PART 7: THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

BY SYDNEY GEORGE FISHER

CHAPTER VIII 

A REIGN OF TERROR 

FOR THE LOYALISTS 

IT was not merely in final arguments that the year 1774 was a crisis. The patriots were in an extreme and passionate state of mind. Their violence to the loyalists increased, and showed the typical symptoms of a revolution. 

The loyalists were becoming more decided and outspoken, and events seemed to be increasing their numbers. The rough element in the patriot party looked upon them as enemies to be broken up and disorganized as quickly as possible. Disarming parties visited loyalist houses and took away all the weapons and it was a method well calculated to check union and organization and prevent the loyalists from taking advantage of their numbers. Such a method would not perhaps be so effective in modern times when fire-arms are so cheap and easy to procure. 

If the loyalists had formed some sort of organization among themselves ; appointed their committees of safety, as the patriots did ; kept their weapons, instead of giving them up at the patriot demand ; resisted, or taken the offensive, instead of waiting passively for the action of the British army; or, if the British army had been more prompt and active in assisting them, they might have altered the course of history. If they had been as full of the American atmosphere of energy and organization as were the patriots, they might have got the start with the disarming, and worked it to the suppression of the rebellion. But the patriots were inspired and wrought to the highest pitch of energy by the rights of man. They not only seized the loyalist arms, but took possession of most of the colony governments. The loyalists had no inspiring ideas. They could talk only of the British empire and the. regular army.

There were, it is true, numerous scattering attempts at loyalist organization in the interior of the Carolina's, in the peninsula between the Delaware and the Chesapeake, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and near Albany and in Westchester County, New York. In some of these places they resisted disarming, held their own, and took their turn at violent methods, cutting the manes and tails of patriot horses and throwing down patriot fences. In the South they were more successful and more murderous in their dealings with the patriots. But their plans were not generally adopted by their fellow-loyalists throughout the country. They lacked the indomitable energy of the patriots.* 

* The patriot party seems to have been largely composed of that class whom our over-educated people often contemptuously described as "typical Americans. " G-eneral Cornwallis noticed the difference in character between the two parties, and described the loyalists as " timid" and the patriots as " inveterate. " General Robertson, in his testimony on the conduct of the war, said that the patriots were only about a third of the people, but by their energy in seizing arms and assuming the government they kept the others in subjection. Parliamentary Register, vol. ziii. p. 307

In their scattered, individualized condition they became more and more the prey of the rough element among their opponents. Everywhere they were seized unexpectedly, at the humor of the mob, tarred and feathered, paraded through the towns, or left tied to trees in the woods. Any accidental circumstance would cause these visitations, and often the victim was not as politically guilty as some of his neighbors who, by prudence or accident, remained unharmed to the end of the war. 

Those patriots of the upper classes who for many years had been rousing the masses of the people to resist the principle of taxation and all authority of Parliament were now somewhat aghast at the success of their work. The patriot colonists, when aroused, were lawless ; and, while clamoring for independence, violated in a most shocking manner the rights of personal liberty and property. 

In the South, as soon as the rebellion party got a little control, a loyalist might be locked up in the jail for the mere expression of his opinion; and in the North, too, when the rebellion party got control in a county they were apt to use the jail to punish loyalists. 

"Out with him ! out with him !" shouted the mob, as they rushed after Francis Green into the inn at Norwich, Connecticut, where he was taking refuge. He had already been driven out of Windham. They tumbled him into his own carriage, lashed his horses, and, shouting and yelling, chased him out of Norwich. What was his crime ? He had signed the farewell address to Governor Hutchinson, of Massachusetts. 

