foresaw might be and was the case.
In estimating " the Great Mayor," it is not enough
to look merely at the amount and variety of his ser
vices. Though his Intellect was of a high order, his
influence was largely In character, devotion to his
work, untiring Industry, sincerity, decision of manner

JOSIAH QUINCY 328
tempered by exactest courtesy, cordiality, helpfulness,
physical and moral intrepidity. Some of us saw him
In his old age, the most venerable figure in our streets ;
others, at the college before time had bowed his form ;
but the memory of few now present reaches back to
the days when, in the prime of his long life — with his
high-bred face no more noticeable man in America ^
— often before the sun was up, he rode his daily
round of Inspecting the city ; or when. In a riot, he
put himself at the head of the truckmen, hastily
extemporized as an auxiliary police force, and moved
down upon the mob. In every relation of life, public
or private, his character, bearing, and personality gave
assurance of a man. Such qualities Impressed insti
tutions as weU as society.
To found a city, or to establish Institutions and
indelibly stamp them by character and services, has
ever been held a great achievement. When Themls-
tocles, the Athenian, would boast, he said that he
" could make a small town a great city." Mr. Quincy
never boasted, though he was not unconscious that he
had great powers, or that he had wrought into the
fabric and texture of the city what would survive the
fashions of municipal government. Since his time
changes have taken place, and others wiU doubtless
follow ; but neither the work nor the fame of Josiah
Quincy can ever perish. They are on the rock. His
1 The likeness facing the title-page is from a portrait painted by
Stuart when Mr, Quincy was mayor, and is one of the four of him
in oil which remain. But in none of them can we see him as he
appeared on taking his degree, in peach-colored coat, white satin
small-clothes with silk stockings, and powdered hair; nor in the
splendid uniform of the " Huzzars," Page painted him in his robes
as president of the university, and Story made a statue which is
regarded as one of his best works. There are also portrait busts of
him by Greenough and Crawford,

324 JOSIAH QUINCY
mayoralty was great in economic and material results
— promoted cleanliness, order, comfort ; but was even
greater, I think. In Its successful endeavor after pub
lic virtue, purity, and social right.
In the lowest and least complete estimate of his
services Mr. Quincy earned the respect of his con
stituents and the benediction of later generations ; but
the former rejected him and we are in danger of for
getting him. This ought not so to be, more for our
own sake than for his. After he had filled the office
of mayor for six years with assiduity and success
unparalleled, the people. In spite of these services and
partly because of them, refused to reelect him.
What then? Did all his great services go for
nothing? Was seU-respect clouded or honor lost?
The citadel of self-respect Is unassailable from with
out, nor Is honor the gift of the people. They can
neither bestow It nor withhold It. It inheres in con
duct and in character, Is not gained save by honest
endeavor, nor lost save by misconduct. It was Wash
ington's in the successes of Trenton and Princeton,
and no less his In the defeats of Brandywine and Ger
mantown ; his when Gates and Conway, Mifflin and
Samuel Adams, I am sorry to say, would have deposed
him ; and his, no less and no more, when kings and
princes and people in remote lands and later ages pro
nounced him greatest among men. No — nothing Is
so honorable as honor unjustly withheld, no praise so
acclaiming as the silence of lips that should speak,
no victory so victorious as defeat In just cause. For
when men were silent and their eyes averted, as Josiah
Quincy stepped down from the mayor's chair In 1829,
public health and security spake ; and so did benefi
cent institutions ; and so spake the new Faneuil Hall

JOSIAH QUINCY 825
Market, and spacious warehouses, and broad, well-
paved streets ; yea and the very stones of those streets,
and the virtuous poor who owed to him comforts
before denied, and youth reclaimed from vicious ways,
and just men and women looked on him with kindly
eyes, and with according voices proclaimed honor to
whom honor unjustly withheld was due ; and he has
taken his place among those dear to God, who serve
their fellow-men without expectation of reward.
But what Is aU this to men of limited capacities and
commonplace opportunities — to us members of the
Society for Promoting Good Citizenship, who have
neither high aspirations nor special fitness for public
affairs? Rightly considered. It is everything; It is
incitement, endeavor, success, or consolation. I have
said that among great men Mr. Quincy was excep
tionally rare in this : that his character, his conduct,
and his services are imitable. There Is no one in this
audience, however low in fortune or social position,
none however high, that may not wisely form him
self on Josiah Quincy's character and imitate his con
duct ; and if we lack his opportunities, at least we
may remember that before he was the great Mayor
he was the great Citizen ; and before he was the great
Citizen he was a good citizen — as any one of us may
be! His political ethics were simple, easily adopted, and
of universal concern. He believed In the duties of
the citizen ; that peril to the republic or to the city or
to civilization is less from the intrusion of the lower
classes Into public affairs than from the withdrawal
of the wealthy, educated, and refined class ; less from
the spoliations of the proletariat than from the indif
ference of the wealthy and educated ; and he regarded

326 JOSIAH QUINCY
as less obnoxious to just censure him who takes on
the duties of the citizen for private ends than one
who abstains for merely personal convenience.
I do not think Mr. Quincy found aU his work con
genial. That such a man — a man who understood
and enjoyed the best of the world's literature, who
loved agriculture and the society of refined men and
women — should busy himself, forsooth, with drains
and cesspools; with back yards and crowded tene
ments ; with criminals, and the poor, and the squalid,
and the sick, — this certainly could not have been
altogether attractive to Mr. Quincy, a born aristocrat,
who could run his lineage back to the rolls of Battle
Abbey without encountering the gallows or losing
himself In a felon's cell ; a man who made no profes
sion of democracy ; who would have weighed votes
rather than have counted them ; who preferred the
judgments of experts to the unformed opinions of the
crowd ; who sought the society of gentlemen rather
than that of 'longshoremen. Nevertheless, where he
was called, there he was to be found !
Though not a believer In the democracy of party, It
is by no means certain that he would have approved
of recent legislative acts which seem to regard the
Great and General Court, rather than the people, as
the true fountain of municipal government under the
constitution. I doubt if he ever contemplated, as a
practical relief from bad government, any departure
from that faith on which our political system rests —
faith In the ability and the desire of the people to
govern themselves wisely, honestly, efficiently.
I think Mrt Quincy saw, what all of us must see,
that the people, acting without some unifying princi
ple and purpose, are as the sand clouds of the desert,

JOSIAH QUINCY 827
driven blindly and blinding ; but when, as In the late
Civil War, they are animated and guided by benefi
cent purpose, though like the sea sometimes turbu
lent, they are wiser even in their anger than any man
however wise or any number of men less than the
whole. Nothing concerns the people so much as govern
ment. It Is the test of public morals, as the regula
tion of life is the test of private morals. Deprecate it
as we may, quarrel with It if we will, nevertheless the
world's judgment of us as a people by the practical
results of our government, whether national, state, or
municipal, is fair, and from that judgment there is no
appeal. Mr. Quincy, therefore, made it a constant
purpose of his life to present good government to the
people as the highest end of civil society ; to endue
them with a unifying sense of Its value, and to Inspire
them with the desire and determination of making
themselves fit to take It up, carry It forward, and
transmit it to their successors. He would spare no
expense to educate them ; would withhold no warning
voice calling them to duty or Impressing them with the
conviction that expedients must be temporary and in
the long run unsuccessful, and that, after all make
shifts have failed, none but the people will, or can,
correct what Is wrong or secure what is desirable in
their governnient.
Josiah Quincy was not of the people, but with the
people and for the people — always ! If he never in
dulged in the illusions of hope respecting the perfecti
bility of popular government, he never Indulged In the
illusions of despair. His participation in government,
as a private citizen or as a public officer, was part of
his religion ; not a new religion, but older than Sinai,

328 JOSIAH QUINCY
and finding one sanction, at least, in the necessities of
civilization. It needs disciples and, it may be, its
martyrs. Thus lived and died and was burled the first citizen
of no mean city. Some of his fellow-citizens equaled
him In genius, some In learning, and some In fidelity
to duty ; but In the combination of these qualities he
had no superior and few equals. Mr. Quincy's death,
though on account of his great age not unexpected,
produced deep feeling among aU classes of his fellow-
citizens, and was followed by expressions of grief from
every part of the country, and even from foreign lands.
When he died a conspicuous personality was with
drawn from human view ; but his life and character
and influence remain. They have passed Into the life
of the city for which he did so much ; a character
which, as it becomes better known, may we not hope,
will be accepted as the type for those who owe it to
their ancestry to be great In affairs, capable of self-
government, free, patriotic, and beneficent in all
public relations. In honorable place among those
who have founded cities, reformed institutions, and
served God by unselfishly serving their fellow-men. Is
the name of Josiah Quincy, " the Great Mayor."

DANIEL WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR
Kemaeks at the Dinner of the Alumni of Dartmouth
College, June 28, 1882

Of the three papers on Daniel Webster which follow, only the
last was ever published ; the other two were printed from the
reporter's notes in a few copies which the author sent to personal
friends. Each paper contains matter not found in the others,
but also something commou to all. These repetitions were
natural under the circumstances, and the editor has decided not
to avoid them.

DANIEL WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR

You have aUuded to the fact, Mr. President, that
there are some Interesting memorials of Daniel Web
ster under my care in the Boston Public Library.
This Is quite true. There Is a volume made up In part
of the reporter's shorthand notes of the second speech
in Reply to Hayne, with additions and corrections In
the hand of Mr. Webster. There is also the vase pre
sented to him by citizens of Boston, in recognition of
his services, especially in that session of Congress
made memorable by the great Reply ; and what has a
double interest to us considering the subject and the
author, Is the original manuscript of Rufus Choate's
masterly Discourse on Daniel Webster, delivered here
in 1858.
These memorials are greatly valued by the city in
which Mr. Webster resided, and are specially interest
ing to the alumni of this college, upon which he con
ferred distinction as a graduate, and in whose service
he delivered one of his most remarkable legal argu
ments. We have reason to be proud of Mr. Webster's rela
tion to the college ; for his place among great men as
well as among the greatest of orators is well assured.
After all fair deductions are made, his oratory. In
its mass and quality, stands upon the whole as the
most considerable product of Its kind in the age in

332 WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR
which he lived, and challenges comparison with that
of any age. His work as an orator Is still vital. It
lives and speaks not merely as literature, but with the
original vigor and freshness of the spoken word In
laws enacted through his powerful advocacy ; In the
Institutions which he moulded Into permanent form ;
and In the Constitution of the United States, which
owes much to his eloquence for Its just Interpretation,
and Its very life to that sentiment of nationality which
he awoke In the hearts of the people.
Mr. Webster, in learning and special culture, was
surpassed by many ; some have been his equals In log
ical power ; but In sustained, rich, aud effective oratory,
of great compass and variety, he is without peer among
his countrymen, and Is to be counted with the immor
tal few gathered from all the ages. As a public man
he at once attracted attention, Lowndes said of him,
" The North has not his equal nor the South his supe
rior." His personal history became weU known.
Competent critics have estimated his abilities as law
yer, statesman, and diplomatist ; and his power as an
orator has been defined with a precision and felicity
which leave nothing to be desired.
Parker, Brownson, Hillard, Everett, Choate, Curtis,
Winthrop, Evarts, after such as these had spoken
what remained to be said ? So we thought yesterday
sir. [Senator Bayard.] To-day we learn once
more that to genius old themes are always new. But
he who adds a leaf to the chaplet of Webster weaves
laurels for his own brow.
How clearly has the orator of the day seen, and how
clearly has he made us to see, that the words of the
dead statesman are still vital, — still the best thought
and the best word ; and that he who would equip him-

WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR 333
self for the coming contest must draw his weapons
from the armory of Webster. They are aU there :
" Illie arma ; currus illic ; illic arcus Ulyssis 1
Sed ubi Ulysses ? "
I shall not dweU on the characteristics of his ora
tory — Its swift marshaling of forces. Its steadiness
along the line, its honest Saxon cheer of onset, its
vigor of attack and overwhelming weight of column,
its knightliness of battle. Its clemency in victory, its
reserves never in action — all this Is familiar.
The only view of Mr. Webster as an orator which
has not lost something of its freshness from frequency
of presentation, and which if adequately presented
would assist In determining his place among the great
masters of spoken eloquence. Is that which takes in at
a single glance the combination in his oratory of im
mediate effectiveness, breadth, and the permanent
value of what survives as literature. Others have
moved audiences as powerfully. Some have spoken
words equally rich as literature ; and the speech of a
few has passed into national life. Mr. Webster's elo
quence was masterly in aU these particulars ; and In
this combination of great qualities was unequaled.
Any critical estimate of Mr. Webster's productions
must fairly include some reference to the age and
country in which he lived, the education within his
reach, and the circumstances which environed him.
He has been compared with the great orator of an
tiquity. But had Webster been born In an age and
country In which life itself was a liberal education ;
in a country where every object on which the eye rested
was a work of art or a source of inspiration ; in an age
when language had reached perfection as an Instrument
of expression ; and especially had he made oratory the

334 WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR
exclusive purpose of his life, prosecuted under famous
masters of the art, — such a comparison would be
fairer. He has been compared with the great orators of
England — - with Chatham, Fox, and Burke — aU men
of genius thoroughly equipped for oratory by educa
tion and training, and mainly indebted to this for any
special superiority to Mr. Webster. Equal to any
one of these in intellectual force, as richly endowed
as any of them with individualized gifts of eloquence,
as an orator he wrought results, immediate and perma^
nent, which compare favorably with those produced
by every one of these orators.
Erskine said that the speeches of Burke, which aU
the world read with wonder and delight in the morn
ing, had cleared the benches of the Commons the
night before ; and I have heard it said of Mr. Web
ster, that he lacked that power of popular oratory
which takes audiences off their feet ; and that those
who, drawn by his immense reputation, went to hear
him, came away disappointed. He was not a popu
lar orator after the fashion of Henry Clay. Doubt
less he lacked those peculiar graces of speech and
manner which made the commonest efforts of Everett
and Choate so attractive.
Few persons now living have heard Webster at his
best, or before he had reached that time of life which
marks decline in certain powers of the popular orator.
The tradition of those who heard him when he was a
young man following the circuit of the New Hamp
shire courts, and the testimony of the few survivors of
those audiences which hung on his lips at Plymouth
Rock and Bunker Hill, Is that he never lapsed into
dulness, but that his eloquence was always rich, flow-

WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR 335
ing, and captivating. What that eloquence was in
his prime, those of us can understand who heard him
say, in 1848, at Bunker HIU: "It is not from my
lips, It Is not from any human lips, that that strain of
eloquence is this day to flow, most competent to move
and excite the vast multitudes around. The power
ful speaker stands motionless before us ! "
More fortunate still were those Sons of New Hamp
shire who heard him, an old man, say at Boston : " I
see that the emperor of Russia demands of Turkey
that the noble Kossuth and his companions shall be
given up to be dealt with at pleasure. And I see
that this demand is in derision of the law of nations.
Gentlemen, there Is something on earth greater than
arbitrary and despotic power. The lightning has its
power, and the whirlwind has Its power, and the earth
quake has its power ; but there is something among
men more capable of shaking despotic thrones than
lightning, whirlwind, and earthquake ; that is, the
excited and aroused indignation of the whole civilized
world ! " The orator was transfigured by his elo
quence. His words became the elemental forces they
represent, and all that vast audience sat In awed ex
pectancy of some audible expression of the excited
and aroused indignation of the whole civilized world !
Oratory fulfills its functions when Its immediate
purposes are accomplished. It aims to convince and
persuade. That done, its work is done. But elo
quence sometimes passes Into household words or
survives as literature. Sometimes, though rarely. It
becomes embodied In deeds which endure forever.
Mr. Webster possessed these varied powers of elo
quence in a combination not often found, and in a de
gree which leaves him without a peer. In the forty

336 WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR
years of his public life, more uniformly than any other
orator he gained his cause ; and his causes were large,
affecting laws, policy, institutions, government, and
the permanent sentiments of an entire people. But
apart from its Immediate effects his eloquence lives
Imperlshably In the results achieved by It, as well as
In the body of literature he created.
The verity and significance of these statements ap
pear, when we look at the work of some accounted the
world's most famous orators, with whom Mr. Webster
is often mentioned.
The great Athenian orator pronounced the most
elaborate compositions which ever fell from human
lips. As such they defy aU comparison. But what
was their permanent or even their immediate effec
tiveness? They precipitated the crushing power of
Philip on the orator's country which he lacked the
courage to defend, and he died by suicidal hands
amid ruins which his eloquence could neither avert
nor postpone.
The history of Cicero as an orator is still more de
plorable. If we may trust Mommsen, the latest and
best critic of Roman history, the genius of that great
orator displayed itself without sincerity in costly rhet
oric, on affairs having no sequence of value to Rome.
Chatham Is a great name, and he was one of the
greatest orators, if we may accept his traditionary
fame. But what did his eloquence accomplish ? The
great commoner, from high place in government and
in the possession of vast resources and almost unlim
ited power, wrought mightily for the glory of Eng
land. His eloquence contributed to the repeal of the
Stamp Act, but was powerless to change the policy of
the government.

WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR 337
Great words were those — "I rejoice that America
has resisted." They electrify us to-day, as they echo
from the walls of St. Stephen ; but they accomplished
nothing, they prevented nothing. With vehement,
splendid declamation he inveighed against the use of
Indian auxiliaries In Burgoyne's army ; — only to de
nounce, not to prevent; only to call out the dama
ging reply that he denounced a policy Inaugurated by
himself. His mighty eloquence was unprevalling elo
quence. Neither alone nor with the auxlllar oratory
of his great aUIes could he stay the madness of the
king. Their eloquence availed nothing then ; it has
availed nothing since ! Burke's genius was amazing,
but It was not that of an orator.
Lord Brougham said that Charles James Fox was
one of " the greatest statesmen, and If not the greatest
orator, certainly the most accomplished debater that
ever appeared upon the theatre of human affairs In any
age of the world; " and another, scarcely less compe
tent as a critic, has added : " He has left no memorial
of any good he wrought by his eloquence, his Libel
Bill being the only good law he ever introduced."
Let me not be misunderstood. I am not unmind
ful of the inadequacy of this test. I know that the
words of famous orators are privileged with immor
tality. Like the songs of great poets, like heroic
deeds on lost fields, like the Parthenon In ruins,
they are the Imperishable treasure of the race. But
if just fame is theirs without permanent success, what
measure of fame Is his who achieved the success he
merited ! Happily for the people, Mr. Webster lived
in times which closed to him those subjects which so
largely formed the themes of famous orators. There
was no venal government to denounce, no tyrant to

388 WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR
objurgate, no people to excite to deeds of valor.
Had his prime corresponded with our Revolutionary
struggle, what Invective — surpassing that of Adams
and Otis — would he have hurled against the royal
tyrant ; and who can doubt that his battle cry in the
hour of disaster would have rung like that heard in
Roncesvalles !
On this point we are not left to conjecture. His
supposititious speech of John Adams on the Resolu
tion for Independence — as nearly Impromptu as such
things ever are — attests the vigor of his patriotic im
agination as well as the promptitude of its resources.
But he lived in peaceful times. And when his
day offered no fit occasion for the spirit that burned
within him, he made at Plymouth Rock and at Bun
ker HIU occasions for Its utterance. When common
forms of oratory were found Inadequate to arouse and
instruct patriotic national sentiment, he formed and
carried to its highest development a new kind of pop
ular oratory which in his mouth became a trum
pet that reached the ear of twenty millions of people.
Observe some few of the occasions made memora
ble by Mr. Webster's eloquence, and some examples
of its transforming power. Neither Plymouth Rock
nor Bunker HIU ; neither the commerce of our Inland
seas or navigable rivers ; neither the constitution un
der which we live, nor those institutions of learning
and charity which serve to make life a beneficent gift
of God, are what they would have been had Webster
never lived and spoken. Lived and spoken ; for it
was by eloquence that Mr. Webster accomplished
what neither learning nor logic could effect. Web
ster's eloquence overthrew the masterly judgment
of the Superior Court of New Hampshire before the

WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR 339
Supreme Court of the United States in the Dartmouth
College case, — overthrew it Instantly and forever.
This more than any other of his arguments throbbed
with his own heart-beats. It reached the hearts and
flooded the eyes of venerable magistrates. PInkney,
who questioned Webster's law in the case, thought
that the court was carried less by sound argument
than by force of oratory. If so, the fact adds testi
mony to the imperial power of Webster's eloquence
— powerful even to the saving of life — thy life, O
mother beloved, now Immortal !
This was not the eloquence of an hour. No. We
hear it to-day, in this great presence, happy In the
assured prosperity of her we love — vital as on that
first day ; and not we only, but every college and lit
erary institution in the country hears it, and will hear
it as long as colleges and literary Institutions exist.
That was eloquence indeed ; argument made constitu
tion ; godlike eloquence which spake and it was done.
In 1820, Mr. Webster brought Into relief, clear as
never before, the story of the Pilgrims. The de
scendants of those first comers had been wont, at stated
times, to gather at the Landing, and there recount
with filial piety the story of the sufferings, the con
stancy, and the faith of those whose plantation had
become a state. Webster found there the Pilgrims'
rock ; he made it the shrine of a nation ! On that mem
orable twenty-second of December, Webster's words
of faith, liberty, law, and religion became audible to
twenty millions of people ; and they will be heard as
long as the ocean's voice resounds along that shore.
This was the first of that remarkable series of pat
riotic orations addressed to local audiences, but so
spoken that a nation heard.

340 WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR
Mr. Webster Invaded all provinces of oratory, and
from all returned victorious. If calm, unlmpassloned
reasoning, with no highly raised passages, powerfully
addressed to the understanding, has a place In oratory,
then the argument of Daniel Webster, which reversed
the judgments of the illustrious judicial tribunals of
New York, and pronounced the commerce of naviga
ble streams and inland seas a unit, subject to the ex
clusive control of the general government. Is entitled
to high rank. It overthrew the laws of a great State,
which for thirty years had stood upon the statute
book, affirmed by judges as eminent as any In the
country. A gloss of the Constitution of the United
States by Daniel Webster became an Integral part
thereof, affecting vast Interests, and for time mea
sured only by the duration of the government. Of
what other orator can such words be spoken ; and
what place among orators Is his of whom they can be
justly said?
At Bunker HiU, In 1825, Mr. Webster took up the
great work of his life — to arouse and nationalize the
patriotic sentiment of the country. For this work he
was raised up ; to this he gave his life ; from his
boyhood it haunted him like a passion. He pursued
it with a zeal and constancy not always understood
even by his friends. Foreigners wonder at our esti
mate of Webster. What marvel when we ourselves
have so lately, and at so great cost, through fire and
blood, come to understand the mystery of that saving
faith of which he was the great proclaimer and only
prophet. On that memorable occasion he announced his
creed : " Our country, our whole country, and nothing
but our country." These words were not addressed

WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR 841
to the descendants of the few New England troops,
who on the heights of Bunker HUl and on its declivi
ties joined unequal battle with the veteran soldiers of
England. No. These words — such words as no
other man had ever spoken — were heard by thou
sands to whom Bunker Hill was unknown in its great
lesson of patriotism. They became household words
beyond the Mississippi and by the shores of the
Great Lakes. They were caught up and recited In
every schoolhouse in the land ; and at the country's
call were repeated in deeds of immortal valor on a
hundred fields !
These two orations served to make possible a
nationality sjarlnglng from aroused and enlightened
public sentiment. The Great Reply, with a sweep of
logic as unerring as the planetary movements, and
with an eloquence as thorough-bred as the muse of
Milton, made nationality a fact which four years of
civil war could not obliterate. It was his " omnific
word" heard " Par into chaos "
which commanded the pillars of the Constitution to
stand. These words, so spoken, made the day and
the speaker Immortal. Nothing can touch him !
In estimating Mr. Webster's rank as an orator we
should not forget — for It is his distinction — that
nearly aU the great triumphs with which his name Is
associated were his personal triumphs. The abolition
of the slave trade and of slavery, the Reform Bill,
the repeal of the Corn Laws, and other similar mod
ern reforms have been effected by various influences,
such as the press, groups of orators and writers,
social and political organizations — sometimes with
the whole civilized world In the lists — aU striving to

342 WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR
the same end. But in Webster's victories he stands
for all these forces, and he stands alone.
" Alone his task was wrought,
Alone his battle fought,"
He led no party. Neither the power of the govern
ment nor the prestige of administration was with him ;
nothing but his cause and the might of his imperial
eloquence. Forty years of victorious eloquence, with
never a defeat ; for the country always, and never for
self ; conquests for the country, and still held by the
country — all this is historical.
Mr. Webster in his oratory has delineated the
characters of some of the chief actors In the most
significant events in our history. Adams, Jefferson,
Hamilton, Madison, Jay — what portraits are these !
And that great central figure ! Who had conceived
the character of Washington In Its just proportion, or
what creative hand In art had made him. In form and
feature, to live on the canvas, as his character appears
in the discriminating eloquence of Webster ?
Friends, you who love learning and its institutions ;
you who mark with just pride that great volume of
commerce which pours its lifeblood, unchecked, along
our great rivers and Inland seas ; you who believe in
that *' , , , true liberty
. . . which always with right reason dwells,
. , , and from her hath no dividual being ; "
you who believe in the stability, permanence, and
value of the Constitution of the country, resting on
enlightened, patriotic sentiment, name him who, of
that crown reserved for the world's most prevailing
orator, Is worthiest in your suffrages.