In Berkshire, Massachusetts, in that same summer of 1774, the mob forced the judges from their seats and shut up the court-house, drove David Ingersoll from his house, and laid his lands and fences waste ; they riddled the house of Daniel Leonard with bullets, and drove him to Boston; they attacked Colonel Gilbert, of Freetown, in the night, but he fought them off. That same night Brigadier Euggles fought off a mob, but they painted his horse and cut off its mane and tail. Afterwards they robbed his house of all the weapons in it and poisoned his other horse. They stopped the judges in the highway, insulted them, hissed them as they entered court. The house of Sewell, Attorney-General of Massachusetts, was wrecked; Oliver, president of the council, was mobbed and compelled to resign ; an armed mob of five thousand at Worcester compelled the judges, sheriffs, and gentlemen of the bar to march up and down before them., cap in hand, and read thirty times their disavowal of holding court under Parliament.

In a similar way the court at Taunton was handled by the mob; also at Springfield and Plymouth and Great Barrington. Loyalists everywhere were driven from their houses and families, some being obliged to take to the woods, where they nearly lost their lives. One Dunbar, who had bought fat cattle from a loyalist was, for that offense, put into the belly of one of the oxen that had been dressed, carted four miles, and deprived of four head of cattle and a horse. 

Men were ridden and tossed on fence-rails , were gagged and bound for days at a time ; pelted with stones ; fastened in rooms where there was a fire with the chimney stopped on top ; advertised as public enemies, so that they would be cut off from all dealing with their neighbors. They had bullets shot into their bedrooms; money or valuable plate extorted to save them from violence and on pretense of taking security for their good behavior. Their houses and ships were burnt ; they were compelled to pay the guards who watched them in their houses ; and when carted about for the mob to stare at and abuse they were compelled to pay something at every town. 

In the cases of rich loyalists the expenses put upon them were very heavy. Mr. James Christie, a merchant of Baltimore, after narrowly escaping with his life, had to pay nine shillings per day to each of the men who guarded his house, and was ordered to pay five hundred pounds to the revolutionary convention " to be expended occasionally towards his proportion of all charges and expenses, incurred or to be incurred, for the defense of America during the present contest."

Some of us perhaps have read of the treatment of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, afterwards the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. His house was invaded by the mob, his daughters insulted, their lives threatened, bayonets thrust through their caps, and all the money and silverware in the house taken. Seabury himself was paraded through New Haven and imprisoned for a month. Afterwards he and some other loyalists fled for their lives, and lived in a secret room, behind the chimney, in a private house, where they were fed by their friends through a trap-door. 

In South Carolina the mob, in one instance, after applying the tar and feathers, displayed their Southern generosity and politeness by scraping their victim clean, instead of turning him adrift, as was usually done, to go home to his wife and family in his horrible condition or seek a pitiable refuge at the house of a friend, if he could find one. 

"Of the few who objected (to the Charleston Association) there were only two who were hardy enough to ridicule or treat it with contempt, viz., Laughlin, Martin and John Dealey, on which account . . . Yesterday they were carted through the principal streets of the town in complete suits of tar and feathers. The very indecent and daring behaviors of the two culprits in several instances occasioned their being made public spectacles of. After having been exhibited for about half an hour, and having made many acknowledgments of their crime, they were conducted home, cleaned, and quietly put on board of Captain Lasley's ship." American Archives, 4th series, ii. p. 922. 

It would be a comparatively easy task to collect from the records instances of this sort, entirely omitted from regulation histories, but which, if given in their full details, would fill a good-sized volume. For the three months, July, August, and September, of the year 1774,one can find in the "American Archives" alone over thirty descriptions of outrages of this sort.* 
* American Archives, 4th. series, i. pp. 630, 663, 716, 724, 731, 732, 745, 762, 787, 806, 885, 965, 970, 974, 1009, 1042, 1061, 1070, 1105, 1106, 1178, 1236, 1243, 1253, 1260 ; 4th series, ii. pp. 33, 34, 91, 131, 174, 176, 318, 337, 340, 466, 507, 545, 552, 622, 725, 875, 920, 922, 1652, 1688, 1697; 4th series, iii. pp. 52, 59, 105, 119, 127, 145, 151, 170, 326, 462, 682, 823, 1072, 1254, 1266 ; 4th scries, iv. pp. 19, 29, 203, 247, 288, 475, 564, 679, 719, 847, 884, 887, 941, 1043, 1228, 1237, 1241, 1284, 1288, 1571, 1580, 1585, 1590, 1692, 1717.
If we went on collecting instances and used besides the volumes of the "American Archives" the numerous other sources of information, and carried the search through all the years when these things were done, there would be an enormous mass of instances. But we would not then have them all ; for there must have been countless instances of violence to loyalists which were not recorded in print. Like the other instances, they played their part; were well known by common report ; contributed towards forming opinion and action in the great problem; and now, being unpleasant or inconvenient to remember, have passed out of human recollection as though they had never happened. 