EEMARKS AT THE DINNER OF THE
ALUMNI OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE
At Concobd, N. H,, June 17, 1886
ON THE
OCCASION OF THE DEDICATION OF A STATUE
OF DANIEL WEBSTER

REMARKS
ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEDICATION OF A
STATUE OF WEBSTER AT CONCORD, N. H. '

The Seventeenth of June, already crowded with
histories, gains one more title to respect by the events
of this day now drawing to a close. AnnuaUy with
the rising of Its sun immortal memories awake: mem
ories of 1775, when In their " agony of glory " the
yeomanry of New England twice repulsed the veteran
troops of Great Britain on Bunker HIU, and by a
defeat which was victory made inevitable an inde
pendent empire ; memories of the same heights when
Lafayette, in 1825, surrounded by surviving heroes
of the Revolution, laid the corner-stone of a super
structure which began an era of monumental art in
America, and Daniel Webster added lustre to the
commemorative eloquence inaugurated by him at
Plymouth Rock.
Nor do the transactions In which we have this day
participated lack happy associations with those his
toric events ; for here, at the capital. In the presence
of sons whose sires were at Bunker Hill in 1775, and
who were themselves by the side of the Great Orator
on the same spot fifty years later, his townsman, the
orator of the day, in words worthy of the occasion,
has made memorable the day which witnesses the
unveiling of the first commemorative statue, and that
of her greatest son, ever set up on New Hampshire

346 DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE
soil. The day will stand apart by itself ; for though
other notable days will come, on precisely such a day
as this no second morn wIU ever rise.
To-day a duty has been performed. In the pre
sence of the highest authorities of the State, with civic
procession and military display, the reproach of many
has been taken away by the vicarious munificence of
one. Although the erection of a statue of Daniel Web
ster In this city is of peculiar Interest to the people of
New Hampshire, yet from other sections of the coun
try have come those who desire to honor the memory
of him who knew no section, — nothing less than the
whole country ; — him who expounded and defended
its Constitution ; who assisted In making and inter
preting Its laws ; who conducted its diplomacy at
a critical period, and always so spoke as to com
mand the ear of his countrymen — those who followed
the plow, or turned the spindle, or went down to the
sea in ships, or studied the eloquence of the best
ages. The orator of the day has sketched the life, char
acter, and services of Daniel Webster. He has vin
dicated him whose political opinions divided parties,
and whose principles and everything save his patriot
ism and his ability had been called in question. But
were It otherwise, we have come hither with no such
purpose ; nor do we wish to reconsider our estimate
of him. To us he stands high, clear, and unassailable
in his great offices, and unapproachable In the great
ness of his public services. Let those who wIU, accuse
us of undue devotion to his memory. We make no
reply, " Namque erit ille nobis semper deus,"

DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE 847
The dedication of the statue of Daniel Webster is
completed ; but we, sons of Dartmouth, and most of
us sons of New Hampshire, have come together by
ourselves that we may Indulge sentiments suggested
by our relations to the State and to the coUege, and
through these to Mr. Webster. For whatever he may
be to others, to us he is something more and some
thing different. Others speak of him as the wise
statesman and consummate orator ; but In this gather
ing we think of him as a son of New Hampshire and
as our brother of Dartmouth College. And here, in
the reflection of his greatness, and as heirs of his
affection for the State of his birth and for the college
where he was educated, we go from the graves of our
ancestors to the neighboring graves of his ancestors,
and tenderly brushing the moss and lichens from both,
thanlc God we are sons of New Hampshire. Once
more, as when at Hanover, we sit In the seats where he
sat, or roam the woods where he roamed, or ply our
boats on the bosom of the Connecticut where he plied
his boat, and again thank God that we are also sons
of Dartmouth.
He loved the place of his birth and the place
where he was educated. We love the same places ;
and it may be that none can enter the circle of those
affections save by the unpurchasable right of inherit
ance. Be it so. We to-day are once more children
by the graves of our forefathers, and youth in the
places sacred to learning ; and these shall be the
themes of our discourse.
But ^ I am sure, Mr. President, that the alumni of
Dartmouth College desire, first of all, to express to
1 AU which precedes this point was omitted in the delivery of the
Remarks.

848 DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE
his Excellency the Governor and to the honorable
Council of the State of New Hampshire their grateful
sense of the privilege of participating in the dedica
tion of a statue of Daniel Webster on his native soil ;
and to add that they regard the selection of the presi
dent of the college for the part In these Interesting
ceremonies, which he has performed with distinguished
success, as a manifestation of good-will by the State to
the college, which is appreciated by all Its friends.
The relations of the college to the State are pecu
liar. As a corporation It Is older than the State ; for
the charter of the college, which Is stUl the basis and
measure of Its rights, and irrevocable except for cause,
came from George the Third, when New Hampshire
was a royal province, without charter, and governed
under the king's commission, which was revocable at
his pleasure.
To-day we witness an extraordinary proceeding.
The State accepts as a gift from an estimable and
loyal citizen, and with the according voices of thou
sands of other citizens, also loyal, sets up in a con
spicuous place, before the most august symbol of Its
authority, a statue of Daniel Webster, — to whom
more than to any other man Is due that construction
of the Constitution of the United States which over
threw a legislative act of the sovereign State of New
Hampshire, reversed the solemn decision of Its highest
judicial tribunal, and erected within Its jurisdiction
an imperium in imj^erio which will endure as long as
the Constitution endures.
And It Is well. For the State and the coUege have
been mutually helpful. The State has been the bene
factor of the coUege ; and If not munificent when
compared with more opulent States, yet liberal in a

DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE 349
degree honorable to a government which derived its
revenues from a people without profitable Industries
until the stimulus of foreign capital had aroused the
slumbering giant of the Merrlmac ; and whose agri
cultural Interests rapidly declined when canals and
railroads opened the markets of the East to the disas
trous competition of the more fertile West.
But now a new era has begun. Necessity has de
veloped a new Industry. Thrift and the near approach
of hunger have stimulated the conversion of pure air
and mountain scenery Into merchantable commodities,
happily Indispensable to the sweltering corn-growers
and pork-packers of the malarial prairies. A retri
butive corner has been made, — reasonably perma
nent. If we may rely upon the providentially slow
growth of mountains, and remunerative, we hope,
" beyond the dreams of avarice."
These Inspiring facts open a vista. In the distance
the college is seen reveling In opulence !
If the State has been liberal according to her means,
the college has recognized her reciprocal obligations,
and met them with promptitude and efficiency. Erase
from the State's roll of honor, of which she Is justly
proud, the names of those sons of Dartmouth who
have gained distinction In science. In jurisprudence,
and in public affairs, and the place of New Hamp
shire would be less conspicuous than It now Is among
her sister States. Give back to unlettered drudgery
those undistinguished sons of Dartmouth, who, with
minds quickened by liberal studies, have followed
their professions on hillsides or in sequestered valleys,
— narrow but necessary fields of labor, — and there
would be a manifest decline of Intelligence, good judg
ment, and moral sense In those communities.

350 DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE
I do not propose to dwell on those special relations
of Daniel Webster to the coUege, to which I have
adverted ; but in the general relations of debt and
credit between the college and the people of the State
Daniel Webster was included. Born remote from
the centres of civilization and culture, and without
the means of access to them, there was danger, and
in his case, from temperament, special danger, lest he
would grow up In obscurity and add one more to the
large number of richly endowed but Imperfectly edu
cated men of which New Hampshire was full, who
gave to the wilderness powers which might have made
them conspicuous on any theatre of action. More
than most men of anything like his intellectual force,
Daniel Webster needed the stimulus of education and
the prospect of a career. This needed help was just
what the coUege gave. She opened the mine, she
laid bare the ore, — abundant, massive, pure, — and
set It free, as currency bearing the royal stamp of
genius, to enrich the wisdom of the people and the
English speech of the world. This was his chief debt
to the college.
Apart from Webster's natural endowments no one
was more " heinously unprovided," as he said, with
education or pecuniary means, " to break into col
lege." Luckily it was not far to seek ; otherwise he
might never have found it. But he sought it and
entered. When there, unlike Bacon and Milton at
English Cambridge, he made no complaint of the
education it afforded. It was the best he was pre
pared to receive, and both parties were satisfied. She
gave him all she had to give, and with all her require
ments he cheerfully complied. Both were young to
gether ; both were poor ; and both struggling to gain

DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE 351
a foothold on bare creation. It is idle, but we may
guess, if we will, how much and in what respects
Webster might have been greater had he, after the
preparatory training of such schools as Eton or
Winchester, been educated at Oxford or Cambridge,
with their splendid libraries, their exact scholarship,
their impressive antiquity, and the stimulating influ
ence of the long lines of their illustrious graduates.
Such were the relations to the college of Daniel
Webster as an undergraduate. He was greatly in her
debt. But there came a time when all this was
changed, — In an hour when her need was sore and
pressing and his help was seasonable and adequate ;
an hour when he paid the unforgotten debt of his
youth ; when he secured Immortality for her, and laid
the foundations of his own.
But, gentlemen, I must not forget, even In this pre
sence, that there are other claims than ours to Daniel
Webster. He was a son of New Hampshire and he
was the foremost man of his country. Of all the great
Americans of this century, perhaps of any century, he
was the most genuinely and thoroughly American ; of
all, most undoubtedly a product of our soil, climate,
institutions, and modes of life. He owed much to the
State of his birth ; but he owed nothing to any other
State. He owed much to his New Hampshire ancestors ;
but to them, and to them alone, he was indebted for
his rich Inheritance. In him.there was no intermixture
of nationalities, no crossing of plebeian with patrician
blood. His pedigree was of New Hampshire and as
pure as the air he breathed. Unlike Morris, Gallatin,
and Hamilton, he was born on our soil. His forefathers
were also born on it, unlike the ancestors of some of
those who in Revolutionary days rendered illustrious

352 DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE
services to the country. For a hundred and fifty years
they had lived in New Hampshire. Into them had
entered the cold blasts from the polar circle and the
fierce heats which seemed to have strayed from the
tropics. Every drop of their blood, every fibre of their
flesh, every bone and sinew, had become Americanized.
For five generations, not from the safe retreats of gar
risoned settlements, but on the skirmish line of civili
zation, they had waged strenuous war with barbarism
and changed the wilderness Into habitable abodes of
men. To all these transforming influences Daniel Web
ster was fortunately heir. We of New Hampshire
think that he was also fortunate In the place of his
birth. The glory of a state, sir, Is in its men, — not
In Its broad acres ; not in its fertile soil ; not in its
rich mines ; but in Its men. That Is a great state
which produces great men ; and virile were the loins
that begat the Websters, the Starks, the Langdons,
the Bartletts, the Smiths, the Bells, the Pierces, the
Woodburys, the Casses, the — but I need a day for
the rest.
Without doubt Daniel Webster was fortunate In the
place of his birth, — in sight of the majestic moun
tains ; not far from the beautiful river : the moun
tains In their grandeur, the type of his character ; the
river in Its reserved strength, no unfit emblem of his
life. In this pure air, fuU of light reflected from the
purple hills, — himself made thoughtful by the near
ness of dark forests and the sound of distant water
falls, feeding his imagination with traditions of Rogers,
Putnam, and Stark, the old French war rangers, and
of Cilley, Scammell, and Poor, his father's compatriots
In arms during the war of the Revolution, — Daniel

DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE 853
Webster gathered his scanty education. A genuine
son of New Hampshire. Here he was born. Here he
" mewed his mighty youth." Here he clothed himself
with glorious manhood. He owed little to other forms
of civilization. His mind, his character, and his per
sonality, — his thoughts, and his style of their expres
sion, were of New Hampshire. His latest political
and constitutional principles bore the impress of his
earliest. When he left his native State he was a com
plete man. He gained little or nothing that was es
sential by association with communities more cultured
than those he left behind him. These were of the
sea ; those were of the mountains. Not always In
accord with the dominant political party of his native
State, he was more nearly so than with the extreme
Federalists of New England.
Thus he was born, so was he reared, and such he
remained, — a true and loyal son of New Hampshire.
She claims him as her own. With aU his great quali
ties she claims him ; she claims him with all his faults.
He had faults ; but she forgave them In that hour
when he defended the Constitution ; she forgot them,
— forgot them all and forever, — when she beheld the
Union made one and inseparable by the inspiration of
his prevailing eloquence.
Her son, this complete man, bone of her bone and
flesh of her flesh, she gave to the country. Few States
ever had such a son to offer. Fortunate the country
which receives such a gift ! Costly as It was. It was
given without reserve and for all the ages. New
Hampshire neither Is able, nor desires, to recall it.
She cannot reclaim his wisdom imbedded in the Con
stitution. She would not unloose the golden cord of
patriotism with which he bound the States in perpetual

354 DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE
More than threescore years and ten have passed
since Daniel Webster, in the prime of his manhood and
In the fullness of his great powers, went forth from
New Hampshire to the service of his country. What
those services were Is known of aU men. To-day he
returns ; once more his foot Is on his native soil, In
sight of the majestic mountains he loved so well, not
far from the river on whose banks he was born.
Shouts from the hlUsIdes, answering shouts from the
valleys, welcome his return. Sir, I cannot think him
dead. Not in the flesh indeed does he stand before
us. No longer do those dark eyes flash upon us
their Inward light, and the voice which once rang like
a trumpet Is now silent. And yet. In a sense more
true than his own pathetic words, he still lives. To
day we have erected a statue of Daniel Webster, —
of Daniel Webster dead. Webster dead ! Who
closed the eyes of that great InteUigence ? Who saw
the train go forth bearing that majestic soul to the
tomb ? Who wrapped In cerements and closed the
marble doors on those thoughts that breathed and
those words that burned ?
Alas ! in the blindness of our grief we thought that
It was so, and spake of him as of one that was dead.
But time and great events, and men's second thoughts
and more charitable judgments, and loving hearts that
quicken at the sound of his name, — • aU proclaim him
living. And yet we have erected a statue of Daniel
Webster, and it is well ; for monuments to great
actions and statues of men truly great are not dead
things ; nor are they to the dead, but to the living.
The deeds they emblazon are immortal deeds, not tran
sitory ; deeds which light the centuries, not the hours
in their pathway to glorious actions. They illustrate

DEDICATION OF WEBSTER STATUE 355
what they teach ; they are what they commemorate.
If yonder statue Is not Daniel Webster in the flesh, it
is Daniel Webster transfigured with the immortality
of genius ; with passionate patriotism which never
grows cold ; with love of home and kindred which
feels no touch of earthly years ; with
" . . , truths that wake
To perish never,"
And through the years that are to come, to aU
who may enter yonder legislative hall, and to the
long procession of men who shaU walk these streets,
those lips will stIU have language ; will still defend
the Constitution ; will still Inspire sentiments of na
tionality. Nor can I think that It ever wiU be other
wise; for the inspiration of great endeavor Is Its
immortality ; the potency of great achievement Is
Its Indestructibleness. The past assures the future.
The discourses at Plymouth Rock and at Bunker
Hill were not for an hour ; nor was the Great Reply.
In the days of their utterance they were resplendent,
unprecedented eloquence ; but they spake truest when
they became wisdom to Lincoln and valor to Grant ;
they rang loudest when heard along the front of
battle, and inspired deeds of immortal heroism on a
hundred fields. No, the statue Is not to the dead
orator, but to the living, who speaks to us, and will
speak to those who come after us, as he spake to
those, his associates, the venerable men happily with
us to-day, who
"... followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild, magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him their pattern to live and to die."

A GLANCE AT DANIEL WEBSTER

Reprinted from "The Century Magazine"
OF September, 1893

A GLANCE AT DANIEL WEBSTER

" A FEW flashes of rhetoric, a few happy epigrams,
a few labored speeches which now seem cold, lifeless,
and commonplace," says Lecky, the historian, "are
all that remain of the eloquence of the Pitts, of Fox,
of Sheridan, or of Plunket" — and he says this of
the Pitts, among the greatest of English orators ; of
Sheridan, the most briUIant ; of Fox, whom Lord
Brougham, himself a great orator, pronounced " if not
the greatest orator, certainly the most aecompHshed
debater, that ever appeared upon the theatre of affairs
In any age of the world." Is Daniel Webster's name
now to be added to those on whose speeches the
shadow of oblivion has fallen ? James Otis, Jr., and
Patrick Henry, as orators once famous, now live only
in tradition. Clay's and Webster's speeches, it Is
true, have been preserved ; but who now reads
Clay's, and how long will Webster's continue to be
read? Webster's talents were undeniably of the first
order : but it is said that he lacked genius ; that his
limitations were serious ; that Hamilton was the
greater statesman, Marshall the greater jurist, and
Clay the unequaled parliamentarian; that he origi
nated no public policy, nor greatly Improved an old
one ; that his ethical sense, neither strong nor acute,
was quickened to no beneficent purpose like that of

360 A GLANCE AT WEBSTER
Wilberforce or of Garrison ; that he had no love for
the people, nor they for him, and that they will finally
forget him.
Doubtless much of this is true. Nevertheless,
Daniel Webster is not likely to be forgotten, nor wiU
his words cease to be read. For he wasted no time
on party polities, or on small questions, or on issues
now dead ; but always In the courts, or in the Senate,
or before the people, applied his matchless powers to
subjects of great moment and popular interest, sure
to remain vital, and, like the seasons, ever returning.
In these respects he stands alone among the states
men of his day ; and therefore, If they would, the
people can never forget him. Nor can statesmen,
jurists, or scholars ; because, about government, laws,
and public policy he said the most authoritative word,
save John Marshall's, and said It In a way not easily
bettered. Marshall and Webster were of like princljjles and
purpose, and, working together for the just interpre
tation of the Constitution in its relations to the
States, for forty years they affected the institutions
of the country more profoundly and more permanently
than any other two men of their day. Marshall's
tribunal was supreme ; but the people were sometimes
restive under Its decisions, two of which were openly
defied by sovereign States, and were never enforced.
In Its last analysis the efficient authority of the
Supreme Court was public sentiment. Therefore, to
make the general government truly national and
efficient in all its departments. It was necessary to
raise the people to a conception of nationality, and
to inspire that conception with patriotic sentiment.
This was Webster's great work, In this way he

A GLANCE AT WEBSTER 361
co(3perated with Marshall. Webster had the wider
field, more varied opportunities, larger audiences, and
a farther-reaching voice. To this work he gave his
life, and his work was crowned only when the great
Reply to Hayne bore fruit In the deeds of Lincoln
and Grant. This the people now understand, and
they have given to Webster their respect and their ad
miration, but not yet, I think, a place in their hearts
— the true Valhalla. It may be that they have some
thing to forget and something to remember before
they learn to regard, as they regard Clay and Lincoln,
this man who, though 'he professed no love for the
people whom he served as few men have, loved kin
dred and friends, and the homes of his ancestors, and
the graves of their dead, with a pathetic tenderness
which has suffused the eyes of thousands. It may be
that he must wait for men's second thoughts, their
more charitable judgment, and the next ages.
A famous anti-slavery orator once publicly thanked
God that Daniel Webster was not born in Massachu
setts ; and this was received with acclaiming shouts
by the audience. Nor did they appear to notice any
incongruity when the orator proceeded to objurgate
Webster, just as though he had been born in Boston,
and were a recreant descendant of Thomas Dudley.
This Is the common mistake — to judge Webster as
a Puritan In origin, descent, Inherited principles, edu
cation, and consequent responsibilities. He was no
Puritan, nor did he ever pretend to be one. The
Massachusetts Puritans, who came to Boston Bay in
1630, were east of England people. Daniel Webster's
ancestors were from the north of England, and, com
ing six years later, entered New Hampshire by the
Piscataqua, and for generations were dispersed along

362 A GLANCE AT WEBSTER
the skirmish line of civilization, remote from the Puri
tans of the Bay, and shared neither in their glory nor
In their shame.
In Webster was no admixture of nationality, no
crossing of plebeian with patrician blood. He was a
genuine son of the soil, though not, like Burns, of a
soil alive with a hundred generations of the dead, nor
of a soil like that about Boston, every sod of which
was quickened with associations touching the hearts
and moulding the characters of those born on It ; but
of a soil on which his father's footfaU was the first of
civilized man ever heard in that silent wilderness.
He was a rustic, yet with marks of gentle blood In his
shapely hands and feet, his well-proportioned limbs,
and his high-bred face of no known type, unlike even
his own brother, who was of Grecian form and face.
We know that soil and climate affect character ; but
it is not easy to accept, save as a poetic theory, the
"pathetic faUacy" with which Wordsworth Imbued
his generation and our own, that Nature has conscious
relations with " Her foster-child, her inmate, Man,"
and forms his principles and regulates his methods of
action agreeably to her own. But Daniel Webster
was very like Nature. Like her, he was unethical ;
like her, he was not revolutionary ; and like her, he
applied his powers along the lines of normal develop
ment. Of the Puritans neither by birth nor by circum
stances, he possessed few of their virtues and none of
their defects, and least of all their indomitable pro
vinciality of thought and conduct. In this he stands
quite alone among the public men of his day in New
England. His spirit of nationality appeared so early

A GLANCE AT WEBSTER 363
in life that it indicated character rather than educa
tion. And the depth of the sentiment appears from
this, that though born a Federalist, and from early
manhood associated professionaUy and socIaUy with
some of the very able men prominent In the " Essex
Junto " and In the Hartford Convention, he neither
accepted their principles nor imitated their conduct.
At no time was he a Southern man or a Northern
man, but to the end of his life a National Federalist
after the fashion of Washington.
This also is noticeable, that although Webster was
educated at a smaU coUege In the backwoods, where
rhetoric was In Its worst estate, and at a time when
our native literature was to the last degree conven
tional and vapid, he soon shook himself clear of his
surroundings, and, without instructor or example,
formed a style which for all the varied forms in which
he expressed himself — either In the forum, or In the
Senate, or in diplomacy, or before the people, or in
familiar letters — stIU remains the best model.
Mr. Webster's fame as an orator Is secure, and his
services to the country are acknowledged ; but in his
last days he suffered some obloquy by reason of his
speech of the 7th of March, 1850, — a speech which,
whatever else may be said of it, was exactly on the
line of his life-work for union and nationality, which
he took up before he left college, and pursued with
assiduity and constancy for more than half a century.
Nor do the recorded lives of statesmen give many
examples, If one other, of a great and beneficent pur
pose conceived so early in life, pursued so vigorously,
or crowned with so great success. He had coadjutors,
but in clearness and consistency of purpose he stood
alone. He seized every occasion — often made occa-