Many saved themselves by yielding, by resigning the offices they held under British authority, or by writing out a humiliating apology and reading it aloud, or letting it be published in the newspapers. When this system of terrorism was once well under way, there was a crop of these recantations everywhere. But we do not always know from the records the severity by which these recantations were forced. 

Loyalists would often resist for a time before subjecting themselves to the ignominy of a recantation. In one instance twenty-nine loyalists were carried about by a party of militia for several days from town to town. They were told that they were to be put in the Sunbury mines, which were damp, underground passages for mining copper in Connecticut, not far from Hartford. These mines were often used for terrorizing loyalists. The twenty-nine were exhibited, hectored, and tormented, until before they reached the mines the last one had humbled himself by a public confession and apology. 

As time went on there were comparatively few who, when visited by the mob, did not finally make a public apology, because, although that was bad enough, they knew that in the end there was the far worse infamy and torture of the tar and feathers. There were few men of any position or respectability and it was men of this sort who were usually attacked who could bear the thought or survive the infliction of that process, unless they afterwards left the country altogether. To be stripped naked, smeared all over with disgusting black pitch, the contents of two or three pillows rubbed into it, and in that condition to be paraded through the streets of the town for neighbors and acquaintances to stare at, was enough to break down very daring spirits. 

One could never tell when an angry mob might rush to this last resource. On August 24, 1774, a mob at New London were carrying off Colonel Willard, when he agreed to apologize and resign his office. But the account goes on to say,  

"One Captain Davis, of Brimfield, -was present, who showing resentment, and treating the people with "bad language, was stripped, and honored with the new-fashion dress of tar and feathers ; a proof this that the act for tarring and feathering is not repealed." American Archives, 4th series, i. 731. 

When we consider that this mob rule was steadily practiced for a period of more than ten years, it is not surprising that it left an almost indelible mark on. our people.They seem to have acquired from it that fixed habit now called lynch law, which is still practiced among us in many parts of the country in a most regular and systematic manner, and participated in by respectable people. The term lynch law originated in the method of handling the loyalists in the Revolution, and was named from the brother of the man who founded Lynchburgh in Virginia.* 
* Atlantic Monthly, vol. Ixxxviii. p. 731
By the year 1775 the patriot portion of the people had grown so accustomed to dealing with the loyalists by means of the mob, that they regarded it as a sort of established and legalized procedure. In New Jersey we find an account of the tar and feathers inflicted on a loyalist closing with the words, "The whole was conducted with that regularity and decorum that ought to be observed in all public punishments."+ 
+ American Archives, 4th series, iv. p. 203.
Looking back at it with the long perspective the present gives, we can say that these things were the passion for independence, the instinct of nationality seizing for itself a country of its own, without violence if it could, but with the worst violence if it must. England, however, was not inclined to take that view. The greater the number of such occurrences, the more numerous became the Englishmen who were convinced that the colonies needed not more liberty, but more systematic government and control. The loyalists in America believed that such outrages increased their own numbers and made it more and more certain that they were, as they claimed to be, a majority of the people. 

The vast number of written and spoken apologies were nearly all insincere ; even the oaths that were taken were nearly all considered as not binding by the victims, because obtained by threats or violence. They were often forced to take the oaths to save their children from beggary and ruin, and openly gave this as an excuse. 