364 A GLANCE AT WEBSTER
sion — to unfold his constitutional views, and to com
mend them to the people.
Both as statesman and as orator Webster owed
much to his historical sense. He was not original,
constructive, or aggressive ; but he had what, as I
think, Hamilton did not have, nor Clay, — a clear
historical perception of the essential character of our
English race, always moving on the line of its normal
development, rather than by revolution, toward na
tionality, in which, though monarchy may have been
Its form, popular government has been Its objective
purpose. Webster's historical sense gave precision
and consistency to his course as a statesman and to
his speech as an orator. Every step he made was a
step forward. Circumstances beyond his control, like
the change in the tariff policy and the anti-slavery
movement, with which, as a Nationalist, he probably
had little sympathy, forced him Into positions which
he would not have chosen. But no statesman ever had
fewer occasions for that Immunity which the people
so often and so readily accorded to Jefferson, to Clay,
to Jackson, and to Abraham Lincoln. They made
many mistakes, including Webster's, and were for
given ; Webster made one, and was lost — for a time.
Webster's historical sense appears in his orations.
In what similar collection can be found so large a
body of thought on various subjects, covering forty
years of public life, so consistent, so evenly and so
constantly working to one great purpose, expressed
with equal cogency, propriety, and eloquence ? Cer
tainly, neither in Fox's nor in Burke's, nor in any
other known to me. Goldwin Smith has said that
"in political oratory It would be hard to find any
thing superior to the Reply to Hayne ; In forensic

A GLANCE AT WEBSTER 865
oratory it would be hard to find anything superior to
his speech on the murder of White; among show
speeches It would be hard to find anything superior
to the Plymouth oration." This Plymouth oration,
the earliest and best by Webster, In which he formed
and carried to its highest development a new kind of
popular oratory, Ulustrates the historic sense of which
I have spoken. After all that has been written, It
remains by far the clearest and most precise view of
those causes which, beginning with the Reformation,
and acting on the English people. In the fullness of
time led to the colonization of America, and to the
setting up here of those institutions which best exem
plify the sterling qualities of our English race. The
key-note of this address sounds through all his
speeches. He struck It loudly, and the nation heard ;
he struck it truly, and it dominates aU later speech.
With no American orator save Hamilton — and
with him only at the bar or In the affairs of state —
need Webster be compared. Hamilton's speeches
have not been preserved, and his fame as an orator
rests mainly upon tradition. To Burke's genius for
discursive speculation or to his copiousness of felici
tous, light-diffusing phrase, Webster made no preten
sion, nor, on the other hand, did he ever lose sight of
his purpose In prolix or Irrelevant generalities, or Im
peril his cause by lack of measure, judgment, or self-
control. He was the better orator. He gained his
causes. He seldom attempted Burke's highest flights,
but when he did he came safely down. Webster's
oratory was symmetrical and harmonious, working
evenly, by just degrees, and inevitably, to his one con
stant purpose of convincing and persuading those who
heard him. Loyal to his art, he was never seduced

366 A GLANCE AT WEBSTER
by desire of popular applause or by a wish to please
the schools.
Lord Chatham Is accounted the most consummate of
EngUsh orators. In my youth I greatly admired that
passage In his speech on the address to the king in
1777, In which, referring to Lord Suffolk, who had
defended the employment of the Indians in the war
against the colonies, he exclaimed : " From the tapes
try that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of
this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace
of his country." It Is a very striking passage ; but
I once heard Webster say grander words. It was on
the 17th of June, 1843, when I was one of that vast
throng, gathered at Bunker HIU, which saw Webster
raise his outstretched arm up to the newly completed
monument, and heard him say : " It is not from my
lips — it could not be from any human lips — that
that stream of eloquence is this day to flow, most
competent to move and excite this vast multitude
around me. The powerful sp)eaher stands motionless
before us." I felt the thrill which ran through that
vast audience, and I saw their uplifted eyes and
blanched cheeks, and joined in that responsive shout
which told, as no words could tell, that we had heard
one of the most perfect passages In all oratory. Such
sentences fairly contrast these great orators. Web
ster could never have laid himself open to Lord Suf
folk's crushing reply, that Chatham rashly condemned
a poUcy inaugurated by himself only a few years be
fore. Nor could Lecky have said of Webster, as he
has said of Chatham, that he was often florid and
meretricious, theatrical and affected, far from pure in
taste, and, indeed, too much of a mountebank. But
Chatham's eccentricities were those of genius. Burke

A GLANCE AT WEBSTER 367
had them, and Sheridan had them. If Webster
lacked genius, he was at least free from its eccentrici
ties. He was perfectly sane in his oratory, and. It
may be, the greatest perfectly sane orator who ever
spoke English.
Webster could also be. dull — In his later years,
very dull. Those who heard him in his prime are
quite angry when one doubts whether he ever could
have been as popular an orator as Everett or Choate
or Phillips. Few now live who heard him In those
early days, when he was at his best. I, who heard
him often between 1840 and 1850, never heard him
at his best but once, and then only for a few minutes.
The circumstances were these : —
At the festival of the Sons of New Hampshire,
gathered in the hall of the Fitchburg Railroad in
1849, Mr. Webster presided with admirable grace,
and spoke of his native State as her sons would like
to hear her spoken of. His speech, though interest
ing, was not particularly striking until, passing from
our own affairs to those of Hungary, then in her
struggle for liberty, he said : "I see that the Emperor
of Russia demands of Turkey that the noble Kossuth
and his companions shaU be given up to be dealt with
at his pleasure. And I see that this demand is made
In derision of the established laws of nations. Gentle
men, there Is something on earth greater than arbi
trary or despotic power. The lightning has its power,
and the whirlwind has its power, and the earthquake
has its power ; but there is something among men
more capable of shaking despotic power than the
lightning, the whirlwind, or the earthquake, and that
is the excited and aroused indignation of the whole
cIvUized world."

368 A GLANCE AT WEBSTER
Before we were aware of what was coming his mar
jestic form began to tower, and his eyes to kindle, and
his voice soon caught the key-note of the vast build
ing, tlU in an illusion of the senses the lightning
flashed, and the whirlwind shook the place where we
were sitting, and the firm foundation rocked as with
an earthquake. But it was an illusion of the sort
produced only by famous orators like those
" Whose resistless eloquence , , ,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,"
I once saw Mr. Webster when he was forty and I
was eleven. The best likeness of him at that time. It
seems to me, is the bust by Powers. I saw him often
between 1840 and 1850, and the best likeness of him
at that time, I should say. Is the one now printed for
the first time in this magazine.-'
1 The Century Magazine, for September, 1893.

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND IN POETRY
Reprinted from the "Dartmouth Literary Monthly"
FOR October, 1886

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND IN POETRY

This essay to mark the stages by which familiarity
with landscape is developed In our lives and exhibited
in our poetry was suggested by a sentence on which
my eye chanced to faU in Clarence Stedman's " Poets
of America."
I had already read Stedman's book with some care,
but without particularly noticing the passage to which
I refer, and which I shall presently quote. His book
requires and repays attentive reading. Taken on the
run or opened at random, one may find some things
which give pause to assent and others that provoke
contradiction ; but if one will begin at the beginning
and follow Stedman to his close. If he will imitate his
cautious estimate of included facts and use his own
critical insight, and, especiaUy, if he will foUow Sted
man's example and be chary of hasty generalization,
he will be In the way to a fair judgment of American
poetry. And If it differs materially from Stedman's,
which is not likely, at least it will be with respect for
the breadth of his view, his sagacity, his candor, and
his charming style. Perhaps he will not be troubled,
as I was not, by some things which when considered
out of relation seem to be discrepancies ; perhaps he
will not notice them, as I did not. On reflection,
Stedman's method appears to be the only practicable
one which leads to satisfactory results. Of some lit-

372 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
eratures peremptory judgments are permissible. One
may say, for example, with Milman, that In invention,
life, and distinctness of conception, and pure, trans
lucent language, Greek poetry stands alone ; and of
Latin poetry, that in lofty sentiment, majestic, if ela
borate verse, in vigor In condensing and expressing
moral truth. It surpasses all poetry. And so the
poetry of Italy, of Germany, of France, and of Eng
land may each be characterized in a phrase. But any
such judgment of American poetry must be recaUed
for reversal or modification.
Should it be said, for Instance, as it often has been,
at home and abroad, that our poetry is without ori
ginality, and Is merely a pale reflection of English
thought, feeling, and presentation ; that the thin song
of our mythical lark is only a faint echo of the fuU-
throated songster which rises from English meadows
three thousand miles away, — the judgment would be
both unfair and erroneous, as Stedman shows, in fail
ing to take account of that which differentiates our
poetry, in form. In proportion, and in a certain purity
of tone and local color, from English song. On the
other hand, even with such changes from the English
standard as have been made in it, and for the better,
the result would hardly warrant the assertion that we
have developed an original literature. Now the value
of Stedman's book Is this : It helps us to see just what
the outcome of our poetry is thus far ; just where it
faUs short, and what of promise there Is in its future.
Nevertheless, I have a little quarrel with him ; at
least I hope I have. In fact I must have, to get on.
No wind, no race ! I am in the case of a parson who
has meditated his discourse to a certain text, and too
late discovers a doubtful exegesis. Stedman's sen-

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY 873
tence is this : " Fellowship with the spirit of Ameri
can landscape and the recognition of its beauty and
majesty were the earliest, as they are the most con
stant, traits of American verse." Now if by the ear
liest poets Stedman means the group of which Bryant
was the first, as seems probable enough, looking at
the general tenor of his book, then there is no dis
pute, and I must hunt for another text ; but if, as I
hope, pr-o hac vice, he had In mind the whole poetic
band, which, headed by Anne Bradstreet and Michael
Wigglesworth, has come, hand in hand, chanting
down through the American ages, then I look no
further, but proceed.
Leaving Stedman for a moment, I quote from
Emerson's " Nature : " " To speak truly, few adult
persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the
sun. At least they have only a very superficial see
ing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man,
but shines into the eye and the heart of the child."
He had just said, " Nature never becomes a toy to a
wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains,
reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they
had delighted the simplicity of his childhood."
Without stopping to consider how these seemingly
contradictory passages may be reconciled, I quote
them to call attention to the different methods of
Emerson and Stedman, both poets and critics, — and
to their methods alone; for no one more sincerely
than Stedman himself would deprecate a general
comparison. The difference Is this: Stedman gives
reasons, but seldom judgments, leaving them to be
inferred from his whole work. Emerson, on the con
trary, seldom Indulges us with his reasons, but pro
nounces judgments peremptorily for one party to-day,

374 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
for the other to-morrow ; but we wait in vain for the
reconciling judgment which marshals the facts and
declares the general law.
I also marvel that one with Emerson's acuteness
should fail to notice that conscious Intelligence,
whether of mind or soul. Is the recognition of nature
which he was endeavoring to explain and promote.
Without doubt, to the open-eyed wonder-faculty of
children and primitive races, and possibly even to the
higher order of animals, the sun, the moon, and the
stars, the sea, the prairies, and the mountains, to
gether with the more striking phenomena of nature,
as thunder and lightning, the succession of the sea
sons, and of night and day, are mysterious both to
sense and soul ; and so Is a fire-cracker, a gimcrack, or
a bit of colored ribbon !
" The Ode on Immortality is the high-water mark
which the intellect has reached In this age," wrote
Emerson In 1856. That he had studied Wordsworth
and Coleridge is evident from the sentences quoted
above, and other passages in "Nature." But I am
not sure, though Sir Henry Taylor thought otherwise,
that Wordsworth, in making use of the reminiscences
of a preexistent state, which many of us vaguely have,
did not preserve throughout his highest imaginings
the distinction between " the glory and the dream,"
and any rational theory of the development of human
faculties.^ 1 Matthew Arnold, in his preface to Wordsworth's poems, says,
" The instinct of delight in Nature and her beauty had no doubt
extraordinary strength in Wordsworth himself as a cliild. But to say
that universally this instinct is mighty in childhood, and tends to die
away afterwards, is to say what is extremely doubtful. In many peo
ple, perhaps with the majority of educated people, the love of nature
is nearly imperceptible at ten years old, but strong and operative at
thirty,"

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY 375
No doubt with years the Instincts become more
intelligent ; but it seems to me that in the develop
ment of the understanding of nature, either In races
or In individuals, the first stage is essentiaUy non-
inteUigent, or, at best, semi -inteUigent, feeling —
strongest when nerves are unworn and vitality exu
berant. The next stage — hardly reaching Intelligent con
ception of the relations of man to the external world
— Is that In which to aU persons not color blind or
afflicted with similar congenital defect, arises the per
ception of certain harmonies of proportion, of light,
of shade, and of color in a landscape, accompanied, it
may be, even with vague notions of correspondence
between natural objects and human emotions. There
are those — the majority of mankind — who " enjoy
fine natural scenery."
But this Is not that true " fellowship with the spirit
of American landscape " which Stedman had in mind.
That, while it does not demand the classification of
the botanist, implies the development by use of those
faculties upon which we rely for discrimination of
differences, and for the recognition of the relation of
cause and effect, and of that artistic sense found, if
found at all, in the soul alone, but receiving Its Inspira
tion and its impulse from the external world. At this
stage we may truly feUowshIp with the spirit of the
landscape. But of such there are comparatively few
(Mr. Arnold notwithstanding), even among those who
deem themselves, and are deemed by others, cultured
people. These elect persons may be called happy.
But happy Indeed are those who, while they accept
the philosophical distinction between soul and sub
stance, recognizing the former alone as sentient, can

376 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
yet pass into that Ideal world which discovers a relar
tionship, not vague or fanciful, but clear and real,
between all created things and the human soul, and
assumes the recognition of this relationship by the
world of nature itself.
I now desire to trace the progress from that stage
in which we are merely susceptible to fine scenery, to
that In which the poet and his reader live in familiar
association with nature, and, ideally, nature lives with
them. Much that passes for nature study has little claim
to be caUed such ; and the distinction between that
which Is real and that which Is merely formal is vital
not only to self-culture, but likewise to literature.
Consider this, that many persons, besides an intimate
acquaintance with Thomson, Wordsworth, Bryant, and
Tennyson, may have a just sense of their peculiar ex
cellences, and yet lack appreciation of nature, or a
disposition to fellowship with her, or to bring the poe
try they so much admire to the crucial test by con
fronting It with nature — that very nature of which it
claims to be the Interpreter.
How many of us, for example, judging solely from
the descriptions themselves in " Evangeline," can say
whether LongfeUow ever saw the little village of
Grand Pre, —
" In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas ; "
or the country at the foot of the Ozarks, which Ga
briel entered, where —
" , , , are the wondrous beautiful prairies.
Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine.
Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas " ?
In one of his earlier poems he wrote : —

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY 377
" When winter winds are piercing shrill.
And through the white-thorn blows the gale ; "
but In his coUected poems he changed white-thorn to
hawthorn. What effect has this substitution on the
verisimilitude of the description or on the associations
suggested ? or would it make any difference in either
to the reader were he informed that neither white
thorn nor red-thorn nor hawthorn ever grew where the
scene of the poem is laid ? Or if it be said, as fairly
enough it might be, that the fidelity to nature of Long
fellow's descriptions can hardly be determined from
Isolated passages, then let the question be changed to
this : How many of us who value LongfeUow's poetry,
which never attempts heights inaccessible, but keeps
within easy range of common hopes, joys, and sorrows,
and delights us with descriptions of nature, can say
whether, judging from the whole body of his poetical
work, he wrote with his eye on the scene, or from gen
eral recoUection of landscape, or from books ; and
that. In one case, we have assurance of Its continuance,
and in the other, an apprehension lest his poetry, not
withstanding great and manifold excellences, will
gradually fade away ?
The test might be repeated indefinitely, but one
more example will suffice. Southey, though he pos
sessed many admirable powers, can hardly be said to
live in his poetry, much of which was descriptive.
Passing over that part of It which lies in the realm of
fancy, and therefore not subject to verification, though
none the less amenable to the law of verisimilitude, as
Leigh Hunt has shown in respect to Arlosto and his
winged horses, can we lay finger on this and that pas
sage in his poetry which deals with familiar aspects
of nature, and say that It lacks verity ; or, taking his

378 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
one descriptive poem, the " Falls of Lodore," which
survives, mark the vital signs by which it does sur
vive? This may be a small matter, but not so thought one
of the masters of objective poetry. Scott's descrip
tions possess the excellences so conspicuously wanting
In Southey's. Southey wrote In and from his library ;
Scott, on the contrary, composed sub Jove, sometimes
afoot, like Wordsworth, but often in the saddle.
" Oh ! man, I had many a grand gallop among the
braes when I was thinking of Marmion." Lockhart,
to whom this was said, teUs us that Scott ascertained,
in his own person, that a good horseman, well mounted,
might gallop from the shores of Loch Vennachar to
the rock of Stirling within the space allotted Fltz-
James In " The Lady of the Lake." In the same
poem Scott wrote of Ellen : —
" , , , she stooped, and, looking round,
Plucked a blue harebell from the ground,"
Was It In reference to these or to some similar lines
that Scott, being in doubt whether the flower grew In
that particular spot, galloped a dozen miles to verify
the fact ?
These and many other examples which are found
in Lockhart disclose one secret of Scott's vitality as
a poet, and Indicate the degree of his " feUowship with
the spirit of the landscape."
For evidence of such conscientious study of nature,
we shall look In vain in the writings of our earliest
poets or in those of more than a score of our latest.
And to the group of which Bryant was the earliest,
and many think the best, nature was familiar in her
elemental forces and grander aspects rather than in
those minute details which concern the days more than

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY 879
the seasons. So far from fellowship with nature were
our earlier poets, that the lack of It was one cause,
perhaps the chief cause, of the sterility of their poetry
and of the literary spirit of our people.
To put this matter, which is of vital importance to
the poet, and to his readers as well, on a more sub
stantial basis, I will refer to some facts within my
own observation.
When I was in college we thought that Willis, then
in vogue, was one of the best of our poets. His poems
had been recently reprinted, and were generally read.
I recollect with what enthusiasm I learned, and often
repeated, the poem he called " Contemplation," which
opened in this way : —
" They are all up — the innumerable stars —
And hold their place in heaven. My eyes have been
Searching the pearly depths through which they spring,
Like beautiful creations, till I feel
As if it were a new and perfect world.
Waiting in silence for the word of God
To breathe it into inotion,"
I thought it very fine ; nor was I alone in this. The
delusion was quite general, at least among my friends.
How long it continued I do not recollect ; but it was
In a measure dispelled, after the coming to Hanover
of a few copies of Tennyson and Motherwell — the
latter probably somewhat over-estimated — just then
republished In America. Their poetry opened a new
world Into which we entered, and there found Words
worth and Bryant. Nor was It long before we learned
that the power they had over us lay in the power which
nature had over them.
This was much, though perhaps nothing extraordi
nary as a fact In our education. But that which even
to this day seems remarkable Is, that the change in us

380 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
was not radical. It was essentially literary, — not a
new birth, or even a stage of development. It was
the perception, in their poetry, as literature, of a cer
tain freshness and vital power not found In the poetry
we had previously admired ; not any wider or closer
acquaintance with nature. Delightedly we read about,
and In our mind's eye even saw
" A host of golden dafFodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze,"
but without the slightest impulse to find daffodUs, or
anything like them, around Hanover. We read with
zest and, I think, with true literary appreciation, the
" Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey,"
marveling, however, that Wordsworth should think
the place of writing worth noting so particularly, and
heard the *' , , , waters rolling from the mountain springs
With a sweet inland murmur,"
In fancy we " , . , turned to thee,
0 sylvan Wye, thou wanderer through the woods,"
but we did not beat up the haunts of our New Hamp
shire Wye, and our Yarrow remained " Yarrow Un-
visited." No doubt some of us looked for the de
scendant of Bryant's "Waterfowl," but only that we
" Might mark his distant flight to do him wrong ! "
Nevertheless It was a delightful world, though unseen
save through the poet's eyes. Delightful, but unfruit
ful. Just when or how we came out of It Into a world
where we truly fellowshlped with nature, I would tell
If I knew. For he who does know, and wIU point out
a practicable path by which our people may come Into
that intimate association with nature which makes it a

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY 881
productive power, and at the same time preserve that
literary culture which is essential to the best literary
art, will do them a service second only to that which
Bacon rendered to mankind. For if I have any con
viction deeper and more constant than another respect
ing the causes of our literary sterility, it is this : that
poets and people are " moving about in worlds npt
realized," feeding on the husks of literature, without
understanding that books are valuable chiefly as the
repositories of thought wider and more profound than
our own, and vital only when verified by ourselves ;
or that nature becomes the power of God In man only
when presented so as to bring into their true relations
the soul that is Nature and the soul that is Man.
To bring this to pass with ourselves may be more
difficult than fpr a people that were young when the
world was young. It may be that we must submit to
the primitive conditions of literary success. If an
apprenticeship to Nature Is indispensable, it may be
that as Garcia required of his pupils a year's practice
of the scale, so of us, before entering upon an art
which is the highest and most difficult, may be re
quired a description of the simplest flower that grows.
It seems to me, that on the recognition of the fore
going conditions and conformity to their requirements
— of which I see signs — depends the future of our
imaginative literature, and something more ! There
is promise of better things to come, and already some
thing of performance. Who but one that had slept
with his face to the stars could have written this ?
" I see before me now a traveling army halting ;
Below, a fertile valley, spread with bams and the orchards of sum
mer ;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising
high,

882 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
Broken with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily
seen ;
The numerous camp-fires scattered near and far, some away up on the
mountain ;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flicker
ing,
And over all, the sky — the sky ! far, far out of reach, studded with
the eternal stars,"
I lived four years at Hanover, blind, absolutely
blind, to scenery as fair in Its way as my eyes ever
rested on in any land, — and so did others, — even
after we had become keenly alive to the literary value
of poetry, which drew its Inspiration, its vitality, and
its truth directly from nature.
I believe, therefore, that the love of nature, inteUi
gent, not born of mere wonder, as in children and In
primitive races, objective, as implying familiarity with
her forms and manifestations, and subjective, as find
ing her responsive, in her moods and symbols, to
spiritual aspirations, is relatively a late development
even In those races and individuals In which it Is ever
developed. Is It the basis of Teutonic literature ?
The Greeks do not appear to have possessed It. Their
abounding vitality Informed nature with their own
personality. They gave much to her, but seemed
Incapable of receiving anything from her. They lived
with nature under the open sky ; were acquainted with
earth, and sea, and mountains ; with stars, and planets,
and the sun. The Teuton, on the other hand, knew
nature in her haunts. If English literature owes Its
fancy to Celtic blood and association, its characteristic
life comes from the soil, and is fresh with the breath
of the morning, and the fragrance of wild flowers,
and the songs of many birds, and the idyllic sweet
ness of green fields.