As for the liberty of the press, it was at the close of the year 1775 completely extinguished; and this increased and encouraged the enemies of the colonies in England. James Rivington, of New York, who printed and published many of the loyalist pamphlets, was boycotted and assailed by town and village committees until, though he apologized and humbled himself, he narrowly escaped with his life, and finally took refuge on a British man-of-war. 

Prominent men among the rebel party regretted these things and worried over them ; but all to no effect. The loyalists were so numerous, possibly a majority, and might effect so much if they organized themselves, that it was a great temptation to let the rough and wild element among the patriots go on with its work and keep the loyalists broken up and terrorized. 

John Adams had the enormity and cruelty of such conduct brought home to him very closely, for he was counsel in a famous case in which one of the victims, Richard King, attempted to have legal redress against the mob. 

A party of people disguised as Indians broke into King's store and house as early in the difficulties with England as March 16, 1766. They destroyed all the books and papers relating to his business, laid waste his property, and threatened his life if he should seek redress. Seven or eight years afterwards, in 1774, the mob assailed him again because one of his cargoes of lumber, without any fault of his, had been purchased by the British army in Boston. Forty men visited him on this occasion, and, by threatening his life, compelled him to disavow his loyalist opinions. He shortly afterwards went insane and died. 

"The terror and distress, the distraction and horror of his family," writes John Adams to his wife, u cannot be described in words or 163 [This file is missing pages 164 and 165, I am picking up at the top of page 166 sorry about that DC]

sacrificed every penny of their property, and from positions of importance and prominence in the colonies they retired to England to be submerged into insignificance and poverty, or they retired to Canada where their descendants can still be found working with their hands, or struggling back into the position their ancestors occupied more than a hundred years ago. 

The disastrous effects of the rise of the lower orders of the people into power appeared everywhere, leaving its varied and peculiar characteristics in each community ; but New England suffered least of all. In Virginia its work was destructive and complete ; for all that made Virginia great, and produced her remarkable men, was her aristocracy of tobacco-planters. This aristocracy forced on the Revolution with heroic enthusiasm against the will of the lower classes, little dreaming that they were forcing it on to their own destruction. But in 1780 the result was already so obvious that Chastellux, the French traveler, saw it with the utmost clearness, and in his book he prophesies Virginia's gradual sinking into the insignificance which we have seen in our time. 

Even in Massachusetts, where the dreaded class accomplished less evil than anywhere else, the prospect of their rule seemed so terrible that the strongest of the patriots were often shaken in their purpose. How it fretted and unnerved John Adams we know full well, for he has confessed it in his diary. A man in Massachusetts one day congratulated him on the anarchy, the mob violence, the insults to judges, the closing of the courts, and the tar and feathers which the patriots and their Congress were producing.

" Oh, Mr. Adams, what great things have you and your colleagues done for us ! We can never be grateful enough to you. There are no courts of justice now in this province, and I hope there never will be another."

Adams for once in his life could not reply. 

"Is this the object for which. I have been contending, said I to myself, for I rode along without any answer to this wretch ; are these the sentiments of such people, and how many of them are there in the country ? Half the nation, for what I know  for half the nation are debtors, if not more ; and these have been in all countries the sentiments of debtors. If the power of the country should get into such hands, and there is a great danger that it will, to what purpose have we sacrificed our time, health, and everything else?" Works of John Adams, vol. ii. p. 420. 

If the loyalists could come back from the grave, they would probably say that their fears and prophecies had been fulfilled in the most extraordinary manner; sometimes literally; in most cases substantially. There is no question that the Revolution was followed by a great deal of bad government, political corruption, sectional strife, coarseness in manners, hostility to the arts and refinements of life, assassination, lynch law, and other things which horrified Englishmen and afforded the stock material for the ridicule of such writers as Dickens and Mrs. Montagu. 

The descendants of the loyalists, whom our passion for independence scattered in Canada and the British empire, find plenty of material for their purpose, and they have often said that we reaped the evil fruit of our self-will and blindness ; that we would have been better governed, life and property would have been safer, living more comfortable, and all the arts of life more flourishing, if we had remained colonies of the British empire instead of becoming an independent nation. 