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY 388
Lest what I have said of myself, and of those with
whom I associated in college days, should be laid to
the account of exceptional causes, I now refer to later
and wider observations.
Returning to Hanover on the centennial of 1868, I
found many I had known as undergraduates ; and if,
amidst congratulations. Inquiries, and replies, there
was any remark so general that it seemed to be uni
versal, it was this, in substance : " The old place is
just the same. But what a beautiful place ! what
scenery ! When here I did n't think much about It
— In fact, nothing ! " And to verify this new dis
covery, we must needs go to the heights which looked
down Into the valley to the southeast, as peaceful In
its beauty as the benediction of God ; or that to the
southwest, with Ascutney In the distance, recalling
reminiscences of those October mornings when the
Python, the mist-serpent of the river, lay along the
Connecticut until Apollo slew him, and Earth by
nisht renewed — him the deathless !
In assigning the development of an intelligent ap
preciation of landscape to a late period of education,
under the circumstances above related. It may be said
that I generalize from too narrow a basis of observa
tion ; that the facts amount to no more than this :
that young men, withdrawn by necessary seclusion
from fellowship with nature, are insensible to her
essential qualities, though possibly alive to her power
In literature. There may be some truth In the obser
vation, but I have reasons for the broader generaliza
tion. Twenty-five years ago I passed the month of August
at a place of resort among the mountains. The com
pany gathered there was somewhat miscellaneous,

384 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
made up chiefly of the middle, mercantile class, born
and reared In rural New England, and habitues of
the place summer after summer. Nearly every fair
afternoon. In parties of a dozen, we made excursions
In an open mountain wagon, among the hUIs, through
woods, or along reaches of vaUey, which presented a
quickly shifting panorama of Infinite variety, seldom
repeating itself In the changing lights, shadows, and
cloud forms. Our driver was a middle-aged country
man, by whose side was my seat. As we rode along,
suddenly would come an explosion of exclamations
when a turn in the road brought Into view some scene
of peculiar beauty. I need not describe, if I could,
the extravagance of gesture or speech by which each
expressed delight. The driver was quick to catch the
view, and from the light In his eyes I saw that he,
too, was touched by the beauty of the scene. " Do
you," I asked, " care for that which seems to please
the people behind us? " " Well, 'Squire," he replied,
after a moment's hesitation, " I was born in a little
house over the hills there, and there I have lived, boy
and man, more than thirty years. For three summers
I have driven this team, and for most part the same
folks. When I first began to take 'em out [with a
slight gesture over his shoulder], and see 'em act so,
I thought they was the biggest set of fools I ever see ;
but by'me by I begun to look myself, and now [with
a suppressed gulp] I guess — I 'm — about as big a
fool as any of 'em ! "
Now here was a genuine man, a son of the soil,
who, with average poetic sensibilities, had all his life
dwelt among some of the fairest scenes of earth, and
had but lately come to his own. Nor was there any
thing peculiar in his case. No. There are thou-

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY 385
sands and tens of thousands, some, like him, unlet
tered, and others, fascinated by the gewgaws of
literature, but all blind, and waiting alike for the
dispersion of mists which darken their eyes to what
nature would gladly reveal to those who will truly
" fellowship with the spirit of the landscape."
To bring this about should be the aim of self -culture
and the prime design of general education ; and Its
accomplishment will be the first stage In the develop
ment of an original literature !
But nature has not yet closed her account with us.
Thus far she has revealed herself in answer to our
questionings, sometimes in the awe-inspiring majesty
of her elemental forces, sometimes In the idyllic
sweetness of green fields and verdure which embowers
hamlets and dim-discovered spires, and sometimes by
touching chords which respond to suggestions of some
mysterious relationship between us and herself.
We know how much modern poetry, especially that
of W^ordsworth, owes to an impassioned love of nature,
and to the assumption which attributes sensation to
Inanimate objects ; and how great our loss would be
if the results were eliminated from poetic literature.
But I am less concerned respecting the bounds to
poetic license, than the just limitations, as matter of
self-culture, to our " fellowship with the spirit of the
landscape." How far may we profitably adopt the
theory, which must at least be regarded as ideal, that
represents nature as desirous of understanding us,
and of coming into intelligent sympathy witli us, as
we are with her? Of course such an assumption
lacks any basis realizable to the senses, nor is It other
wise susceptible of verification. Nevertheless, there
is an ideal view of nature In which it is not altogether

386 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
fantastical to supjjose that she is conscious of herself
and of certain spiritual relations to us ; and there are
those who recognize the moral harmony of the uni
verse only In the belief that not only everything that
breathes, but also everything that has organized life,
and even things as remote from apparent design as
those which go to form what we call natural scen
ery, or " , , . something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
A nd the round ocean and the living air.
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, "
have, in common with ourselves, been formed by the
same power, and subject to the same Influences, are
thus brought into relation not only to the common
source of being, but also, through that common rela
tionship, into certain undefined but not wholly un
intelligent relations to each other.
Now, however baseless this notion may be In ijhl-
losophy. It Is conceivable at least in poetry and may
be recognized in our intercourse with nature. It Is
the highest in that fellowship with the spirit of the
landscape, of which the lowest Is mere wonder ; and
so rich and satisfactory beyond all antecedent concei)-
tion are the results, that happy Is he who can truly
say, Respexit tamen, et longo post tempore venit.
But this view has not escaped challenge even in
respect to poetry. Henry Taylor, the author of
" Philip van Artevelde," cautions his readers against
a too ready acceptance of Wordsworth's poetic theory
of nature. He says : " The vivacity with which he
[Wordsworth] Is accustomed to apprehend this power
of inanimate nature over the human mind has Indeed
led him In some cases, we venture to think, too far

LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY 387
... in his poetical licenses, or In that particular
poetic license by which sensation is attributed to In
animate objects, — the particular feeling which they
excite in the spectator being ascribed to themselves as
if they were sentient beings. Thus we find in the
' Intimations of Immortality,' —
' The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare.'
And In the same ode, —
' Ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves,
Think not of any severing of our loves,' "
That Wordsworth was the founder of this modern
school of poetic nature-sentlency there can be no
doubt. But if one will think of it a little, he will
perceive that the interpretation of the Interrelations
between man and nature, as presented by Words
worth and his followers, does not materially differ as
& poetical idea from that which, three thousand years
ago, possessed the souls and guided the pens of the
Hebrew poets, that wonderful race which anticipated
the highest reach of modern spiritualized thought, and
that the vital power of the best modern poetry, as well
as of theirs, Is derived from the interfusion, by the
imagination, of the soul that is in man and the soul
that Is In nature.
While our race ancestors were In their lowest estate
of Intelligence, before the Frank had crossed the
Rhine or the wolf had suckled Romulus and Remus,
— while the Greeks, at their best, were without spir
ituality, — the Hebrew, rising to the conception of
the unity of all created things, and of their spiritual
relations to each other and to their common Creator,
could say more loftily than Wordsworth, more loftUy
than Milton, —

388 LANDSCAPE IN LIFE AND POETRY
" When Israel went out of Egypt . , , the sea saw it and fled ;
Jordan was driven back. The mountains skipped like rams, , , ,
What ailed thee, 0 thou sea, that thou fleddest ? Thou Jordan, that
thou wast driven back ? Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams ? "
Again : —
" Mountains and hills, fruitful trees and cedars , , , kings of the
earth, and all people, praise ye the Lord,"
And again : —
" Sing, O ye heavens , . , shout, ye lower parts of the earth ; break
forth into singing, ye mountains, 0 forest, and every tree therein,"
But the most daring and the most successful flight
of the imagination In all literature, as It seems to me,
was reached by the psalmist : —
" Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates ; even lift them up, ye everlasting
doors ; and the King of glory shall come in ! "
If those who were privileged with access to the
Divine Mind might, unblamed, use language which
Implies, in an ideal sense at least, that Intelligent
sympathy pervades all the works of His hand ; that
not nature alone, not the growing trees, not the run
ning rivers, not the heavens whose clouds take on
forms of life, but that the lifeless marble and the in
sensate brazen doors eould recognize the approaching
God, —-then perhaps we need not scruple with Henry
Taylor to assume the sentlency of nature, either as an
element of poetry, or as an aid to a truer " f eUowshIp
with the spirit of the landscape."

THE SCOPE OF A COLLEGE LIBRARY

Address at the Dedication of Wilson Hall, Dart
mouth College Library, June 24, 1885

ADDRESS
AT THE DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL, DART
MOUTH COLLEGE LIBRARY

A TEAR ago the corner-stone of the library build
ing was laid with appropriate observances. That
event was an epoch in the history of the college. It
was the beginning of a work long contemplated and
often deferred. To-day we celebrate Its completion
and dedicate Wilson Hall to its Intended uses.
Our thanks are due to the architect whose skill has
given us acceptable results for library economy, and a
structure of just proportions to which time will add
new graces ; to the master-builders whose fidelity in
construction will be apparent with the passing years ;
and to the committee to whose foresight and superin
tending care the enterprise owes Its success. And,
above all. In the spirit of those who founded this insti
tution, would we devoutly recognize the divine favor
manifested to us In this as in all generations.
Although I wish the privilege had fallen to another,
yet most gratefully do I participate in the dedication
of the new edifice. It Is now five and forty years
since I first came to this seat of learning ; nor have
I ever forgotten — I never can forget — how much I
owe to what I found here, — able, judicious, and faith
ful Instructors ; beloved associates 'whose lives have
fulfilled the promise of their robust youth ; books.

892 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
abundant compared with those before within my
reach ; and the memories of those great men who had
walked these grounds, and amidst the pure and serene
influences of this place had laid the foundations of
character and usefulness. Five and forty years later
I stand here again. But my eyes seek In vain for
the venerable forms which I once knew. Beloved
associates of my youth are here no longer. Much Is
changed, but much remains. The venerable halls re
main ; the skies are the same ; still flows the beauti
ful river, — still stretches the glorious landscape away
Into the purple distance.
Among the privileges of my college days I grate
fully remember the libraries, which were ample for
our purposes. We could not indeed have verified
Gibbon's authorities, nor have explored any subject
exhaustively in original sources. But the books we
needed were to be found either in the society libraries,
the coUege library, or that of the Northern Academy.
It was in my coUege days that this latter Institution
was evolved, I always thought, from the active brain
of its amiable projector, the late Dr. William Cogs
well. It was unobtrusively located In a lower room
of Reed HaU, The name sounded well, and our pride
In It considerably exceeded our knowledge of It ; for
then, as ever, Omne ignotum pro magnifico. With
those who had antiquarian leanings its prestige was
augmented by the possession of two editions of John
Eliot's translation of the Bible into the Indian
tongue ; but neither this admirable version nor the
academy's kindred treasures were much sought for by
the ingenuous youth of my time.
When some one defended the law on the ground
that It was open to aU, " so is the London Tavern,"

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 398
growled Dr. Johnson, " — to those who can pay the
reckoning." On the same terms the college library
was open to us. But I fancy the accomplished libra
rian found his duties neither arduous nor largely re
munerative. In the society libraries, however, were famous
browsing pastures stretching away from the heathery
Grampians to the honeyed Hymettus. Free even to
license, the privilege was seldom abused, and is of
such value that it should be accorded, when practica
ble, even at the risk of some Inconvenience. Of like
value was that other privilege of carrying away to
our country homes, or to the rural districts where we
taught school, a trunkful of literature for the long
winter evenings. To this day I hear the stage-driver's
good-natured but highly objurgatory epithets lavished
on those book-laden trunks, as he hoisted them to the
rack ; and the no less significant exclamations of the
youth who at the end of the route assisted their pro
gress to the schoolmaster's chamber. After a half
century of such usage, no one could reasonably expect
to find many of those Identical volumes on the shelves.
Those who read them are gone. The past Itself Is
gone, but Its memories and its Influences endure, I
wish to pay a tribute of sincere respect to those peri
patetic volumes. They did a useful work. They en
tered into the rural life of northern New England and
aroused new thoughts and new purposes. They stimu
lated a desire for a broader education in some whose
names had not otherwise honored our rolls; and In
others who wandered frora their native hills and be
came pioneers of civilization by the great lakes and
beyond the Mississippi. Those were days of toil
and privation, of spare and homely diet, of coarse and

394 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
scanty raiment ; but they covered no inconsiderable
portion of that period which measures the inteUectual
movement of our New England society. We grate
fully remember the good they brought to us, but we
cannot wish their return.
At the time of which I speak, the libraries of the
United Fraternity and of the Social Friends contained
in the aggregate about fifteen thousand volumes. As
I recall these collections, they fairly represented the
tastes, judgments, and needs of those to whom they
were mainly Indebted for their existence. Each class,
divided equally between the two societies, made a dona
tion to the respective libraries in Its sophomore year ;
that Is, In that year they raised the funds with which
they purchased books. These books were held for
special class use until near the time of graduation and
then were given to the society libraries. In my own
class I was one of the committee of the Socials for that
business. Two of us were selected to go to the great
city. In the summer vacation, and make purchases ;
and from memoranda made at the time, I know that
the hours spent In making our selections from the be
wildering riches of Little & Brown's shelves were
considered " a hard day's work." Few titles of our
purchase I now remember ; but in history we ranged
from the Chronicles of Froissart and Monstrelet to
the Memoirs of VIdocq ; and I hope that my associate,
who still lives, read the former with as much avidity
as I devoured the latter.
Returning to these scenes of student life after the
lapse of many years, one perceives that a new order
has begun. The grand old hall remains as it was on
that first day when Its faultless proportions fronted
the western sky. Would that Its perishable materials

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 895
might be transmuted Into the Imperishable marble,
not only as a memorial of the great men who have
lived under its roof-tree, but also of the forgotten
architect who builded better than he knew.
" Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis,"
We hail the new order. Not far from the site to which
tradition assigns the house of the founder and first
president, rises a new structure. Its exterior Is pleas
ing and satisfies, I am told, the severe judgment of
experts. For myself I will say, that having seen In
many lands edifices with which it may fairly be com
pared, I think the architect should be willing to have
his name inscribed on its least perishable part, to take
its chance against the assaults of time, which envies
all continuance save its own.
We are assured that Wilson Hall Is fire-proof.
That is a great satisfaction ; for what sad associations
those words suggest. Do we, envying the old world
Its possessions of art and literature, year after year,
bring them to these shores ; and then, reminded by
their presence of our poverty in original power, do we
consume them from the face of the earth ? These
may be harsh self-accusations ; but those which are
just — indifference and neglect — are hardly less to
our discredit. With something of dismay I hear of
the coming among us of the first folio of Shakespeare,
or of one of the Incunabula, or of the priceless trea
sures from Nineveh, Greece, or Italy, lest within a few
years we learn, as so often has been the case, that they
no longer exist save as smoke and ashes. Gentlemen
of the Board of Trustees, perhaps the destruction of
nothing which you possess would cause a moment's
pain to those who are not the immediate friends of
the college ; but the knowledge that you have a safe

896 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
repository for what is worth preserving will enrich
you a hundredfold, and in time attract to Wilson
Hall treasures the loss of which would fiU the world
with regret.
The arrangements made for the preservation and
use of books seem to possess every advantage which
may reasonably be expected ; for a library Is no ex
ception to the general law, — that the acceptance of
any architectural scheme involves a compromise.
Something desirable must be left out, and something
inconvenient must be admitted. The central stack,
which you have adopted, finds favor as the most eco
nomical arrangement for the storing of a large library.
To this you have wisely added ample accommodations
for special coUections as well as for the convenience
of students.
In devising the plan of the library building, you
have contemplated its Indefinite extension to meet the
growth of the collections. It is well. With the years
will come friends who will add to your funds for the
purchase of books, and others who, from the abmi-
dance of their own stores, will supply the deficiencies
of yours. Time and friendship and filial love will cre
ate a great library here, for which you have a costly
and well-appointed building.
Too long have I delayed the expressions of your
gratitude to the memory of him whose generosity
makes us all debtors. Alas, that our words cannot
reach the ear of our benefactor ; that he cannot be
hold the result of his beneficence ; that he cannot see
In your faces, as I do, the grateful sentiments which
overflow your hearts ! But from all that 1 learn of his
character he would have found less satisfaction, were
he now present. In any words we might utter, than In

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 397
the consciousness of having promoted sound learning ;
and less desire that his name should endure for ages
on yonder hall, that from that hall should proceed the
influence of good literature enduring with the ages,
widening with the ages, and moulding the characters
of all who came within its reach.
George Francis Wilson was not a son of the college,
but his name will ever stand high among its benefac
tors as the Founder of Wilson Hall.
The old order closes ; the new begins.
" Magnus ab integro sseclorum nascitur ordo,"
Yesterday, the library was made up of unrelated
collections, each having a certain value for college or
university education. To-day, these collections become
a unit, an organism. The Library. ^ It is no longer
^ The flitting of the library, between the fourteenth and seven
teenth days of June inclusive, from the old quarters to the new, was
accomplished by an act of filial piety which deserves commendation,
I learn the facts from an estimable lady who witnessed it, and her ac
count in substance is as follows : It was deemed eminently important
that the library should be transferred to Wilson Hall before Com
mencement, But unavoidable delays had prevented the book-shelves
from being in readiness till, by reason of the annual examinations,
there were practically but four days left in which to make the trans
fer. The president accordingly announced to the assembled students
the difficulty, expressed the belief that it could be overcome by a
united efEort, and called for volunteers. In response to the call the
whole body of students rose to their feet, A day was then announced
for each class ; the monitors were requested to divide them into squads
of twelve, assigning two hours of continuous work to each band, and
reporting to the individuals and to the librarian. The coUege carpenter
was directed to prepare a number of hand-barrows, holding as many
volumes as two men could conveniently carry. The Librarian distrib
uted his assistants at each end of the route, to direct the removal and
the reception of the books. The volumes were rapidly dusted as they
were taken from the shelves, placed in the hand-barrows or trays, and
for four days these trays were plying between the buildings like
shuttles, six at a time, from morning till night, A plentiful supply
of lemonade in both buildings relieved the thirst of hot June days ;

398 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
in lodgings nor living at sufferance among its friends.
It has a home of its own, — can Invite company. Inter
change civilities, and recognize the comity which ex
ists between the guilds of literature. Its situation is
favorable. It Is surrounded by attractive scenery.
Every circumstance of Its life conduces to growth and
longevity. Our hopes for It are high and our demands
upon it will be rigorous. Let us attempt to forecast
its future.
With few exceptions the Increase of the library will
be determined by general rather than by special con
siderations. The treasures of the Yatican flowed to
Rome because Rome was the centre of religious
thought and ecclesiastical purpose. The collections
of the Bibliotheque Nationale and of the British Mu
seum found their way to those centres of cosmopolitan
art, science, and literature, because there they were
needed. This accords with beneficent law. An ac
cumulation of books brought together without due
relation may gratify ostentation but subserves no use
ful purpose. A library, whether public or private,
should be a growth, and every addition to it should
represent an intelligent demand and supply present
or prospective needs. Let us notice a few of these
departments that ought to be made complete, either
from inherent propriety or In recognition of some dis
tinctive character acquired by the college and likely
to be retained.
Whatever else the library may lack, apart from
what Is essential to college work, it should not lack
anything which relates to the history of the Institution.
the work was carried on with abundant singing and merriment ; and
at the end of the four days about sixty thousand of the sixty-five
thousand volumes, which compose the library, had been transferred.

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 399
The college has an honorable history which ought to
be known here. In some room, set apart for the pur
pose, should be found the memorials of the college
from its earliest days ; the biographies of Its founders
and patrons, of Its officers and students ; pictorial
illustrations of Its buildings and of the surrounding
scenery ; every work written by Its graduates ; and,
finaUy, whatever relates to the beginning and progress
of an institution which has profoundly influenced the
civil and ecclesiastical history of New England. In
neglected garrets are manuscripts of great value for
that purpose. Let us rescue these from decay and
bring them hither. Before me lies a mass of such
papers written by, or to, our founder, Dr. Eleazar
Wheelock. From these I have learned something of
the labors, trials, and privations of those who first came
to this wilderness, and something of their devotion to
a great purpose. I have brought these papers with
me as a contribution to the college history, hoping
they may interest others as they have interested me.
I present them to the library.
In the annals of the college are to be found exam
ples of devotion to her Interests which should Inspire
all her children. When her great son was called to
defend her life threatened by parricidal hands, with
that thoroughness and precision which marked all his
professional and public work he examined the law
and the evidence of the cause which demanded his
advocacy. And so did Mason, Smith, and Hopkin
son, who had no personal relations to the college.
But Mr. Webster was her son. He studied her his
tory until those first days lived again. His imagina
tion transformed the soulless body corporate — the
fiction of the king's prerogative — into a living per-

400 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
sonality, the object of his filial devotion, the beloved
mother whose protection called forth all his prowess
and enkindled in his bosom a quenchless love. So
will It ever be with those who become intimately ac
quainted with her history ; for by an unchanging law
the sentiments and affections of Individuals, no less
than of nations, are moulded into an Ideal personality.
Such was PaUas- Athene to art-loving Greeks ; such to
the all-conquering Romans the Capitoline Jove.
Let us gather, then, the memorials of the college
into one repository sacred as the abode of the dear
and venerable mother. No one will enter it without
reverence nor leave It without new devotion. Its
threshold will welcome the returning son however
humble ; and Its lintel will be lifted up that the most
exalted may enter. Nor will the place be sacred to
those alone, the graduates of the college, beneath
whose revisiting footsteps the very sods become quick
ened. For when our great brother rescued his alma
mater from the conflict of parties and bore her on
his shoulders to the citadel of the Constitution, he
opened wide its doors to every sister college in the
land; and as chance or rational curiosity leads the
feet of their sons to this place, let them not seek In
vain for every memorial of the great conflict or of the
great victory. Let this room, therefore, contain every
pamphlet called forth by the heated controversy : the
hostile legislation in its authentic records ; the corre
spondence which relates to the contest ; the later dis
cussions and decisions, In legal or legislative forums,
to which it has given rise ; and finally, all those
authorities by which counsel or magistrate. In state or
national tribunal, sought to secure or avert the final
judgment of the court. The question involved in this

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 401
celebrated case was one of constitutional rather than
of technical law ; and It was decided on principles
within the comprehension of non-professional intelli
gence. With its related history it might well be
made the subject of an annual essay, the preparation
of which would tend to stimulate habits of original
research and enkindle the devotion of undergraduates.
To such a proposed collection of authorities I desire
to make a contribution. In his great argument re
ported In the Dartmouth College Case, a copy of
which you have fittingly placed under the corner-stone
of Wilson Hall, Daniel Webster cited as authority the
first volume of Blackstone's " Commentaries." The
identical volume which he held in his hand for that
purpose, I now hold In mine. It belongs to a set not
without interest as the first American edition of that
celebrated work. Daniel Webster, whose autograph
signature Is found upon the fly-leaf, gave It to his
brother, Ezekiel Webster, also a son of the college,
whose handwriting Is to be seen on a small slip of
paper obviously used to mark a page for reference.
Having brought together the memorials of the col
lege for preservation In Its library, the growth of the
collection may be allowed to express the views of those
who contribute to Its funds, and of Inquirers in differ
ent fields of investigation. How widely in recent
years the old fields have been extended and what new
fields have been opened, is well known. The product
of each clamors for recognition ; but the relative im
portance of the several departments of literature and
the draft which each should make on your resources
may be wisely left to the decision of weU-known laws.
In all departments of research the results within
the last fifty years are amazing. No mind, however