If you had remained under Great Britain, you would be free from the scourge of lynch law with its two hundred victims every year ; you would be free from the burning of Negroes at the stake ; and from the wholesale murder and assassinations which have prevailed in parts of your country. Such conditions are unknown under British rule. By remaining under Great Britain you would have avoided the Civil War of 1861, with all its train of evils, the long years of misgovernment which preceded it when the slaves were escaping to the free States, and the frightful misgovernment of the carpet-bag and reconstruction period, because all your slaves would have been set free and their owners paid their value in 1833, when slavery was abolished by England in all her colonies. In a similar way you would have escaped your vast political corruption and the disgraceful misgovernment of your large cities. You made a mistake when you broke up the British empire in 1776. 

The patriots of 1776, however, believed that they had ideas to contribute, and a mission to accomplish in spite of bad government, or through bad government, as every other nation and individual has done. They were seized with the spirit of independence, and believed that as a separate people they had an inalienable right to rule themselves ; and, if they chose, rule themselves badly. Liberty without independence to decide what their liberty or what their development should be was of little value in their eyes.

CHAPTER IX 

THE REAL INTENTION 

AS TO INDEPENDENCE 

I HAVE described the patriot party as moving towards independence, and have given many instances to show that that was their intention. Sometimes the intention, though partially veiled, was notorious, as in the case of such men as Samuel Adams ; sometimes it was openly expressed, as in such newspapers as the Boston Gazette; and very often it was nourished in secret, or the individuals who entertained it were scarcely conscious of how far they were going, or were timid and hesitating about the risks to be run. 

If we assume that the patriots really thought that England would frankly approve of all they were doing, repeal to order her acts of Parliament, and give the colonists what they wanted, we must suppose them to have been very childlike. Such sublime confidence that England would see the great question exactly as they saw it would have been very beautiful and touching. 

There may have been some who attained this romantic state of mind. As the loyalists idealized the strength and power of England, believed it irresistible, and believed it also beneficial, and lovable even as a conqueror, and were willing to accept it as a conqueror without any guarantees or securities for their own liberties, so these childlike rebels on their side may have idealized it as too strong, too magnanimous and just to be other than as liberal and freedom-loving as themselves. 

Many of them perhaps had hardly yet become aware that in living by themselves for nearly two hundred years they had grown into a totally different moral fiber ; and that although they used the same language and laws, and the same furniture and linen as the English, swore the same oaths and drank the same toasts as England, they were in character and principle as far removed from the majority of her people as though they belonged to another race. Unconsciously they had been wrought by climate, association, and environment into a distinct and different people, a people of keener, broader intelligence, and more determined energy and courage. They were already a separate people without fully knowing it. 

The inward struggles of some of the loyalists who had become partially Americanized without knowing it were very pathetic. Curwen and Van Schaack, both of whom sought refuge in England, reveal this all through their diaries and letters. In America their imaginations had been fed with pleasing tales of the charms of English life and the honor and liberal intentions of British statesmen. They were both bitterly disappointed. Van Schaack completely changed his opinions of the political intentions of the British government towards the colonies. Curwen, dealing more in details of every-day life, laments its discomfort and unhappiness. " The fires here," he says, "are not to be compared to our large American ones of oak and walnut, nor near so comfortable. Would that I was away." He had thought he was going "home," as some of the colonists with strange simplicity called England but he says he finds himself in a  "country of aliens." He was treated with arrogance and contempt. He was told to his face that Americans were a "sort of serfs." He was expected to be servile and subservient. London he calls a "sad lick penny", and he is heartily tired of it.* 
* Curwen's Journal and Letters, 45, 57, 59, etc
Both he and Van Schaack, and their fathers before them, had lived so long in the colonies that in heart and habit they were Americanized beyond recall. But by study at a distance they had so convinced their minds, or imaginations, of the splendor of the British empire that when their fellow-colonists doubted the immaculateness of British rule, and, above all, when they thought they could govern themselves without it, the ludicrousness of the suggestion was overwhelming. 

In describing the different ways in which the growing sense or instinct of a separate nationality was affecting the people, it is due to my readers to say that some Americans have denied that there was any feeling of this sort. They have denied most positively that there was any desire for independence, and have adopted the modern English opinion that independence was forced upon us suddenly against our will. 

For my part I find it difficult to understand how a million or more colonists could suddenly decide on a dash for independence, maintain the struggle for seven years, refusing every proposal for peace that offered less than absolute independence, unless they had been passionately nourishing that idea for a long period of time. But, if we are to believe certain statesmen and historians, they not only did not entertain such an idea for any long period, but detested the thoughts of it until the summer of 1776, and then shed tears over it. 

Of course, it is true that all the patriot documents are full of profuse expressions of the most devoted loyalty, and the leaders were constantly putting forth these profuse expressions. If such assertions are proof, it is easy enough to accumulate great numbers of them. In fact, judged by their documents, the nearer the patriots approached to the year 1776, the more devoted, loving, and loyal they became. If we can accept their own account of themselves, they were more loyal than the Tories in England.

Washington, while attending the Congress at Philadelphia, wrote to a loyalist, October 9, 1774 : 

"Give me leave to add, and I think I can announce it as a fact, that it is not the wish or interest of that government (Massachusetts) or any other upon this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence" Works, Ford edition of 1889, vol. ii. p. 443. 

That was a safe statement, because it spoke of the governments of the colonies, not of a party or individuals. The government of Massachusetts was at that time under the military control of General Gage and the loyalists, and certainly had not the slightest intention of attempting independence. None of the colony governments, as governments, had any wish at that time to make such an attempt. Some of them were in the hands of moderates or loyalists, and it would not have been for the interest even of those in the hands of patriots to make any move for independence. It was too dangerous and too impractical ; the time had not, in the opinion of any, yet arrived. As to what the government formed by the rebel party in Massachusetts wanted to do about independence, we shall see when we come to treat of the Suffolk resolutions. 

Washington's statement refers only to what would be outwardly and openly done, and in that respect is entirely correct. It is entirely consistent with a determination in his heart, and in the hearts of thousands of others, to make a break for independence at the first opportunity. 

Franklin, in England, in August, 1774, was talking with Lord Chatham about American affairs. His lordship favored the withdrawal of troops and very liberal treatment of the Americans. But he said it had been reported that they aimed at statehood and independence, and to that he was unalterably opposed. Franklin replied with the very sweeping assertion that has been so often quoted :

"I assured him that having more than once traveled almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a great variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with them freely, I never had heard in any conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America." Works, Bigelow edition, vol. v. pp. 445, 446. 

But the word independence had several meanings. Franklin says that he had never heard the colonists wish " for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous." If questioned closely, he and they would have said that they did not wish to be absolutely separated ; they wished merely to be separated from Parliament and retain such a connection with the crown that it would be a protectorate for them against other nations. This was the old device to which they all tightly clung, and, under the circumstances, we cannot blame them. 

When Franklin made that sweeping statement to Lord Chatham in 1774, he had been away from America for ten years ; and he could have said that he was speaking of his experiences before the French War closed. It was a statement of diplomacy, and Franklin was in a delicate position. Lord Chatham and a large section of the Whigs, who were straining every nerve to restore themselves to office and power by means of the disturbances in America, were obliged, of course, to base their assistance of the Americans on the understanding that those rebels were seeking merely a redress of grievances, and not absolute independence. Franklin's whole course of conduct in England was devoted to assisting the Whig party. He believed that if that party could get into power they would be very favorably inclined towards the patriots. But if he once, for a moment, admitted that the patriots were bent on independence, his usefulness to the Whigs was gone. 