402 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
capacious, can grasp them in detail ; nor will the most
far-reaching presume to limit their progress. But it
will not escape observation that these results are In
a great measure due to more scientific methods of
research made possible by the existence of great col
lections and great libraries.
Within recent years constitutional history has been
explored in original sources, and its field has been
widened so as to Include all those nationalities which
in any degree have participated in the general move
ment of organized governments In the direction of
popular rights regulated by fundamental laws. This
is largely due to the original authorities gathered Into
great libraries and made accessible to students. Such
collections not only answer inquiries, but they stimu
late Inquirers ; and, as I shall endeavor to show In the
sequel, they are likely to have a profound Influence
on the coming literature of America. And as I deem
this a subject of present Importance, I pass, by easy
transition, from the history of the college which Inter
ests us here, to the history of our country which
interests us everywhere, and make it prominent In
this address, with the hope that I may successfuUy
urge the equipment of your library for Its most ex
haustive study.
The formation of a written constitution as the fun
damental law of the United States, In 1787, was,
without doubt, an epoch In the history of constitu
tional government ; but it was not the origin of that
form of government. It was preceded by the consti
tutions of several of the States, and notably by that
of Massachusetts, in 1780, from which some features
of the Federal Constitution were copied. Nor was the
Massachusetts Instrument essentially more than the

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 403
charter of WiUiam and Mary changed and enlarged
to conform to the circumstances of the independent
State which. In revolutionary times, had grown out
of a subject province of England. Provincial char
ters, again, were based upon those which were drafted
for the colonies in the days of Charles I., upon the
general principles of the unwritten constitution of our
British ancestors. Thus we can trace constitutional
government back to our English home, and perhaps
even to the forests of Germany. In the colonial
period the government of our ancestors was founded
on royal charters ; but these were then to be inter
preted, as they are now to be read, in the light of the
public law of Europe and of the municipal law of
England. When the colonists threw off their alle
giance to the crown they still remained subject to the
public law of Europe ; and they found It convenient
to adhere to the general principles of the municipal
law of England. Magna Charta and the Petition of
Right they undoubtedly brought with them In the
period of the great emigration ; and if it is less clear
that the Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights, later
enactments of the British Parliament, passed proprio
vigore beyond the seas, our ancestors laid claim to
them, if not by virtue of their relations to the mother
country, at least as analogues of rights which had
grown up on American soil. Consequently the public
law of Europe and fhe municipal law of England as
they were interpreted in the seventeenth century, to
gether with the great declaratory acts and the con
stitutional history of England, are still vital to us, and
so will remain as long as we are interested In consti
tutional government. They form the basis of our
political system, and will acquire new Importance as

404 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
we approach that period In our national life when a
denser population and more complicated interests will
require a readjustment of the rights of persons and
the powers of government. These subjects and the
questions to which they give rise, including those
institutions which indicate our common origin with
Englishmen, or differentiate the administrative sys
tem of both from that of continental Europe, have
received much attention on both sides of the Atlantic.
I need only refer to the writings of Hallam, May,
Stubbs, Freeman, Lecky, and Hall, In England, of De
Tocqueville and Von Hoist, on the Continent, and to
the political and lilstorical publications issued from
the Johns Hopkins University in this country. Inter
esting and valuable as the results of these studies are,
they are more Interesting and valuable as indicating
the application of scientific methods of Investigation
to historical and constitutional questions. Such has
been the advance in this direction that Hallam's judg
ments on controverted constitutional points are no
longer accepted as final. The time Is at hand when
students of our history will insist upon access to ori
ginal sources of Information. Too long have we been
obliged to accept the Inflamed arguments of the advo
cate. We wish to recur to the facts on which the
arguments are based. We shall no longer remain
satisfied with the method of historical comjDosItlon of
which Hume affords a conspicuous example ; we pre
fer that of which Freeman is an acknowledged master.
Nor is the time unfavorable. Our colonial history
has been enriched by materials unknown to the ear
lier writers, and foreign archives lately closed or only
partiaUy accessible are now wide open to the student.
A spirit of candor prevails, and there are Indications

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 405
that much of our history will be rewritten with an eye
closer to essential facts, and with an insight which
discerns the truth through the mists of undlscrimi-
nating patriotism, partisan spirit, and sectarian zeal.
The college should be able to encourage these more
rational methods of historical study by pointing to
an alcove in Wilson HaU containing those original
authorities which incite the desire for research and
afford means for Its gratification.
If the past history of our college Indicates the field
of its future usefulness, we shall be warranted in
making the amplest provision for the study of consti
tutional history. It may not have taken the lead in
the cultivation of belles lettres, nor did the muse
" That has her haunt in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,"
choose here her dwelling place. We have not filled
this northern air with song. But in public and muni
cipal law, in statesmanship and In administration, the
graduates of this college have a most honorable record.
Webster, Woodbury, Bartlett, Chase, Fletcher, Parker,
Choate, Perley — what names are these ; what men
were those, all within the first century of Dartmouth !
Here they laid the foundation of character. Here
they began the superstructures. Faithful to the cur
riculum which assumes that discipline, rather than
promiscuous reading, is the chief purpose of college
life, they applied themselves to prescribed lines of
work, and yet found leisure to explore the constitu
tional history of their country. Nor is there better
reading for the prospective citizen — public or private
— than the history of the race which more than any
other has developed constitutional government. That
history should be known both In its great epochs and

406 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
in the causes, Immediate or remote, which led to them.
I think, however, that it Is less generally known than
ancient history or that of continental Europe. Neither
our own history nor that of England seems to attract
the attention of young men. With some opportuni
ties for learning the facts, I do not think that Hume,
Hallam, Sparks, Hildreth, or Bancroft, is so much
read as Prescott, Motley, or Parkman, all of whom
have chosen foreign fields. Macaulay and Froude,
engaged on any subject, attract by briUiancy of treat
ment. One reason for this lack of interest In our
race history may be that It neither stirs the blood nor
excites the Imagination. As a whole. It lacks the
heroic element which fascinates. In episodes It does
not lack. Richard before Acre, or in great battle
with Saladin for the Sepulchre, Henry Y. at Agin-
court and Nelson In the Bay of Aboukir, are examples
of heroism ; and so is Wolfe before Quebec. WeUIng-
ton's campaigns In the Pyrenees afford Instances of
English valor ; and the mangled, but unbroken, squares
at Waterloo, of English constancy. Marlborough's
battles in the War of the Spanish Succession were
"famous victories." But these heroic achievements
were on foreign soil. They touched neither the roof-
trees nor the hearth-stones of our English race. They
count for little either in the world's progress or in
our own.
But with what breathless attention do we read of
the Three Hundred who saved the civilization of
Greece ; or of their varying fortunes when Rome and
Carthage contended for the domination of the world ;
or of the fall of the Western Empire when art,
science, and literature, frightened from their haunts
by barbaric hordes, groped in darkness for a thou-

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 407
sand years ; or of the last of his hundred battles when
the Great Captain staked his empire on the final
charge of the Old Guard, and lost. Those were great
events — those battles of heroes and deml-gods. They
affected the fortunes of nations and of races. Their
narration entrances us. But unless we misread the
destiny of our English race to Impress the world with
its laws, language, and civilization, I ask your judg
ment whether Magna Charta, the Petition of Right,
the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, and the De
claration of Independence, as a series of events affect
ing the rights of man and leading up to constitutional
government, have been exceeded in Importance by
any events, or by any series of events, the work of
human hands, in recorded history? They were at
least of transcendent Importance, since to us, and to
fifty millions of our fellow-citizens, they are the bul
warks of liberty.
The Importance of these events does not diminish
as they come nearer to our own times. Through the
ages great words have been spoken. Scholars still
delight In' the Ideal republic of Plato. In almost
every department of polite learning Aristotle stiU
instructs. Bacon gave new rules to Induction, and
Newton announced the subjection of the planets to
law. But it was reserved for Jefferson first to speak
the word which caught the ear of humanity, — the
word which men, from the beginning, with up-turned,
despairing faces, had been listening to hear : that they
were created equal ; that they were endowed with
rights inalienable ; that life, and liberty, and the pur
suit of happiness were theirs, — words, the grandest,
the most momentous, that ever fell from human lips.
But whence came those words which startled the dull

408 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
ear of the eighteenth centurv ? Shall we find them
In the Contrat Social, or did they fall from the Ups
of Wythe, Lee, or Henry, In the Virginia Assembly ?
Were they merely the felicitous phrasing of the senti
ments promulgated by Otis, or either Adams ; or were
they the concentrated expression of a thousand years
of English thought and purpose on both sides of the
Atlantic ? Students should find In Wilson HaU the
answer to these questions ; asked not In the spirit of
" notes and queries," but with something of the awe
with which we question the destiny of man. For
whether true or false, words have seldom been fol
lowed by such tremendous consequences. In the
generation of their utterance they nerved the hearts
of those who trod the blood-stained snows of Jersey
and stormed the redoubts at Yorktown. In the revo
lution which overthrew the oldest dynasty of Europe
and deluged France with blood, their appalling ana
logues were " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." In our
own day they Inspired Garrison, Sumner, and Lincoln,
whose shibboleth they were, in the conflict which broke
the last slave-shackle in Anglo-Saxon lands. Nor Is
their force yet spent. They are as vital as when
uttered in Independence HaU, or proclaimed at the
head of the army. They are the life of those politi
cal and social jjortents In our sky which threaten the
peace of the generation of young men who leave these
seats to-morrow.
Jefferson's words are connected In clear sequence
with every important event in the constitutional his
tory of our English race on both sides of the Atlantic ;
and by that history, so far as It records the essential
qualities of the race, their truth and applicability to
practical government are to be determined. The

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 409
popular belief seems to be that the truth of the Great
Declaration is a domestic discovery, and that on
American soil it finds its sole expression In govern
ment. This is not altogether so. The facts are more
nearly these : that the American Revolution was a
movement of the Anglo-Saxon race, to which race
our Revolutionary ancestors mainly belonged. In the
direction of natural liberty regulated by law ; that
It acquired new impetus in the reign of James I., and
continued after the great Puritan emigration to these
shores, on both sides of the Atlantic, with nearly
equal momentum ; and that every advance on either
side had its equivalent on the other, until. In both
countries, civil and ecclesiastical liberty were firmly
established. If this seems a paradox, let me indulge
in paradoxes on vital themes, if thereby may be
stimulated a purpose to place In Wilson Hall the
means of their disproof or verification. A brief ex
planation, however, is required. England In the days
of Elizabeth lived under ¦ a sovereign who, with great
personal popularity and Inherited prerogatives, was
nearly absolute ; but her successor, lacking popularity,
found It impossible to repel assaults on his royal priv
ileges ; and these assaults, continued with unlnter-
mitted diligence for more than two centuries, have so
reduced the authority of the crown that now It is
less than that which the people of the United States
have voluntarily conferred upon their chief magistrate.
A similar change has taken place In the distribution
of the legislative powers. The veto of the crown is
merely nominal, and the coordinate functions of legis
lation have been engrossed by the two Houses of Par
liament. At first they were exercised preponderatlngly by

410 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
the Lords; but to-day we notice the singular fact,
that while our conservative Senate seems to be
strengthening its legislative power and Influence, in
England the power of the House of Lords has steadily
declined until the authority of the government Is cen
tred, directly or indirectly, in the Commons as the
Immediate representatives of the people. It is also
noticeable that while the people of the United States
have limited their Immediate power by written con
stitutions, the people of England not thus trammeled,
have through their representatives, practically unre
stricted authority in all legislative affairs. I venture
to predict that this phase of constitutional govern
ment will, in the near future, challenge scrutiny on
both sides of the water, and lead to results not now to
be contemplated with equanimity.
We rejoice In the prosperity of our race. In the
home which it has occupied for a thousand years it
has founded an empire the most powerful of modern
times. It has colonized a continent here in the west,
our home, which sets no bounds to Its aspirations.
From its prolific loins have gone forth the subjects of
a new empire In the far off southern ocean which will
dominate that section of the world. It is an aggres
sive race. It evidently contemplates as Its mission
the freedom of man and the establishment of consti
tutional governments. The parent stock shows no
loss of vitality ; the transplanted stock, no degeneracy.
We have lost neither the instincts nor the traditions
of our race ; and when the time comes, as It inevitably
will come, that Its seat of empire Is transferred to the
west, we shall take up its work and carry it forward.
In preparation for this work let us study before all
other history that of the Anglo-Saxon race, since In

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 411
that race is found the germ of our present liberty and
the promise of our future literature. Its history on
either continent is our history. In its great achieve
ments for liberty we find the safeguards of our own ;
in its mistakes, our warnings. Its later as well as its
earlier history is still vital. It should be found In
Wilson HaU in close proximity to our own. Both
should be studied In their most authentic form. To
that end, we need the British statutes from Magna
Charta to our own times ; the Parliamentary Journals
of both houses ; the coUection of Debates ; the publica
tions of the Record Commissioners ; the compilations
of parUamentary history and the volumes of treaties.
By the side of these sources of the constitutional his
tory of England, and to be studied with them, should
be found the corresponding series of our colonial
papers, as well as those of the state and general
governments. The presence of such a coUection of
original authorities as I have Indicated would excite
curiosity and lead to their study. Correct habits of
investigating political and social questions would be
the result, and a sound basis laid for those constitu
tional judgments which every citizen ought to form.
In English history as well as In our own, materials
are sometimes overlooked through indolence,-' but are
oftener perverted by prejudice. If one would learn
how frequently, let him examine controverted ques.
tions in the original authorities, and then compare his
results with those reached by any partisan historian,
no matter how great his reputation may be. After
some experience of this method of Investigation, I
1 No one would charge either Robertson or Hallam with indolence ;
but Arnold (Lectures on Modern History, 79) has pointed out a serious
error into which both have fallen by trusting second-hand authority
instead of exploring original sources.

412 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
must say that I would not trust the narrative, still less
the opinions of any one, however learned, respecting
the causes which led to the American Revolution, who
had not studied the statutes, journals, and j)arliamen-
tary proceedings of Great Britain, so far as they relate
to American affairs, and the similar authorities of our
colonial governments, from the accession of Charles I.
The value of this method of studying history Is so
obvious that authority for its use Is superfluous ; and
yet Is so commonly disregarded that I will add au
thority to reason. Sir Henry Taylor, who has done
excellent work In more than one department of letters?
says : " Summary histories, such as those of Hume and
Gibbon, though not to be altogether dispensed with,
should hardly be read In abundance. They are use
ful as giving a framework of general knowledge. Into
which particular knowledge may be fitted. . . . Lord
Stafford's dispatches and the Clarendon state papers
will be studied with more profit to a statesman than
any history of the reign of Charles I. ; and It Is the
materials for histories rather than histories them
selves which, being judiciously selected, should be
presented to the perusal of the pupil." ^
Dr. Thomas Arnold also says: "Another class of
documents, certainly of no less Importance [than trea
ties], yet much less frequently referred to by popular
historians, consists of statutes, ordinances, proclama
tions, acts, or by whatever various names the laws
of each particular period happen to be designated.
That the Statute Book has not been more frequently
referred to by writers on English history has always
seemed to me matter of surprise." ^
' 1 The Statesman, >S,
2 Lectures on Modern History, 71.

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 413
It has been my purpose thus far to insist that any
library connected with an educational Institution
should bring within reach of Its students everything
which Illustrates Its history, and everything, near or
remote, which throws light upon the political or con
stitutional history of their own country. Further
than that I do not presume to go. At that point I
recognize the fact that a library has purposes of its
own apart from those entertained by the Institution
with which It Is connected. It is an educational In
stitution ; It Is a university in Itself.
By not sufficiently attending to this fact erroneous
notions as to the functions of a college library have
prevailed In very respectable quarters. It has been
said that the question Is not whether in the great cen
tres of art, science, and literature, should be formed
collections, museums, and libraries capable of answer
ing, so far as such collections can answer, every ques
tion which arises in any department of human thought,
and of affording in the most effective way every aid
desired by those who repair to them ; but whether. In
an institution designed to meet a local necessity of
education, and neither a centre of general culture, nor
likely to become such, there should be gathered and
maintained at great cost and at the expense of other
departments of undeniable usefulness, a great library
to which no one outside 'the institution will ever resort,
and no one within it can possibly use to advantage.
For, so proceeds the argument, the books required by
any student in his college course are few, and mainly
such as relate to the class work In hand ; and it is un
wise to offer inducements to miscellaneous reading,
since it Is noticeable that those students who give to
prescribed studies only such attention as will secure

414 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
to them their degrees, and devote the greater part of
their time to general reading, are, as graduates, less
well fitted to enter upon professional studies or to
engage in their life work than those who adhere more
strictly to the curriculum. This implies an utter mis
conception of the uses of a great library whether con
nected with a college or standing apart from It. Even
In the more limited conception of a college library, I
am not the advocate of a policy which would have re
stricted Daniel Webster's constitutional studies while
an undergraduate to the traditional cotton pocket-
handkerchief. Arnold's advice to the Oxford students
is more sensible : " I cannot Indeed too earnestly ad
vise every one who is resident in the university to seize
this golden time for his own reading, whilst he has on
the one hand the riches of our libraries at his com
mand, and before the pressure of actual life has come
upon him, when the acquisition of knowledge is mostly
out of the question, and we must be content to live
upon what we have already gained." ^
But were It a practical matter requiring immediate
settlement, I should relegate this subject to those who
determine the character of the Instruction iniparted
here, and regulate the growth of the library. For my
own part I look upon great libraries from a profes
sional standpoint. I believe In them as workshops,
and as legitimate equally for the undergraduate as
for the professional man of letters or of science. Of
course each must select his proper bench and use
his proper tools. A coUege library will be essentially
a growth representing the necessities of successive
classes, enlarged by the advance of science. Nor will
the increase of the new invalidate the usefidness of
1 Lectures on Modern History, 69.

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 415
the old. Its literature at least remains. Milton lived
when the old astronomy was giving place to the new,
and was perfectly aware of the fact ; but in construct
ing the ordonnance of his great epic he chose to see
what the Chaldean shepherds saw. Instead of that
which " Through optic glass the Tuscan artist viewed
At ev'ning from the top of F^sole
Or in Valdarno."
Besides the literary Interest attaching to beliefs
which for centuries have held dominion over the
minds of men, it is to be remembered that the errors
of a discarded system are Indissolubly associated with
the truths of the new. No library, however extensive,
contains much that Is without value ; for what Is re
garded as worthless may possibly be of account in
the history of literature.
I think, too, that I can see another benefit resulting
from the gathering of large collections of books at the
different seats of education. The material progress of
our race on this continent Is without parallel. With
a great past we are assured of a great future. This
all the world sees and admits. It also concedes to us
many kinds of greatness ; but It does not concede a
great literature. Sometimes this thought makes us
unhappy, because we know that the final judgments
of literature are cosmopolitan, and from them lies no
appeal. Let us examine this matter with candor and
good temper. It is said that we are sprung from a
stock which has produced one of the richest known
literatures, — that we are generally educated, of great
capacity for affairs, of remarkable Inventive faculty,
evincing vigorous thought in jurisprudence, statesman
ship, and theology, and that we hUve done some good

to

416 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
work In various departments of science ; but that we
have produced no literature of the first or even of the
second class. It concedes to us several respectable
poets, historians, novelists, and belles lettres scholars ;
but with exasperating Insistence adds that, with few
exceptions, their work lacks original power, shows for
eign culture, and might as well have been written in
Europe as in America ; that as a whole our literature
is neither copious nor rich, but on the contrary thin
and poor ; that it does not taste of the soil, and is
essentially a pale reflection of English thought and
feeling. This, though a foreign judgment, does not
differ essentially from that which may be gathered
from American sources.
The usual reply is to reiterate the well-known
names which for the last forty years, with few addi
tions, have adorned our bead-roU of literary fame
with the further observation that we have had other
work to do than writing novels and poems. I do not
propose to reopen the question on the old ground.
Unless we can come to clearer notions as to the cause
of our sterility In Imaginative literature, and can find
a remedy for It, the matter is hardly worth discussion.
I suppose no Intelligent American regards the out
come of our literary endeavor with entire compla
cency. But if the causes of our literary poverty are
not permanent ; If new Influences are at work, pro
mising and already producing better results, the case
is not hopeless. For my own part I believe It to be
full of encouragement. Let us review the circum
stances which thus far have affected us unfavorably.
In the preface to his " History of New England,"
Dr. Palfrey estimated in 1858 that one third of the
people then In the United States were descended from

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 417
the twenty thousand Englishmen who came to New
England between 1620 and 1640. Owing to obvious
causes the bulk of the imaginative literature of Amer
ica has been produced by the descendants of those
emigrants. Who and what, then, were these twenty
thousand Englishmen, the first comers to this New
England soil? William Stoughton, the stout old Puri
tan who fiercely antagonized the witches in 1692,
said : " God sifted a whole Nation that he might send
choice Grain over Into this Wilderness." ^ Nothing
can be more true or more germane to our subject.
God sifted out all the poets and romancers, and aU
those who were chiefly men of letters. Neither Jon-
son, nor Massinger, nor Ford ; neither the blood of
Shakespeare, nor of Marlowe, nor of Spenser, nor of
Sidney ; neither the Puritan Milton, nor the Puritan
Marvel ; neither Francis Bacon, nor Thomas Browne, .
nor Robert Burton, nor Jeremy Taylor ; nor any one
of less grim purpose than that which made Crom
well's Ironsides Invincible, and brought Charles to
the block, could bear the strong winnowing of God.
Those thought worthy were compatriots of Pym and
Hampden, of Ireton and Vane ; co-religionists of
those who for non-conformity had been tried as by
fire. Of such were the first emigrants ; men to sub
due a wilderness ; to found an empire ; to set up
altars to religion ; to war strenuously for civil liberty ;
but not the people ApoUo would have chosen to build
a seat for the Muses. They were the men for their
work ; but God had not called them to write poetry,
and the law of heredity has been manifested In their
descendants. That there was no deterioration of men
tal fibre in the generations of the eighteenth century
1 Election Sermon, 1668, p, 19.