It is difficult to believe that Franklin meant to say that there was no general movement for independence either absolute, as advocated by men like Samuel Adams and newspapers like the Boston Gazette, or modified, as advocated by the moderate patriots who seemed to be willing to accept an independence which would leave the American communities distinct states, entirely free from all control of Parliament, and attached to England only by the slight thread of a protectorate against foreign invasions. If he intended to make a complete and absolute denial, he is contradicted by a great deal of evidence. I have already, in the first chapter, cited the passage from Kalm, who traveled in the colonies in 1748, and described the movement for independence as so advanced that the people were prophesying a total separation within thirty or fifty years, which prophecy was literally fulfilled. Franklin himself, in 1766, two years after he went to England, had received a letter from Joseph Galloway describing the plans for independence.  

"A certain sect of people, if I may judge from their late conduct, seem to look on this as a favorable opportunity of establishing their republican principles, and of throwing off all connection with their mother-country. Many of their publications justify the thought. Besides, I have other reasons to think that they are not only forming a private union among themselves from one end of the continent to the other, but endeavoring also to bring into this union the Quakers and all other dissenters, if possible." Sparks, "Franklin," 77 vol. vii. p. 303. This letter is dated January 13, 1766. 

John Wesley, in one of his pamphlets, says that his brother visited the colonies in 1737, and reported "the most serious people and men of consequence almost continually crying out we must be independent ; we shall never be well until we shake off the English yoke," * Galloway,in his examination before the House of Commons, testified that there had been a considerable number of persons who advocated independence in the principal towns of the colonies as early as 1754.
* "A Calm Address to the Inhabitants of England,' 7 pp. 6, 9, London, 1777.

Dr. Eliot, writing to England, in 1767, says, "We are not ripe for disunion; but our growth is so great that in a few years Great Britain will not be able to compel our submission."* 
* Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th series, vol. iv. p. 240 ; "EjOm's Travels," vol. i. p. 265. A pamphlet called "The Conduct of the Late Administration examined," pp. 22, 31, 37, 43, 44, 45, London, 1767, refers to the plans for independence in numerous passages. People were saying that their children would l live to see a duty laid by Americans on some things imported from Great Britain." The ministry, it was said, had been repeatedly informed of the plans for independence (p. 37). In "Reflections on the Present Combination of the American Colonies," p. 5, London, 1777, the author says he has been personally acquainted with the colonies for forty years, and that they had been talking independence all that time. "The principles they suck in with milk, " he says, "naturally lead to rebellion." On page 35 he gives the patriot toast to the mother country as "Damn the old B ." See, also, Bancroft, "History of the United States," edition of 1883, vol. iii. pp. 406, 427 ; Boston Evening Post, May 27, June 24, October 28, 1765 Boston Gazette, January 6 and 27, March 2, August 17 and 24, November 1 and 2, 1772; January 11, March 15, 1773 ; American Whig, April 11, 1768 j "Americans against Liberty," p. 39, London, 1776; "The Constitutional Bight of the Legislature of Great Britain to tax the British Colonies," pp. 27, 28, etpassim} London, 1768.
That very plain-spoken Englishman, Dean Tucker, writing in 1774, took a common-sense view when he said, 

"It is the nature of them all (i.e., colonies) to aspire after independence, and to set up for themselves as soon as ever they find they are able to subsist without being beholden to the mother-country, and if our Americans have expressed themselves sooner on this head than others have done, or in a more direct and daring manner, this ought not to be imputed to any greater malignity.'' "The True Interest of Great Britain set forth," p. 12. See, also, Stedman, " American War," vol. i. p. 1, London, 1794.

That maker of sweeping phrases, John Adams, has often been quoted to show that there was no desire for independence, and that it was resorted to at last with regret and tears. 

"There was not a moment during the Revolution when I would not have given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state of things before the contest began, provided we could have had a sufficient security for its continuance." 

This statement was made in 1821, long after the Revolution was over, and is one of those carefully hedged generalities which public men know how to make when they wish to appear to have always been conservative. In his hopeless moments during the long contest, Adams no doubt often thought that he would give everything he possessed to go back to the old times, for if things went on as they were going, he soon might not have anything to possess, not even the head on his shoulders. 