418 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
Is clear from the vigor of their religious thought, of
which Edwards, Mayhew, Chauncy, and Hopkins are
conspicuous examples ; and from the depth of their
poUtical speculations, in which Otis, Hutchinson, and
the Adamses were unsurpassed on either side of the
ocean.^ Such were our literary progenitors ; and such were
their limitations. Besides, no people who have pro
duced an original literature ever encountered such
difficulties as beset our ancestors when they reached
these New England shores. From a soil which gen
erously responded to the labors of husbandmen, they
came to a land as barren and stubborn as any on the
planet within the temperate zones. From a climate
singularly favorable to animal and vegetable life,
where out-door existence was practicable the year
round, they found themselves In one where the ex
tremity of heat was no less severe than the extremity
of cold, and six months' seclusion from the weather
was necessary for comfortable existence. These first
comers have recorded that the productive power of
the soil was substantially exhausted, even with the fer
tilizers within their reach, after four years of cultiva
tion ; and for subsistence they were obliged to betake
themselves to the sea, or forsake the coast for the
more fertile intervales of the interior, where they were
exposed to Indian hostilities. Had the consequences
^ Dr, Palfrey, while he contends that there was no degeneration in
the first indigenous generations of New Englanders, admits that " the
presence of historical objects, and that habitual contact with trans
mitted thoughts and feelings which local associations keep alive, pro
vide ci stimulating education for the mind, which it cannot forego
without some disadvantage. The consummate flowers and fruits of
a high civilization seem to require to be nurtured by roots that for a
long time have been penetrating into a native soil." — History of New
England, iii, 68,

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 419
of this state of affairs been less serious, their story
would be ludicrous. The first party of Puritans came
to Massachusetts under Endicott In 1628. The next
year Higginson brought over a reinforcement. To
encourage those In England who were meditating
emigration, he wrote an account of things as he found
them. He said that the land about Massachusetts
Bay " is as fat black earth as can be seen anywhere."
Heaven help them ; they had mistaken marsh mud
for loam ! They thought that English kine would
thrive on foul meadow grass ! In praise of the cli
mate, Higginson wrote that " a sup of New England's
air Is better than a draught of old England's ale."
Good, simple soul ! He died within a year of a hectic
fever and was burled under six feet of Salem gravel.
When it was too late the sad truth stared them In the
face. Starvation threatened them and death made
constant Inroads upon their number. So pitiable was
their condition, so slender were their chances even of
ultimate success, that the wisest of their English
friends advised them to abandon houses and lands
and seek elsewhere a more hospitable clime and a
more fertile soil. They remained, but at fearful cost.
Nor was their situation In other respects favorable
to the production of an original literature, or for the
preservation of that which they brought with them.
The natural gravity of these sifted Puritans was made
even more sombre by their position. They were far
from their old home, still the object of their yearning
affections though filled with those who sought their
civil and ecclesiastical subjection. Behind them were
a thousand leagues of stormy ocean. Before them
was the dark illimitable forest, which resounded with
midnight cries of savage beasts and of no less savage

420 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
men. Well might they hang their harps upon the
wiUows. The wonder Is, not that literature lan
guished, but that civilization did not die out.
Literature is a growth. Into it enter the soil, cli
mate, and conditions upon which imagination and
fancy depend. But our English race had no youth
on this soil. Its Infancy was In the forests of Ger
many. Its youth was In the heart of " mer rie Eng
land." In the prime of its manhood, when all Its
faculties were strained to their utmost by a conflict
with civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, it left its plea
sant homes for a wilderness where no English spring
smiled between the frown of winter and the too fervid
glances of summer ; where no autumnal gloaming fed
the imagination ; where neither the lark in the mea
dow nor the linnet in the copse inspired kindred
song. With some mitigation of material severities, this
state of things continued for two hundred years with
its depressing Influence upon Imaginative literature.
Add this also that, from the restoration of Charles
II. to the peace of 1783, the colonists were in con
stant conflict with those who sought to subvert their
civil and ecclesiastical privileges. This resistance en
grossed their faculties of mind and soul. In such a
situation It would have been criminal, as they thought,
to abandon civil and religious liberty for the cultiva
tion of literature. The necessary results followed.
At the end of the long contest they established lib
erty, made excellent laws and constitutions, but wrote
indifferent poetry.
During the Revolutionary war, the colonies suffered
another loss which has not been sufficiently noticed in
its effect upon literature. At the opening of that con-

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 421
flict there lived In the colonies a class of cultivated
men, mainly of the old families, who had been on the
soil from the first emigration. They formed and led
the social life of their times, and from them might
reasonably have been expected a literature which, hav
ing its roots in the soil. Is nourished by culture and
social amenities. In several departments of letters
they had done work to be judged respectable by any
standard. But the exigencies of the Revolution de
manded their expatriation. This measure was, no
doubt, dictated by prudence ; but the loss of these
people was felt in the literature which followed their
departure.! Candor requires a fair consideration of the facts
that have been aUuded to. The Puritans, with all
their great qualities, were not a literary people, in the
ordinary sense of that phrase. As well might the
world have expected a " Paradise Lost " from John
Locke, or a " Midsummer Night's Dream " from Rob
ert Boyle, as from those who inaugurated and for two
centuries maintained the Puritan hierarchy on New
England soil. But now, relieved, though but recently,
from the pressure of old necessities, our branch of the
race may be expected slowly to advance on the line of
its original genius and produce a literature worthy of
the name. Already have we entered upon a new
order. The material prosperity of the people Is as
sured. They are no longer environed by narrowing
circumstances. Civil and religious liberty are free
from harassing anxiety ; and within this generation
the people have come to feel that they are now a
1 In consequence of the Revolution, 20,000 Tories went to Nova
Scotia. See, too, Dawson's Handbook for the Dominion of Canada,
106.

422 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
nation. The descendants of Englishmen have become
indigenous here. Into them have entered the sum
mer's heat and winter's cold. The American has
acquired a character of his own and is fast losing his
provincialism. He has thoughts and feelings which
he does not owe to his insular progenitors. To the ori
ginal vigor of the stock have been added qualities due
to the commingling of nationalities ; and now for the
first time In our history I think we may look for a lit
erature of our own. If Its sun has not risen, Its dawn
appears, and there are stars above the horizon. A lit
erature of our own. Let us consider what that im
plies. We know that the elemental forces are the
same from age to age, and that the phenomena of life,
in their ceaseless round, reappear to successive gener
ations of men. And we see, even In the least produc
tive periods, a few gifted above their fellows who read
these mysteries of nature and of Ufe, and reveal them
anew by the utterance of song ; but these utterances are
far from constituting a national literature. That only
comes when the people themselves form the constitu
ency of their bards and prophets, who under the con
ditions of art give expression to the thoughts and
sentiments of a nation. This period, sooner or later,
comes to every great people. And when from the
force of commingling thought and passion the up
heaval takes place, the great masters of literature,
like mountain peaks, appear and their voice is heard
" Not from one lone cloud.
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,"
If we ask what form our literature will take, and
what are likely to be the most potent forces in its pro
duction, we must consider that no part of our civiliza
tion Is indigenous. Neither the political nor the social

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 428
system of which we are parts ; neither the religion we
profess nor the fundamental laws we obey ; neither
the literature we read nor the amenities of civilization
which make life tolerable, had their origin on our soil.
They are exotics. The youth of the race and its cre
ative period have passed. We can never return to
the days in which primal instincts found expression in
the songs and fairy tales of the people ; never again
shaU we " Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea.
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn ; "
nor can we expect a recurrence of those influences
which produced the Elizabethan dramatists.
Our coming literature therefore will, I think, be In
nature of a renaissance modified by new conditions of
soil, climate, and scenery, but finding Its stimulating
force In literature itself. It will be not unlike the
renaissance In Italy when the exhumed art of anti
quity acting on national aptitudes produced results of
great power and originality, although the suggestion
of the elder art ; when
" the glory that was Greece "
became " , , , the grandeur that was Rome,''
By the law of heredity the basis of American litera
ture must be the literature of England, Into which
long since entered the rich fancy of the Irish Celt and
the picturesqueness of his Scotch kindred. If It
shall lack the luxuriance of British literature. It will
not be choked by its weeds. Already soU and climate
have developed In us a finer sense of form and color
than our English brethren possess.
The exciting force of our literary renaissance will
be literature — mainly our British literature — gath-

424 DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL
ered Into great libraries, and thence distilled into the
hearts and brains of our people ; for literature Is the
only form of art In its finest models with which our
people can live In that familiar association which
makes It a productive force. We are remote from
the masterpieces of plastic and pictorial art. The
genius of the Middle Ages enshrined In the great
cathedrals of Europe will never inspire us ; nor will
the art treasures of the Yatican, or of the Capitol,
or of the national galleries of Europe, until great
political and social convulsions have disrupted gov
ernments and society in that hemisphere. But the lit
erary art of the world may be ours. Let us gather it
then into Wilson HaU, where, stimulating those who
come hither, descendants of a master race in litera
ture. It may have some Influence in the production of
a literature worthy of those ancestors. For literature
is a power for civilization. More completely than
either of the sister arts it gathers together and ex
presses In permanent form the thoughts and feelings
of mankind. It has the world for its province and
the race for Its audience. Other forms of art seek
locality and provoke the assaults of Time. Few of
the race ever beheld the glories of either Temple ; but
the songs of the Hebrew poets still touch the heart, of
humanity. Karnac and Memphis are in ruins ; but
the wisdom of the Egyptians has gone forth Into all
lands, and that which was of value in her literature
survives and will write the epitaph of the Pyramids.
The Parthenon slowly yields to the destroyer. Memo
rials of buried Troy once more see the light of day,
and once more will go down to darkness, but the song
of Homer rises, and ever will rise, over the world as
clear and as strong as when it flowed from lips

DEDICATION OF WILSON HALL 425
touched with Immortality. In literature Is the con
servation of force, — the force that Is In the thinking
brain and the feeling heart of a nation. It never dies.
Its form may perish, but its soul transmigrates into
other forms.
A great library — " the assembled soul of all that
men held wise " — Is the sum of aU literature. It is
more, for neither its mass nor its power is to be mea
sured by counting Its volumes. It is an organism In
which every part augments the vigor of every other
part and of the whole. It has absorbed famous col
lections around which cluster the memories of illus
trious men who through their aid have enriched liter
ature or extended the domain of science.
My dally life is passed In a great library. I seldom
cross its threshold without feeling that I am In the
presence of a conscious personality. I am persuaded
that It has purposes of Its own ; that It aUures the
young to healthful pleasures — Itself being pleased;
that it counsels wisely those who would avoid life's
devious paths ; that it sympathizes with the patient
seekers after wisdom ; that it knows the song the
sirens sang and tales stranger than those of the Ara
bian Nights. It is wiser than all the living by the
wisdom of aU that are dead ; and never satisfied with
the wisdom and the beauty of the past. It seeks the
wisdom and beauty that now are, — for "day unto
day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth
knowledge ; " and though the heavens are old and the
clouds are old. In the passing hour are cloud-forms
and sky-tints before unseen, and with each descending
sun new stars will rise upon the world.
Such is a great library ; and such, as the years roU
on, wUl be gathered here In Wilson Hall.

THE OLD AND THE NEW ORDER IN
NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
Addkess at the Dedication of the Brooks Libkary
Building, at Brattleborough, Vermont,
January 25, 1887

ADDRESS
AT THE DEDICATION OF THE BROOKS LIBRARY
BUILDING

The last of what I Intended to say to you this
evening was written the night before Mr. Brooks
dled.-^ Could I have foreseen the circumstances of
this occasion, my address would have been different ;
but, with the omission of a few words, and with a few
which I have added, I must ask you to accept it as it
was prepared.
I met Mr. Brooks In his early manhood, and have
never seen him since. He called on me a few weeks
ago, while I was away ; and I looked forward to this
hour when we should renew the acquaintance of our
youth ; but it was otherwise ordered.
And now that this hour has come. It quickens
memories of days long ago, and of other friends, few
of whom remain. It is more than forty years since
here at Brattleborough, before the County Common
School Association, I presumed to speak for popular
education ; and here to-day once more I attempt to
speak on the same subject, but not to the same audi
ence. Gone are the old familiar faces ; and if any
hear me now who heard me then, they were young
when I was young.
1 George J, Brooks, the donor of the Library Building, died sud
denly on Thursday, December 2.3, 1886, a few days before the tirae
originally fixed for its dedication.

480 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
To-day one more is added to free public libraries,
— no new thing now. Indeed, with us, or In Europe,
or In that great empire which rises in Australasian
seas. Nevertheless, the dedication of a free library Is
an event of more than local interest, since it is one,
though only one, of those events which Indicate the
passing away of an old order of things and the com
ing In of a new order ; and It Is the going out of the
old, with the loss which has ensued, and the coming
In of the new, with the gain we exjDcct from It, of
which I am to speak to-night. And as your fathers
and mothers were my friends, and some of you were
my pupils, I am sure you will allow me to preface
what I have to say with some grateful reminiscences
of my Brattleborough life.
It was in the spring of 1844, a. few months before
graduating at Dartmouth CoUege, that I came to this
village as teacher of the Central School, and here I
remained until late in 1846.
For one whose principal object in teaching was to
replenish an empty purse and at the same time to
review college classics and read books introductory
to the study of law, no place could have been more
eligible. To be sure, a salary of four hundred a year
was hardly aUurIng, even in those days ; but with
respectable table-board at nine shillings a week, and
free lodgings over the bank as Its custodian, the days
went on, though not riotously. My duties were com
pact ; the school was In perfect discipline, and its
spirit for study was high. I had only to go forward
in paths well trodden by my predecessor, that admir
able teacher, Moses Woolson. Thus passed — agree
ably I am sure, and I hope not un-profitably — three
years of my life, in which I had, I suppose, my share

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 431
of a teacher's perplexities, which are forgotten now,
since memory holds only the glory of the dream.
There may have been another place on this planet
more desirable as a residence than Brattleborough In
1844, but I never chanced to know such. Situated in
full view of the mountains, watered by fine , streams,
with pure air, and scenery at points exceptionally
charming, for a hundred years It had been the abode
of men eminent at the bar or on the bench or in the
pulpit or in affairs, and of some not unknown in lit
erature ; and always of a people Intelligent, refined,
and rich in all amenities. It was the centre of an
active but not noisy trade. Manufactures flourished
without polluting the air or the waters. Thrift, which
brought competence but no overshadowing fortunes,
was everywhere apparent. Its leading citizens in
business or In the professions were qualified to fill, as
some went forth to fill, more conspicuous places and to
deal with larger affairs, — men and women whose so
ciety was education, and to imitate whom was conduct
and manners and exemplary life. I hardly need add
that InstltTitlons of religion, of education, of public
and social affairs, guided, as they had been established,
by intelligence and moral sense, moved harmoniously
in their beneficent courses.
So ran the stream of every-day life at Brattle
borough In 1844. It was its golden age ; and If, like
the golden age everywhere. It had Its shadows, some
times its very gold was gilded, — for In the summer
came visitors, some of whom were people of distinc
tion, and as such welcome, and doubly welcome, I
fancy, and doubly distinguished In our eyes, by their
unstinted admiration of our village. Their advent
filled the hotels, it quickened trade, and gladdened

482 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
the hearts of Ingenuous youth who gathered wild-
flowers and berries in remote pastures. Better than
all, their presence added to that indefinable but not
less real wealth which comes from association with
those who had written for the Instruction of the peo
ple and for their delight, and to the awakening of
expectations concerning the literature of America.
The value of such association to those in the forma
tive period of life Is not likely to be overestimated ;
to them a complete man or woman is the centre of a
glory which, if It dazzles, also Inspires. Of the nota
bles here before my day I knew only by hearsay, but
some of the later comers I recoUect ; and though I
had no personal relations with any of them. It was a
great thing, as I still think, to witness daily the con
duct and manners and to hear the speech of those
whose works were the outcome of our national life.
Among them were Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet
Beecher Stowe ; the former, as a great teacher and
writer of useful books, stood higher In public estima
tion than the latter, for " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was
then unwritten. And so was the " Philosophy of
Shakespeare's Plays Unfolded ; " nevertheless, when
Delia Bacon walked our streets, she drew attention as
a remarkable woman. Heralded as a true poet by
" Voices of the Night " and by " Ballads and other
Poems," Henry Wadsworth Longfellow occasionally
came among us. But WiUiam Henry Channing, the
great preacher, was the most Impressive personality.
After forty years I still see the Ught in his eyes ; his
wonderful voice thrills me yet, and to this day I
ponder his ethical utterances. I once saw William
Morris Hunt. It must have been when he came here
to take leave of his relatives just before going to

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 483
Diisseldorf ; but I met him with no thought that In
after years I should know him as one of our most
eminent artists. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a
more frequent visitor both In summer and In winter,
was much in our social life, and even then gave
promise since redeemed by the production of some of
our most attractive literature.
Of course, none of my pupils were in any way dis
tinguished, though many showed character; and one
now is among the foremost of our pulpit orators, and
another second to none of American sculptors. But
those " Whose flower of happiness was crost
In its first bud, — the early, loved and lost," —
alas, what hearts were broken, what hopes perished !
Such thoughts crowd upon me as I return to
Brattleborough after a long absence ; but I have not
uttered them to those who might once have listened
with pleasure, — their ears are cold in death, — nor
to provoke to filial reverence children worthy of such
parents. No ; my purpose is quite different. I wish
you to see a typical New England town as It was and
as It lived Its life a generation ago. In contrast with
similar communities to-day ; and then to consider
with what loss and under what conditions and by
what new iustrumentalitles we must carry forward
society in the future. I think It will appear that the
characteristic life of our New England towns under
the old regime was less in the completeness and effi
ciency of their local Institutions than In the strongly
individualized personality of their representative men
and women ; and that under the new regime the order
and effectiveness of these Influences are changed, —
that henceforth persons will be of less account, and

434 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
Institutions of more account ; or rather, as I hope,
that the influence of men and women on society, in
stead of being lost or impaired, will be felt no less
powerfully than heretofore through Institutions made
efficient by their intervention.
And though it is this change, with the new obliga
tion it implies, that Immediately Interests us, and to
which we must adjust ourselves, yet we shall more
clearly understand Its nature If we regard It as due not
solely to local causes, but as connected with causes
which, beginning hundreds of years ago, have at length
transformed government, science, literature, and even
theology, so that they are quite different from what
they were some forty years ago, — a change which
divides the old regime from the new, under both of
which some of us have lived, and In it have witnessed
perhaps the most momentous revolution of the ages.
If life elsewhere was more splendid than In our
New England towns as they were forty years ago,
nowhere was it more desirable. To what elements, to
what marshaling and conduct of their forces, and to
what conditions did they owe their characteristic life
and its rich results? Mainly, no doubt, to original
qualities in the stock, — its Industry, steadfastness.
Intelligence, and ingrained moral sense, — and some
thing to the circumstances of its expatriation from
England ; but much also to the structure of society
which the first emigrants brought with them.
What, then, was the structure of EngUsh society at
the time of the great emigration in 1630, and how far
did It reproduce Itself on American soil ? The Puri
tans, better than most people, will bear the white light
of truth. They do not need the glamour of romance,
which they would have contemned as much as we

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 435
ought. Englishmen, everywhere and always strenu
ous asserters of liberty, especially their own, have
inconsiderately been credited with an equal passion
for equality. Such, I think, has never been the case,
not even with their descendants In America, until
within the last fifty years.
On its native soil the race ranged Itself in civil and
ecclesiastical orders which no revolutions have effec
tually shaken ; and as Coleridge said, in his day " the
rustic whistled with equal enthusiasm ' God save the
king,' and ' Britons never shall be slaves.' " This
race tendency, specially marked in Virginia, with its
large landed proprietors, its law of entail and of
primogeniture, survived Jefferson's counterblast in
the Declaration of Independence, and even the aboli
tion of those laws brought about mainly through his
influence. This observance of rank and this facility of ad
vancement through rank and family prestige have
been united in England, quite as often as In this
country, with a sense of fair play which recognizes
the possessor of brains, however poor In estate or low
in the social scale, provided, as Burke said of him
self, he shows his passport at every stage.
The first comers to New England, chiefly middle-
class Englishmen, brought with them the social dis
tinctions of English society so far as represented in
their own number. These distinctions were manifest
all through their history, and have been finaUy sup
pressed only in recent times. Till then one who had
a grandfather was facilitated In his political aspira
tions by that fact ; but now It is quite otherwise. The
American Revolution made no change; that was a
political, not a social revolt. The laws admitting non-

436 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
church-members to the franchise, and those of a later
period which abolished primogeniture and divided
property among all the children of an Intestate, pro
bably had more Influence In equalizing the condition
of people In Massachusetts than in Virginia, where
landed estates, ample when divided, maintained sev
eral aristocratic families sprung from one. But in
Massachusetts the ruling force after the Revolution,
perhaps even more than before, was personal and fam
ily prestige, augmented in men distinguished In the
war, or who traced their lineage to those conspicuous
in colonial or provincial governments.
The result, as every one knows who has lived under
the old order, and as no one else can fully realize, was
that the substantial governing force in society formed
an aristocracy of old families. Including the parson,
the squire, a few landed proprietors, and the village
merchant. There were party divisions, of course ; but
whichever party prevailed at the polls. Its aristocratic
element controlled the government. So sudden and
so recent was the transition from the old order to the
new, that there are living all over New England those
who can name the last old-regime governor, mayor, or
selectmen, and the first of each, after the people came
to the front and assumed the government ; and yet
the people then hardly understood, and it is doubtful
whether they fully understand now, the nature and
consequences of the revolution they have Inaugurated.
This change was more marked and more moment
ous in New England than elsewhere, because it was
simultaneous with a disturbance of economic condi
tions ; and when It took place a vital force went out
of society, the loss of which is felt to-day, and wiU be
felt until It shall be reincorporated, as doubtless it

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 487
can, into the mass of those forces by which society
henceforth Is to be sustained and carried forward.
The loss was serious ; for never was there a better
aristocracy or one more competent to govern. An
aristocracy It Is true, but one which represented intel
ligence, industry, and moral sense ; devoted to the pub
lic weal and to the Interests of society ; and the out
come of whose endeavors is manifest when the old New
England towns, thus governed, are contrasted with
modern factory villages, — with their crudeness, their
vulgarity, their disintegration and lack of governance.
I mean no Invidious distinction between .the old and
the new. I note the decadence of personal and fam
ily influence, and its consequences, as part of a larger
fact, — its decadence everywhere, — and would direct
attention thus early to the need of making good
this loss by setting up in these towns other agencies,
among which I include public libraries, and by re
calling to an active participation In the conduct of
these new Instrumentalities those who have retired
from public affairs.
Were this revolution confined to New England, It
might be accounted for by the decline of agriculture,
and the flocking to the cities of young men who for
merly remained In the country towns, and were their
best society, their strength, and their prosperity. But
there must have been other causes ; for the same re
volution is now going on in old England as in New
England, and with scarcely less rapidity in the rich
agricultural West. Everywhere is the same disposi
tion to give up the simple, wholesome life of the coun
try for the excitements, the occasional prizes, and the
more frequent disappointments of the cities.
Deplore this as we may, we cannot return to old

438 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
ways or old measures. Arrest the movement ; let
agriculture become as remunerative here as in the
West ; caU back to the country towns from the great
cities the most enterprising of those who have gone
thither; reproduce every circumstance and condition
which existed forty years ago In these towns, even to
the resurrection from their graves. In the prime of
life and in the fullness of their strength, of the same
men and women who built up the admirable structures
of New England towns ; they would be as powerless
to reconstruct society in them on the old basis as we
are. They could not do it here ; they could not do it
In the fertile West.
No. The old New England towns, as they existed
forty years ago, have gone forever. They may return
in some new world, as a stage of its development ; but
In this, never, — we shall repose In the Garden of
Eden as soon ! Well, then. If the old have gone, we
must build anew ; for whether New England is to con
tinue New England or is to become New Ireland, so
long as her mountains stand, and her rivers run, and
human nature Is the same, she will still remain the
abode of wise and prosperous people. Her past as
sures her future.
But we must understand the extent and significance
of the revolution now beginning to be felt as never
before, and of which the decadence of New England
towns and the change of society In them are only in
cidents, — a revolution which everywhere has turned
the currents of society into new channels, modified
the thoughts and purposes of people on a great variety
of subjects, impaired the force of Influences and mo
tives once powerful, and the nature of which — what
it promises or what it portends — excites solicitude

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 439
among those who wish well to society, and hope among
those who do not !
Call this change the elevation of the masses, or their
emancipation from political and ecclesiastical leader
ship, or the advent of democracy, — whatever it Is,
whether we regard it with hope or with foreboding,
we ought to know what it has effected thus far — for
the end Is not yet — and what it promises or threatens
in the future.
It is something practical, and will lead to practical
results. Three hundred years ago, the proposition by
Copernicus of a theory which relegated the earth from
its usurped centre of the universe to a secondary place
among the planets, though the largest astronomical
fact of the ages, could be accepted or let alone with
out apparent consequences. Ships sailed the seas as
'before. The husbandman rose with the sun, and went
to his bed with Its setting; he sowed his seed, and
ploughed, and reaped, and gathered the fruits of his
toil, as his fathers had done frora the beginning.
Poets still used the old imagery, —
" 'T was Jupiter who brought whate'er was good,
And Venus who brought everything that 's fair," —
and no perceptible change appeared in literature.
When the Reformation came, though It was of more
ecclesiastical significance, the unthinking cared little
whether the vicegerency of God had been committed
to Leo X. or to Henry VIII.
But now everybody thinks, after a fashion, and the
advent of democracy Is quite another affair. It means
business, and will neither let alone nor be let alone.
Yet by what slow and uncertain steps the people
moved to their objective point, and how recently they
have known just what they mean ! The democratic

440 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
si^Irlt, at first ecclesiastical rather than political or so
cial, manifested itself with the Reformation, and has
been growing ever since. In the mean time Bacon
gave his " Great Instauratlon " to the world, and
Harvey demonstrated the circulation of the blood, and
one or two kings lost their heads, and more, their
crovms, the meaning of which was clear enough ; but
few people at the end of three hundred years seemed
to understand the meaning of democracy. Jefferson
stood alone. When our forefathers came to New Eng
land, democracy was hardly a cardinal principle of
their institutions. They rejected the divine right of
kings, and more strenuously that of episcopal ordina
tion, as opposed to their own rights ; but their notions
of the rights of men, certainly of other men, were
vague. In the leading New England colony, for the
first sixty years only members of the established'
church could vote ; and for the next hundred and fifty
years the dominant church, supported by town taxes,
was an oligarchy, equally powerful, even when op
posed. In secular as In ecclesiastical affairs. It Is
only within the memory of some now living that the
people have Insisted on a really democratic system ;
for long after It became nominally democratic, the
practice was oligarchical.
But It is different now. Those who once governed
are In the back seats ; the people are in the front, and
the government Is In their hands. What will they do
with it ? Civilization is In their hands ; what will
they do with that ? The answer may be uncertain ;
but there is one thing about which there Is no doubt,
— a new order has come, and come to stay !
Doubtless the old political and ecclesiastical leaders
were wise, God-fearing men and women, and compare

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 441
favorably with those who have ousted them from place
and power. Nevertheless, as an order, they have
gone, and forever.
Thus far I have spoken chiefly of the decadence of
towns, the shifting of political forces from the few to
the many, and the loss — I hope it is only in abey
ance — of personal prestige as a force in society. But
I think we should take a wider view, and one that
covers a longer period, not merely from historical curi
osity, but to gain clearer notions of facts and tenden
cies, that we may understand their significance and
adjust ourselves to them without loss of time. We
may note specific changes, each distinct In itself, but
all parts of a general change, more apparent when
traced In particular Instances.
Some of us recollect, for example, when the great
East India merchants, and after them the great man
ufacturers, dominated New England not so much by
their wealth as by their aristocratic pretension. Now,
as such, they are without prestige, though no doubt
powerful In the possession of vast capital ; and the
great monopolist of our day, the result of exceptional
and temporary causes, must go, — go soon !
Under the old regime the man behind an Institution
was more than the institution itself, or at least was its
most powerful agent. Edwards, Chauncy, Hopkins,
Dwight, Emmons, Woods, and Channing, when they
no longer catechised the children and performed gen
eral police duty as guardians of morals and manners.
Impressed themselves on creeds which the people ac
cepted. To-day children in the Sunday school, greatly
to their loss, are less under the Immediate Influence
of the clergy ; and with here and there an exception,
the pulpit speaks the sentiments, not of the church

442 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
alone, but of the pews as well, or it Is silenced. The
schoolmaster, who once dominated the school and the
school committee and the school district, especially if
he " boarded round," is now strait-jacketed by a sys
tem and a curriculum, like a horse in a treadmill.
Some of us recollect when " Father Ritchie " personi
fied the " Richmond Enquirer," and when people
asked. What does Greeley say ? or Bennett ? or Ray
mond? — not the "Tribune," the "Herald," or the
" Times." But who cares now for editorial opinion,
save as it represents a constituency? The great per
sonal editors made public sentiment ; the modern Im
personal journal expresses it, for now people have
come to entertain opinions of their own and indulge
in aspirations.
It Is so elsewhere. In its palmy days the " London
Times " was influential in forming public opinion, and
in respect to the conduct of affairs, because it repre
sented the ranks which then governed England, — the
aristocratic sentiment gathered at the club. In the
drawing-room, at the dinner-table of a minister, or
from local magnates Inthe counties. Then public sen
timent was that of the few, not that of the many ; now
the editorial " we," If a power, expresses the average
opinion of the great middle-class of English society,
and must soon take account of the proletariat classes.
Journalism has become Impersonal ; and so has
literature. Shakespeare, of whom we know so little,
must have been well known at Stratford and at the
" Globe." No doubt he discussed bucolics with
farmers on the Avon ; and at the theatre, play
wrights, actors, supernumeraries, hangers - on, wits
about town, and link-boys hung on his lips, observed
his ways, and were under the influence of his per-

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 443
sonal charm ; otherwise we should lack Jonson's lov
ing account of him. Much — and just what we would
like to know — each took and gave, in which the tap
ster had his share, when Ben and his roisterers made
a night of it at the " Mermaid." We learn from
Drummond of Hawthornden, how Ben could talk
when he would ! Bacon and Milton, as studious
men, no doubt secluded themselves from the Bohe
mians ; but each impressed the people of his time.
And we shaU never know how much Queen Anne's
literature owes to the good things said by Dryden
to the Steeles, the Addlsons, the Wycherleys, and
the Congreves, as they thronged about his chair at
" Will's," — perhaps more than to his poems and
dramas. At " The Club," Johnson, Burke, and Rey
nolds came to close quarters. There was no flinch
ing, no withholding tlieir best thoughts for publica
tion ; and, as we see In Boswell, each was better than
his books, and how much the books of each gained
from the conversation of all ! To Burke, Fox was
indebted for his political philosophy ; and In Burke,
who owed to others less than most men, we see here
and there one of Johnson's thoughts.
Literature grows thin and colorless when it is dis-
tiUed from books. Its true Inspiration Is in men
and in nature. Leigh Hunt's regret that he had not
hunted up Coleridge at Highgate when he might, and
drawn from his Inexhaustible thought and Imagina
tion, was rational, though too late.
No doubt literary people — and for that matter all
sorts of people — have their clubs nowadays, and
mix in society as formerly, yet with a difference.
They sally forth to get, not to give. Fancy one of
them scattering costly seed to fall perchance into an-

444 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
other man's ground, there to spring up and bear fruit
to be gathered into his garner ! " I really believe,"
says the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, " some
people save their best thoughts, as being too precious
for conversation. What do you think an admiring
friend said the other day to one that was talking good
things, — good enough to print ? ' Why,' said he,
' you are wasting merchantable literature, a cash arti
cle, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty doUars
an hour.' " Literary people to-day are delightful In
society, and say their good things as formerly ; but
each Is labeled "All rights reserved," as the un
scrupulous appropriator of a seeming waif finds, for
the lawful proprietor was quoting from the proof-
sheets of his next volume or magazine article ! On
our part we are as curious as people ever were to know
our literary magnates. We get one of them Into a
corner ; we fancy we are studying him ; we go away
delighted: but the chances are that he was studying
us, and that we shall behold our distorted lineaments
in his next novel. Tiger-hunting no doubt Is an ex
citing sport ; but It makes some difference, I am told,
whether you hunt the tiger or the tiger hunts you !
Now, I need not say to one sixty years old, how dif
ferent all this was when boys and girls formed them
selves on the parson, the squire, the schoolmaster, the
schoolmistress, " the fine old gentleman," or " the lady
of the old school," — of which no town had more ad
mirable examples than Brattleborough, — each a glass
of fashion or a mould of form. Then the man of
learning or travel or of special gifts held all in trust
for the society in which he lived.
I think we now recognize the great change which
has taken place In all departments of thought and

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 445
action, with the loss which has followed the elimina
tion of personal influence, though only partial, as a
power In education, manners, and conduct, and begin
to be solicitous In respect to consequences as well as
to the means by which the loss can be repaired.
What is the real state of the case ? Whence comes
this new sense of power in the people ? Have they
discarded old beliefs and old leaders, and determined
to set up for themselves on new lines ; or Is it merely
a general movement of society in which the people,
in their haste to get on, have outrun their slower
guides ? Coleridge expresses the old notion, and his
aversion to the new which was beginning to appear
in his time. " Statesmen should know," he says,
"that a learned class is an essential element of a
state, at least of a Christian state. But you work for
general illumination. You begin with the attempt to
popularize learning and philosophy ; but you will end
with the plebification of knowledge. A true philoso
phy in the learned class is essential to a true religious
feeling in all classes."
We owe a great deal to Coleridge. His poetry is
of the best ; his critical system we accept ; and we find
much to our purpose in his ethical philosophy. But
he believed that the diffusion of knowledge weakened
knowledge, just as he regarded the cosmopolitan spirit
as incompatible with patriotism ; nor did he think
that the people, unaided by a select class of learned
men, could save learning or religion or the state.^
Against all this the people seem to be in revolt,
and we must side with the people. In all matters,
theological, political, or educational, they will think
and act for themselves ; that Is what the new order of
1 The Friend, Essay ix.

446 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
things means. They may make sorry work of It for a
time ; and looking at results thus far, they might be
better off were their thinking done for them as for
merly. But this Is a shallow view of the matter. We
must accept the fact that knowledge, both secular and
ecclesiastical, is being popularized, and have faith
that society will get on, nevertheless, and find the new
order not only tolerable but conformable to the divine
will, and therefore to its highest interests. In the
change from the old to the new there may be tem
porary loss and confusion. This is to be expected.
Just now we are like sheep without a shepherd. Who
leads one party as Jackson did, or the other party as
Clay did ? Where Is the great leader of a denomina
tion like the elder Beecher, or Ware, or Woods, or
Channing ? Whose literary canons are accepted as
final? We find nowhere, I suspect, the wise domi
nating personal Influences once found In every com
munity. Bosses are obstreperous ; but they are nei
ther the people nor of the people, and will subside.
In this transition state, with the old house pulled
down about our ears before the new is ready to re
ceive us, things are uncomfortable enough. But this
Is quite in the ordinary course of things. No farmer
who all his life has handled hoes and scythes and
rakes ever takes kindly to the machines which dis
place the old-fashioned implements ; but his boys do.
And I wonder If one who " parsed " and " ciphered "
and picked up his knowledge In the fashion of the old
district school, and with excellent results, ever saw the
children In a graded school come out In platoons, dis
charge their volleys, and fall back with the precision
of military drill, without misgivings as to the develop
ment of Individual character.

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 447
Our fears are often more serious than their realiza
tion. We ought to take some pains, therefore, to
learn the direction of the stream by which we stand
shivering. We call the new order the advent of
democracy. That does not help but rather frightens
us, unless we come to a clearer understanding of
democracy. If we mean the party which calls Itself
by that name, then with all good Republicans I be
wail the future of our country. If, on the contrary,
we mean the party with the other name, then I join
all good Democrats in deprecating Its return to power.
I mean something which the leaders of both parties
hate with equal cordiality. Whatever form demo
cracy may ultimately take, I think It does not now
mean socialism, nor communism, nor, least of all,
anarchy. So far we may trust the Immutable prin
ciples of human nature. No power less than that
which ordained natural laws can overturn them, or
essentiaUy modify principles coeval with the race.
Nor, on the other hand, can the natural development
of human rights be arrested.
I think we may say that democracy will not be
content with the mere right to acquire and hold pro
perty free from the exactions of privileged classes,
nor to exercise the franchise and be eligible to office,
nor to be equal before any law less comprehensive
and beneficial than the moral law. First of aU, it
will demand liberty, and next equality, subject only
to unalterable limitations. It will recognize private
property rightfully acquired, but will claim public
property as a trust sacredly to be administered for
the benefit of all ; and will regard as public property
all which has accrued to the state or to society by the
procession of time, or from the labors of statesmen

448 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
and philanthropists, or from the genius of inventors,
or from the skill of artists, or from the songs of poets,
or from the prayers of saints, or from the faith of
martyrs, together with all those select and benign
influences which have come Into the life of man,
hitherto engrossed by the well-born, the fortunate,
and the righteous, but henceforth to be entered into
and enjoyed equally by those who are poor or unfor
tunate or sinful, and by each to the fullest extent of
his necessities or his desires, limited only by the equal
rights of others.
It Is opposed to the law of the strongest, • — if there
is such a law, — and to the law of the fittest, — if by
fittest Is meant one more capable than another to
monopolize and enjoy In a high degree those things
which all may enjoy in some degree.
If libraries, galleries, and museums are of value to
the cultured by reason of their culture, then they
must be multiplied and so administered as to conduce
to the culture and consequent enjoyment of the un
fortunate, hitherto little considered. If they are a
solace to the refined, they ought also to minister to
the coarse and the unlettered. While we live under
the law of Christ we should strive for its fulfillment.
It Is all sufficing for society as well as for Individuals ;
nor can we ever safely forget that the lamp of Chris
tendom, unfed by the oil that is the Light of the
world, will pale and flicker and go out, and there will
be darkness over all the land ! And though there
are difficulties In applying this law, or In enforcing
the Inalienable rights of man as formulated by Jeffer
son, nevertheless we will remember that the advance
of the church has' always been along the line of high
est endeavor ; nor do I think it extravagant to say

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 449
that the better condition of mankind, so far as it has
been brought about by the modification of political
institutions and of the modes of administration, is due,
more than to any other human cause, to the " glitter
ing generalities " of Jefferson. Therefore we will set
up high ideals ; therefore we will attempt the impossi
ble, for only thus shall we achieve the highest at
tainable. If, now, we recognize In the new order some loss of
those influences by which society was sustained and
carried forward, and if we have adequate notions as
to the just rights and demands of democracy, then
we must attend to the Instrumentalities by which we
hope to supply the place of those which have passed
away, and consider how, under new conditions, we
may carry forward civilization which, as never before,
Is to be of and for the people. New England once
taught the old democracy that resistance to tyrants Is
obedience to God. That was the work of her Otises,
her Adamses, and their compatriots. Once more she
must lead In a revolution more momentous than the
first. Decaying towns, abandoned churches, and dilap
idated schoolhouses reproach the civilization which
cost our fathers dear. This reproach must be taken
away. Cultured men and women, affronted by the
rudeness of the lower classes, have retired from the
contest with disgust. They must return to duty. The
army of God, now broken and dispersed, must close
ranks and rally around a common standard. Not
against each other, but against a common foe, let the
temper of sword and shield be tested. You know
what people are thinking about ; and you know it is
not the Trinity, nor a mode of baptism, nor the pro
bation of a future life. No; it is questions more

450 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
fundamental than these. And next to these funda
mental questions is the question how to save New
England to Christianity and to civilization.
FIve-and-forty years ago, when it was found that
the old district schools in this village were yielding
unsatisfactory results, by the advice of some of your
leading men, and aided by legislative action sought
for the purpose, your fathers set up for the first time
In this State a graded school, which, successful here,
was the pioneer of those now existing in aU your
larger viUages.
With equal wisdom George J. Brooks — so lately
one of your esteemed citizens, now among your hon
ored dead — considered the requirements of the new
order of things, and with munificent liberality has
given you an Institution which connects Itself with
your churches and your schools, and which, wisely
administered, wiU be a power for civilization scarcely
less influential.
Its adjustment so as to work harmoniously and
efficiently with existing institutions may be slow.
Some mistakes will be inevitable ; but they should
be few. Everybody knows that organizations exist
throughout the country for promoting common-school
education and for the encouragement of teachers ;
but I think It Is less generally known that In Great
Britain and In the United States there are similar or
ganizations designed to promote the establishment and
conduct of libraries, — mainly, of free public libraries.
Our own is called the American Library Association,
which maintains a journal, now entering upon its
twelfth year, in which are to be found the papers and
discussions of experts on every conceivable question of
Ubrary economy and administration, elicited during

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 451
the annual three days' sessions, constituting a body
of literature which cannot prudently be overlooked
by those concerned in the management of libraries.
The new order is fairly Inaugurated. But In tak
ing leave of the old order and entering upon the new
under such auspicious circumstances, I am not willing
to be understood as saying, since I am far from think
ing, that the time ever will be when the personal
influence of noble men and women will fall —
" To give us manners, virtue, freedom, power,"
or that it will be of smaU account In the upbuilding
and maintenance of that state of society in which
alone life Is worth living. What I wish to say is
that with the advance of general education the influ
ence of exceptionally cultured persons, apart from
the people and above them, will probably not be so
much felt as heretofore, except in giving direction and
efficiency to organized forces, like churches, schools,
and libraries. Brattleborough has entered upon the
new order. Her free public library receives cordial
greetings from sister libraries as one more of those
institutions which bring on the beneficent ages. Al
ways known as one of the most beautiful of the river
towns, and as the abode of Intelligent and refijied
people, so she will continue to be known in the larger
life upon which she enters to-day. She has lost one
of her most esteemed citizens, — him whom she re
spected for his public spirit, his pure character, and
his dally life, — him for whom she mourns as one
that Is dead. But what continuance of character and
of example will be his ! What ages wIU partake of
his liberality ; what succession of children will cherish
his memory; what generations of ' men and women
will owe to him higher, richer, happier lives !

452 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
I have mentioned some indications of a revolution
now in progress, thus far proceeding by constitutional
methods and without shock to weU-regulated sensibili
ties, which has already shifted the power of govern
ment from the few to the many, shaken the partition
walls which divide sects, popularized science, art, and
literature, Impaired personal and social prestige, and
led to popular organization of forces once wielded by
individuals, — a revolution which, though pending for
centuries, was dimly seen in its approach and imper
fectly apprehended In its results or In Its tendency,
— a revolution which, as I have said, may prove to be
the most momentous In recorded history.
This revolution is contemporaneous with causes in
operation which have diminished the agricultural
prosperity, reduced the population, and clouded the
future of our New England towns.
What then ? Is It expected that free public libra
ries will rectify whatever Is amiss in society or arrest
the operation of economic laws ? Certainly not. But
may we not reasonably hope that they will take the
place, in part at least, of forces fallen into decadence ;
that their establishment will be In conformity with a
manifest Intent of the people to organize themselves
into all those forms of instrumentality which may
promote Intelligence, virtue, liberty, and equality ;
that the successful organization of the people for the
maintenance of free public libraries wiU lead to their
organization In all departments of human interest,
and demonstrate that the whole people, thus organ
ized, are wiser than any fraction of the people, how
ever wise or cultured or virtuously disposed; and
that. In making science and literature free and acces
sible, one step has been taken towards equalizing the

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 453
conditions which enable all to enter Into and enjoy
those privileges to which all are entitled, and which,
when entered Into and enjoyed, become a force for
the development of the industrial, intellectual, and
moral resources of the community?
New England holds the graves of the ancestors of
no Inconsiderable part of the people of the United
States ; and never can her prosperity be a matter of
indifference to their posterity, even In remote genera
tions. They will come hither on pious pilgrimages ;
nor to them will her hills and mountains, her pure
air and beautiful rivers, be less attractive by the pre
sence of free schools, free churches, and free public
libraries. I have, I trust, no disposition to magnify the Im
portance of free public libraries ; but there are some
facts, In my judgment, which have not been duly con
sidered, and to which I shall presently advert, tend
ing to show that the power of literature for the de
velopment of exact and productive thought, and for
inspiring sentiments which go to the making' of a
great people, has not had a fair trial In New Eng
land. At the dedication of the new library building at
Dartmouth College the other day, I gave some rea
sons for believing that great libraries at the centres
of art, science, and literature will, under the condi
tions of our American Ufe, probably be powerful
Incentives and agencies of our progress in those
departments of thought and achievement ; and I now
ask your attention to the fact that the present activ
ity, in which our best critics discern a literary revival,
is coincident with the diffusion of literature within
the last forty years among the j^eople, and that with

454 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
its wider diffusion by the means of public libraries
In all our towns we may reasonably expect even
more gratifying results. This calls for a brief review
of the literary history of New England. And if you
listen to it without surprise. It must be because you
are better Informed as to the facts than I was when I
began to look Into them. The New England born
have from the beginning been an educated people ;
and it has been generally supposed that their literary
culture was up to the level of their general ability
and intellectual training. I think the fact Is other
wise. Neither Pilgrims nor Puritans were literary
people, nor with a few exceptions were they highly
educated people. They were mainly English farmers
living remote from literary centres, and having
neither means nor disposition to go beyond the Eng
lish parochial education of those days. At their emi
gration they were led by some very able and learned
men, — graduates of Cambridge and Oxford, — whose
studies were chiefly Biblical and polemical, and whose
culture had been classical rather than English. There
is no evidence that they quaffed at Chaucer's pure
well, or had the slightest acquaintance with the dra
matists of the Elizabethan period. Nor would this
have been likely with men who regarded much of
that literature as licentious, some of It even as blas
phemous, — to say nothing of Shakespeare's floutings
of the Puritans and Brownists, — and all of it as Idle
for clergymen absorbed In the great Puritan Reforma
tion, or in deadly conflict with Laud and the High
Commission, — Idle for those ejected from their liv
ings or fleeing from the processes of the Star Cham
ber, with no place to lay their heads. That was no
time for such men to lend their ears — even If they

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 455
had not, like Prynne, left them in the pillory — to
Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, or Beaumont and
Fletcher. This likelihood is made certainty by the
absence in their writings of quotations from these
authors, or of allusion to them.^ They are not known
to have had a single copy of either In their new
homes, and how deeply they had quaffed at their
stimulating fountains while in the old home may be
guessed if we read the Bay Psalm Book version of
these Oxford and Cambridge graduates by which they
displaced the comparatively sublime and poetical ren
derings of Sternhold and Hopkins.
So was it with the first emigrants ; with their
children of the first and second generations, it was
worse.^ We have their poetry, and from the lists of
their books which have been preserved we know what
they read, — Latin poets, polemical divinity, history,
public law, commentaries, and concordances. Before
1700 there was not In Massachusetts, so far as Is
known, a copy of Shakespeare's or of Milton's ^ poems ;
and as late as 1723, whatever may have been in pri
vate hands. Harvard College Library lacked Addison,
Atterbury, Bolingbroke, Dryden, Gay, Locke, Pope,
Prior, Steele, Swift, and Young.*
As we approach the American Revolution, we find
a better state of things ; but even then, as the gravity
1 The earliest quotation from Shakespeare found in the series of
Massachusetts Election Sermons is by Zabdiel Adams in 1782 ; and
that is a misquotation,
2 J, W, Dean says of Michael Wigglesworth's library, " Of classical
literature there is little, and of English belles-lettres nothing. But
what wUl excite most surprise is the dearth of poetry," — Memoir of
Wigglesworth, 2d ed,, 130,
8 Doyle's English in America, ii, 488,
* Palfrey's History, iv, 384 n. ; v. 318 n. ; Memorial History of Bos
ton, i. 455.

456 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
of their situation would lead us to expect, scholars
were devoted to ecclesiasticism, politics, and constitu
tional law rather than to literature.^ They had Shake
speare and Milton ; but so little in popular demand
were these writers that the first was not reprinted in
New England until 1802-1804, nor do I find the sec
ond until 1796, though It was found twenty years
earlier In Philadelphia.^
The splendid outburst of English song in the first
quarter of this century found no echo among our
New England hills. Exceptional communities, like
that of Brattleborough, doubtless there were ; but the
average literary taste was not high for a people edu
cated and trained to habits of close thinking on some
subjects. Joel Barlow, Timothy Dwight, and Mercy
Warren ^ adequately expressed the poetic feeling of
New England, — and In such poetry ! The literature
of England, as a whole, was a sealed book to them.
They were an English speaking people in the nine
teenth century without Richardson, Fielding, Smollett,
Frances Burney, William Godwin, or Jane Austen, or
the poets later than Cowper. Of French and German
literature they knew nothing until long afterwards.
But let those who can speak from observation com
pare the literary furnishing of a New England village
about 1830 with that of the same viUage in 1850.
At the former period there were in many country
villages small collections of books, without literary
value ; but in the homes of prosperous yeomen, me
chanics, and tradesmen there was little native fiction,
¦' Brougham's Colonial Policy, i, 64.
^ Mr, James M, Hubbard, formerly of the Boston Public Library,
reminds me that several plays, among them ' ' Hamlet " and " Twelfth
Night," were printed in Boston in 1794,
" Tudor's Life of Otis, 23,

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 457
save " Eliza Wharton " and " Alonzo and Melissa ; "
and few English reprints, save " Robinson Crusoe,"
"Charlotte Temple," the "Scottish Chiefs," and
" Thaddeus of Warsaw ; " while their poetry, if any
they had, was Young's " Night Thoughts," Thomson's
"Seasons," Pope's "Essay on Man," Cowper's
" Task," and, occasionaUy to be seen, " Paradise Lost."
This was excellent reading, of course ; but they had
nothing of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, or,
save surreptitiously, Byron, — those whose song en
riched English literature, and stimulated the thought
of their English brethren to a degree and in a direc
tion before unknown.^
This dearth of literature was less extraordinary than
the limited range of their thought outside of theology,
politics, and economical affairs, in which, It Is but just
to say, they have seldom been surpassed or equaled,
— certainly not by the present generation. The fact
is that down to that time they had lived under ex
ceptional conditions. Remote from those influences
which on their native soil had developed the songs,
the folk-lore, and the fairy tales of the common peo
ple, remote also from the literature of the race, and
engaged in conflicts which engrossed all their facul
ties, they were obliged to await more favorable condi
tions for taking up and carrying forward Its literature.
The result of this state of things could hardly fail to
appear In the culture and literary product of New
England life ; and It is no marvel that the people did
not keep pace with their kindred In the old home
who at the same period were producing a literature ,
In all departments which compares favorably with that
of any age.
1 Henry Adams's History of the United States, i, ch, 3.

458 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
A change in the people — for I am not speaking of
literary centres or of exceptionally favored individu
als, nor do I wish to be misunderstood on this point
— was apparent as early as 1850, and has become
more marked with each succeeding year. Now books
are everywhere ; no cottage so poor as to lack them ;
thought Is free, discursive, and beginning to be pro
ductive. There is movement in the tree-tops. The
sun Is up : it shines on the prairies ; it gilds the great
mountains, and rises where our sun descends, on the
shores of the Pacific. The heavens are flooded with
light. A new world of thought Is opened, and the
land is stimulated to Its investigation.
This change must be accounted for. No doubt the
causes are many ; but it is noticeable that it began to
appear simultaneously with the extraordinary activity,
forty years ago, of the great publishing houses of Bos
ton, New York, and Philadelphia in their reprints of
the best English authors and reviews. In which, al
most as soon as our kindred In rural England, we read
the brilliant essays of Macaulay, Carlyle, Jeffrey,
Brougham, and Mackintosh. Now I hope you will
believe that this revival of the literary spirit among
a people who claim Shakespeare and Milton as theirs
is due in part at least, though only In part, to the
dissemination of good literature. The abundance of
books stimulated the multiplication of libraries ; libra
ries, the Increase of books ; and both, of reading ; but
all to what good end ? It is a fair question ; indeed.
It Is a wise one. In considering the value of books as
a productive force In the creation of a genuine liter
ature sprung from the soil, — and none other can be
genuine, — I am, I suppose, committed to a favora
ble opinion of them, since it is with them especially

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 459
that my life is occupied ; but I hope that I am not
unmindful of the danger of their Indiscriminate use,
or of a too slavish reliance upon them for Inspiration,
for substance, or for form of literature. Victor Hugo
asks : " What has the human race been since the
beginning of time ? A reader. For a long time he
has spelled ; he spells yet ; soon he will read. . . .
Henceforth all human advancement will be accom
plished by swelling the legions of those who read.
. . . The human race Is at last on the point of spread
ing the book wide open." In this newly acquired
faculty of reading, and In legions of readers, and In
books wide open, Victor Hugo discerns the hope of
the world ; and at these Coleridge stands aghast. We
wiU endeavor to be more rational than either.
After all that can be said in favor of disseminating
good Uterature among the people, why not leave it, as
most other things are left, to the operation of econo
mic laws ? If the people want books, they will have
them ; If not, why force them to read ? In the first
place, the reasonable desires of many people are in
excess of their means ; and in the next place, books
aggregated and easily accessible have a power denied
to them when dispersed. A library well selected and
wisely administered Is an organism with a life and
purpose of Its own. Such an organism rises here un
der the potent wand of Mr. Brooks. To it flock the
mighty spirits of the past, — spirits mighty by their
knowledge and by their wisdom, poets mighty by their
gift of song, — and to it will flock those who In the
future contribute to the instruction or deUght of man
kind, and here will dwell wisdom and beauty to enrich
with wisdom and beauty all who shall come hither.
I have said little, nor do I Intend to say more, in

460 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
respect to the obvious advantages to be derived from
free public access to a large body of excellent read
ing, either for instruction or amusement ; nor to dwell
upon the fact that free public libraries may be justly
regarded as the complement and crowning glory of
our free common schools. Granting all that may be
said In behalf of the dissemination and free use of
good literature, I confess that I am more solicitous
about the likelihood of Its stimulating that original
thought of the people which will find Its expression In
literature ; and all the more solicitous am I, because,
when compared with what we have done in theology,
speculative thought, jurisprudence, constitutional pol
itics, and science, the product of our Imaginative liter
ature is chiefly conspicuous by its absence.
W^hat, then, may be fairly expected of free public
libraries in stimulating the production of an original
Uterature ? The literature of New England thus far
presents three phases, two of which, like " the new
moon with the old moon in her arms," are contempo
raneous, while the third is like that orb risen just
above the horizon. The first, not copious but rich in
quality, expresses the homely genuine thought and
feeling of New England people, — the outcome of
secluded life among her hiUs and valleys ; the second,
the result of the high culture of exceptional, not re
presentative, men and women, though pure in color,
excellent In form, and of high literary merit, expresses
little save the sentiment of its authors ; while the
third, richer than either with the thought of the peo
ple stimulated by literature disseminated among them,
and now united with the lately inspired feeling of na
tionality, gives promise of a genuine native literature.
In the creation of this literature springing from the

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 461
people — and none other is worthy of the name — I
think our public libraries are to have an important
influence. If literature is to have the stimulating and produc
tive energy in the future which I have claimed for It
during the last forty years, augmented by its concen
tration here In a living organism, let us consider with
what purpose we ought to repair to it, and what and
how we ought to read. This library Is primarily a
literary institution, designed, as are all such Institu
tions, to endue the people with learning and wisdom
and the sense of beauty, that they may become a foun
tain from which shall flow learning and wisdom and
beauty in unending succession.
No literature other than what Is the sincere expres
sion of genuine thoughts and feelings which the race
recognize as their own Is likely to have continuance
or essential power. Form, expression, and graces of
style change and fall away ; substance alone endures.
Under the circumstances which produced much of
our own literature serious defects could hardly have
been avoided. Let us recall the worst that has been
said of it ; since for our purposes the worst, in Its un
compromising form. Is better than that balanced judg
ment wherein truth Is found. It has been said, then,
that our literature as a whole Is not the outcome of
earnest literary life, that It expresses no deeply seated
national sentiment, that it has been Inspired by no
great occasions moving the national heart, that It
came in answer to no call, but Is the result of a " Go
to, let us make a literature ; " and that its garb. In
the absence of a national costume. Is a copy of foreign
fashion-plates, — a study of old clothes ! ^
1 See W. J. Stillman in Atlantic Monthly, November, 1891, 689, 691.

462 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
The grain of truth in this sweeping judgment is no
doubt this, — that our literature lacks sincerity ; and
If so, then It Is you and I and such as we who must
bring about a different state of things. A genuine
literature expresses the genuine feelings of the jjeople
from whom it springs. It Is sincere ; It has a purpose,
and It Is subject to verification.
We have, or are soon to have, a library ample for
all reasonable uses. To the wisdom of the past It will
add the wisdom of the present. What should we
learn from It ? Perhaps, in this day of unrest, of un
settled opinions and uncertain looking forward Into
the future, we desire most of all to know how life,
with Its problems which perplex us or strike us in a
certain way, has struck another wiser than we are. If
he has vn-Itten a sincere book, we should be in a fair
way to know. It may be history, epic, drama, poetry,
or song ; no matter which, provided the thought and
its expression be sincere. Sincerity In a book or work
of art Is no less admirable than In a living soul, and
it is no less rare, — absolute sincerity, no concealment
of essential thought, no posing for effect, no words for
rhetoric. Therefore for my own welfare I shaU read
only sincere books ; and so ought those from whom
may be expected the future literature of America ;
and so ought those whose lives will go to form the
national life and character, out of which that litera
ture — if we are to have one worthy of the name —
must spring. My " Hundred Best Books, " other
things being equal, would be the hundred most sin
cere books.
Now that the people are the governing force, and
are more and more shaping public sentiment on a
great variety of subjects, they should not only be sin-

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 463
cere, but well and accurately Informed. Our educa
tion, politics, and literature within the last generation
have been somewhat sentimental and sensational, and
with this result, — that our best thoughts and our
best books are lacking in accuracy ; and accuracy, it
must not be forgotten, is required of a song as much
as of the multipllcatlou table. There are books —
such as Homer, for example — which teU us in the
most splendid poetry, but none the less accurately
because In poetry, how people lived and what they
thought and how they felt three hundred or three
thousand years ago ; and there are others, well enough
as poetry, which place such matters in a false or inac
curate light, and should therefore be avoided. A little
exercise of the critical faculty and of common sense
will enable us to say what books are sincere and ac
curate. So I would select for my reading accurate
books', as accurate and as sincere as a dictionary. I
know some very wise people who use books as they
use dictionaries, and why not ? Your library, in mul
tifariousness and completeness of knowledge, wiU be
not unlike a dictionary; and that Is one advantage
which a public library has over a private collection.
From sheer necessity we must select from the gi-eat
mass of books those most to our purpose. Why not
select such parts of each? We go to a dictionary
with set and definite purpose to find accurate, sincere
answers In respect to some particular word, — not ten
words or twenty words, at the same time. What
would be more rational than to use other books — as
histories, poems, or songs — in the same way ? There
is high authority for something like this. I once saw
a course of study drawn up by Rufus Choate for a
law student. It contained few entire books, but parts

464 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
of some volumes, and even a single chapter of others.
I am sure that I shaU not be understood as recom
mending reading without a weU-considered plan. I
am far from that, and so was Mr. Choate. Formerly
at the Dane Law School at Cambridge a course of
legal study embraced a long list of books ; now it is
a list of topics to be studied in all the sources of in
formation.^ Indeed, this method of reading, so far
from being desultory, is particular and close, and
valuable In Its results ; and quite as much so in the
previous preparation It Implies by way of self-exam
ination. No one, unless he is Indolent, goes to a dic
tionary until he has exhausted the resources of his
own memory ; and so no one should read a book with
out first asking. What do I desire to know on a given
subject, and what do I already know ? There is no
book to which this may not be applied ; nor is. there
any way save by this directness of aim and sureness
of purpose by which we can come into direct com
munication with the great souls among the dead.
I think this must be the true use of books, because
It brings to pass the purpose of their writers, — of
those sincere writers who have something to say. It
also brings to pass another thing of scarcely less
value. It teaches facility of access to them. One
would hardly say that It costs as much to get at the
thoughts of a great mind as it did to produce them ;
but it would not be altogether absurd to say some
thing like that. How many lives have been given to
the study of Homer ; what generations of men have
been sounding the depth of Shakespeare's thought,
and how many ages will pass before the depth wiU
be reached ! No one ever partially penetrated the
^ H, B. Adams's Life and Writings of Jared Sparks, ii. 364.

NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS 465
recesses of Shakespeare's mind without acquiring
something of his penetration ; no one ever ascended
the height which Milton trod without becoming suf
fused with the glory which rested upon his head.
If one object of reading is to bring ourselves into
relations with minds broader and richer than our own,
another Is to bring ourselves into harmony with man
kind, or at least our countrymen, with whom we have
agreed to live and to work for the perfection and
defense of democratic institutions, and to refute Cole
ridge by showing that democracy can think, — think
broadly, deeply, and wisely ; that It can feel and as
pire, delight in visions of glory, see aU that poets
have seen, and imagine and express all that artists
have conceived or wrought by form or color.
To this end I would read those books which are not
only sincere and accurate, but those which treat sub
jects with breadth of view. At best our thoughts are
cramped, narrow, and prejudiced, and we should court
familiarity with opposite qualities and tendencies.
I have selected from the many desirable qualities
of books those which appertain to greatness of char
acter, without which we cannot become a people great
in affairs, nor learned In the sciences, nor cultured In
the arts ; but with these qualities, united to the genius
of the English race, and to what our Celtic brethren
contribute to the common stock, a free, equal, edu
cated, and cultured people, we may revive the glories
of the best ages.
The people have come to the front ; and who are
the people? Certainly not alone the ignorant, the
debased, and the spoilers. They Include all the wise,
the cultured, and the righteous as well. The real
democracy, thus made up, must prove its right to stay

466 NEW ENGLAND LIFE AND LETTERS
at the front. Not less than kings and hierarchies
and aristocracies in the past, we in the present are on
trial. If we allow any great interest of humanity to
fail, — If In our hands religion, science, art, or litera
ture faU into decadence, — we must give way to those
who can save them ; because human nature is stronger
than democracy, and so Is religion, and so are tbose
Indestructible, unconquerable principles by. which the
race aspires and achieves.
But there wiU be no failure, though not unlikely
there will be some confusion until democracy — its
old leaders gone — learns to lead Itself. To this end
literature must be popularized. What has been writ
ten for the few must be rewritten for the many ; it
must be disseminated. Mr. Brooks has done his part ;
we must do ours.
These are my last words. They were written at
the midnight hour and laid aside for the morning ;
and when the morning came Mr. Brooks was dead.
Imperfect and inadequate as they are, I cannot
change them. They and the subject of them are now
before another tribunal. That which Concerns us
remains, with day of grace. When the shadow of the
great mystery faUs upon us, as it has fallen upon our
friend, may there rise up as great a cloud of witnesses
who will say of us, as we say of him, " He has done
his part"!

IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE IN PUB
LIC LIBRARIES
Address at the Dedication of the Woods Memorial Library
Building, Barre, Massachusetts, December 30, 1887

ADDRESS
AT THE DEDICATION OF THE WOODS LIBRARY,
BARRE

His ExceUency has said that he came up here from
the capital to-day at some personal Inconvenience, by
which he means, as I conjecture, that he is busy just
now in writing the message which he will deliver to
the General Court next Wednesday, when he enters
upon his second term of office as Governor of the
Commonwealth. We all read His Excellency's inau
gural address last year, and remember the commen
dations it received from all parties ; and so we have
high expectations regarding what he may say next
week. But when we consider that about the only
things the Congress of the United States and the leg
islature of Massachusetts do not attend to, are pre
cisely those matters which the President and the gov
ernor, each in his jurisdiction, seriously urges upon
their attention, it raises a question whether the gov
ernor could not use his time more profitably to the
people. If, instead of bestowing It on a message, he
devoted that portion of it which a message costs to
making throughout the Commonwealth just such prac
tical, common-sense talks as he has given us to-day, to
which everybody eagerly listened and will doubtless
give heed ; and if so, Barre, already one of the most
beautiful of towns, will become still more Interesting

470 IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE
and better qualified to take up and carry forward the
civilization she has received from wise and cultured
ancestors. We have heard with instruction and pleasure the
most excellent address of Judge Aldrich, In which he
has treated such topics as the occasion suggests, with
a fullness and precision which leave nothing to be
added. I see no reason, therefore, why I should go
over the same ground. Let me, rather, take up the
pregnant suggestion which fell from the Ups of the
president of your Association in his opening address.
He said In substance that there are scattered through
out the country perhaps hundreds of people, natives
of Barre, who in their distant homes still hold the
place of their birth In affectionate remembrance.
This is as it should be ; for, next to God and our pa
rents, we are most indebted to the place where we
were born for that which goes to make up ourselves,
and which, of however little account It may be to
others, is everything to us, and on no account to be
exchanged with another, however gifted In mind, in
person, or In fortune. For had the eyes of those who
are Barre-born first opened to the light of heaven in
some other place ; had they elsewhere first beheld the
phenomena of nature, either In their ceaseless round
or In tliose sudden and occasional manifestations
which impress us deeply in tender years, — they
would have been In some respects different from what
they now are ; and something less, unless you have
proved more insensible than I believe you have been,
to the influences of hills and valleys not often sur
passed in their beauty ; or to air than which none Is
purer ; or to skies than which none are fairer.
Yes ; all these influences have entered into the life

IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE 471
and character — into body, soul, and mind — of all
born here, moulding, transforming, and building up
what we call character, not only In Individuals, but In
society as well, — that which marks the New Eng
lander wherever he goes, and has given a name to
New England towns in all generations.
Now, unless I misconceive, or greatly overestimate
the nature and power of this influence of locality upon
us in the formative period of life, you natives of Barre
are greatly indebted to the place of your birth. To
other towns, to which some of you have gone in quest
of fortune, you may be indebted for fortune, for
honors, public or social ; but to Barre you are In
debted for no inconsiderable part of those qualities
which. If you lacked, you would willingly purchase at
great price.
One of those whose good fortune it was to have
been born here in Barre ; one who acquired here those
qualities of which I have spoken, and who, carrying
them with him into a wider field of action, in due time
became a member of a great commercial house known
in two hemispheres for the prompt discharge of all Its
obligations and for fair dealing with all its customers,
to-day returns bearing gifts. Partaking the honorable
sentiments of his house, and moved by a sense of the
obligations to which I have referred, this gentleman
has, In my judgment, taken a most exceUent way of
recognizing his duty to the place where he was born
and In which he was favored by those influences which
did so much to form his character and guide his life.
He has established a free public library for his native
town. Let us consider what that imports.
Had Mr. Woods so chosen, instead of establishing
a library, he might have created a fund the Income of

472 IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE
which should be devoted for all time to the purchase
of books to be distributed among such families, or In
dividuals, as found it Impracticable or Inconvenient
to purchase books for themselves. In some respects
such a plan would be quite as economical and would
result In a dissemination of literature quite as wide as
could be obtained through the Instrumentality of a
library. But it would not be a public library, which
possesses manifest advantages over such a plan ; and
the advantage would be even greater, were Mr.
Woods's fund ample to furnish, for all time, the books
needed for the nicest research or to gratify the most
cultured taste In any department In learning.
What Is a public library ? It Is an organization the
power and influence of which far transcend the power
and Influence of all the separate volumes which com
pose It, just as the power and Influence of a Christian
church, for example, are more than the pious and de
voted lives of its members. It has organized life. It
has corporate existence. It lives and breathes ; has
sentiency and purposes. It may be Immortal, and
each year added to Its life adds to its power. Mr.
Woods may feel well assured that, so long as govern
ments endure and municipal bodies perform their
functions, from yonder library, established by his
beneficence, wiU proceed influences which will promote
the welfare of the whole community of which Barre
is made up, arouse the aspirations of Individuals, and
afford them the means for attaining higher, richer, and
happier lives ; and all this, not for one generation
alone, but for unending generations. Such is the en
viable power of wealth when used with intelligence
and sanctified by right disposition.
And now a few words In regard to Its admlnlstra-

IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE 473
tion. I hope that everywhere in our country, and so
here, will be recognized this fact — that all our insti
tutions, in order to bring about these most valuable
results in moulding the character and habits of the
people, must substantially represent the public sense
of the communities in which they are established.
Better far to endure the consequence of some mistakes
than have it otherwise. Like our schools, our churches,
our politics, and our social life, so our libraries should
find their countenance and support in the life of the
people. They must be trusted, and we must speedily
get rid of the notion that they cannot carry on the
government. Within a few years the people have
come to the front, and they have come to stay and to
govern. And in the long run they will govern wisely ;
but by the people, I mean the whole people ; not alone
those who are ignorant, debased, or vicious ; but also
the wise, the prosperous, and the well-disposed.
There is another subject on which I wish to say
something. The orator of the day has spoken of the
reading of fiction, a habit now so much In vogue ; and
I wish that I may speak with discrimination and pre
cision, so as to convey my exact Ideas on that subject.
I have great faith In Imaginative literature, when pro
perly chosen, to refine and elevate. I do not, I trust,
undervalue science, history, or philosophy ; but, owing
to the circumstances of the planting of New England,
and the subsequent life therein, its people are fairly
" up," as we may say, in those departments of human
thought. But there is a vast realm which Ues just
below the range of those feeUngs by which we may
commune with God, and just above the world of sense,
— I mean the world of the Imagination, — into which,
as a people, we have never very fully entered, either

474 IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE
by our literature or by our daily life. The result has
been that our notions in respect to the beautiful,
either In art or In literature, are very crude, and our
attempts to realize them very unsatisfactory. Now,
our progress in this ought to keep pace with our un
deniable progress in the practical arts, In science, in
invention, and in the application of politics to affairs.
Is there any good reason why It should not ? We are
sprung from a race which has wrought great things,
— nor is there any greater In the realm of the Imagi
nation ; a race which calls Chaucer and Spenser and
Shakespeare and Milton Its own. And if we are in
danger of falling behind our kindred in the old home ;
and, especially. If we are In danger of faUing into
materialism and of thinking too exclusively, " What
shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal
shall we be clothed," then it Is time to caU a halt in
this headlong race for material things, and give more
attention to those matters which serve to bring on the
life which lives by the spirit. And we shaU do this,
unless we are willing to see the glories of our ances
tors and of our kindred beyond the sea fade and go
out on New England soil.
Were It in my power, therefore, I would institute
such a system of education, both public and private,
as would develop and bring into their legitimate use
those powers which serve to raise us above, so far
above, the material world that we may understand
and enjoy the world of the Imagination. And In
such a system a free public library would hold an
Important place. Within its walls ought to be found,
not only alcoves for history and science and philoso
phy ; not only for forms of the literature in which
Shakespeare and Milton reign supreme, but also for

IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE 475
the great romancers and novelists, who have explored
the recesses of human nature, made us familiar with
life, and added to the sum of human happiness by
leading us Into the fields of imagination. I would,
therefore, have libraries so administered, and their
funds so applied, that while they contribute to the
dissemination of knowledge, they should at the same
time open the fountains of imaginative literature
which seem to be In some danger of drying up among
us. I am the more concerned about this when I con
sider that Imaginative literature Is the only province
of art into which the circumstances of life on this side
of the Atlantic permit us to enter and to live In that
full and free Intercourse which makes it a productive
power. The sea rolls between us aud those great
masterpieces of plastic and pictorial art which are
the delight of all who behold them and the despair of
all who attempt to reproduce their essential qualities.
But though none of us shall ever behold the glories
of the Temple, and but few the remains of the Par
thenon or the great cathedrals or galleries of Europe)
which have done so much to keep alive the spirit of
art among the people of the old world, yet we, as well
as they, may hear, If we will, the songs of the Hebrew
poet and the sublime epic of Homer and the trage
dies of the great dramatists. Let us gather them,
then. Into yonder hall, with the best which the world
has since produced of imaginative literature, so that
aU who enter It in this or In succeeding ages may
come In contact with the richest thought and the most
refined and elevated feeling of those great men who,
in aU ages, have lived In the spirit and wrought by
its power.

476 IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Woods has conferred
a great benefit on your town. This he has done in
discharge of the debt he Incurred by being born in
a place singularly favored by nature, and reared in a
community of noble men and women who have given
it an enviable fame. See to It that In the discharge
of a like obligation, you so preserve and administer
the trust committed to you, that the generations to
come shaU rise up and bless your names as weU as
his.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A.
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY
h; O. HOUGHTON AND CO.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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