He saves his statement by the proviso that there must be "sufficient security" for the continuance of the old times. There was the rub. England would not give that security. The only security, as Adams well knew, was independence. His statement, moreover, bears quite a different meaning when, the whole passage in which it occurs is read. 

"There is great ambiguity in the expression, there existed in the Colonies a desire of Independence. It is true there always existed in the Colonies a desire of Independence of Parliament, in the articles of internal Taxation, and internal policy ; and a very general if not a universal opinion, that they were constitutionally entitled to it, and as general a determination if possible to maintain, and defend it, but there never existed a desire of Independence of the Crown, or of general regulations of Commerce, for the equal and impartial benefit of all parts of the Empire. It is true there might be times and circumstances in which an Individual, or a few Individuals, might entertain and express a wish that America was Independent in all respects, but these were ' Rari nantes in gurgite vasto.  For example in one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six, seven and eight, the conduct of the British Generals Shirley, Braddock, Loudon, Webb and Abercromby was so absurd, disastrous, and destructive, that a very general opinion prevailed that the "War was conducted by a mixture of Ignorance, Treachery and Cowardice, and some persons wished we had nothing to do with Great Britain for ever. Of this number I distinctly remember, I was myself one, fully believing that we were able to defend ourselves against the French and Indians, without any assistance or embarrassment from Great Britain. In fifty-eight and fifty-nine, when Amherst and Wolfe changed the fortune of the War, by a more able and faithful conduct of it, I again rejoiced in the name of Britain, and should have rejoiced in it, to this day, had not the King and Parliament committed high Treason and Rebellion against America as soon as they had conquered Canada, and made Peace with France. That there existed a general desire of Independence of the Crown in any part of America before the Revolution, is as far from the truth, as the Zenith is from the Nadir. That the encroaching disposition of Great Britain was early foreseen by many wise men, in all the States; [that It] would one day attempt to enslave them by an unlimited submission to Parliament, and rule them with a rod of Iron ; that this attempt would produce resistance on the part of America, and an awful struggle was also foreseen, but dreaded and deprecated as the greatest Calamity that could befall them. For my own part, there was not a moment during the Revolution, when I would not have given every thing I possessed for a restoration to the State of things before the Contest began, provided we could have had any sufficient security for its continuance. I always dreaded the Revolution as fraught with ruin, to me and my family, and indeed it has been but little better." New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1876, vol. xxx. p. 329

There we have it all; the whole story, and the old device of the king alone to which they always clung to save necks in case of failure. It should be observed that Adams says that he and his party were for independence in 1756-58 ; and this should be compared with the statements made by Franklin and others. Then he says that he became loyal, and would have remained a really good boy if it had not been for something that happened, namely, that "Parliament committed high treason and rebellion against America," which is a delightful way of putting it, and very characteristic of the Adams family. 

It should also be remembered that although Adams says that the patriots were entirely willing to remain under the king alone, yet when this very condition was offered to them by the peace commissioners in 1778, they voted against it, and Adams himself was more ardent than any of them in opposing it. 

His final statement that the Revolution ruined him is very amusing. The Revolution was the making of him and without it, he would have remained insignificant. But he never got enough of anything, and he always considered himself abused. 

The truth is that, like many others, he was a rebel hot for independence from the day of his birth to the day of his death. His independence party was small before the year 1760 ; but it steadily grew, and was most diligently and shrewdly worked up and encouraged by himself, his cousin, and the other leaders. It was impossible for a man of his stamp to belong to any other party. 

They used to tell an apocryphal story about him which even if not true is very characteristic. When he lay dying at the great age of ninety-one, they roused him for a moment in order to hear his last words. The old hero was taken off his guard and had no time to hedge. "Independence forever," he said, and sank back dead. 

We might go on quoting John Jay, and also Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, all of them positive that they never thought of such a thing until about five or six minutes before they did it ; and then it was contemplated " with affliction by all." No doubt there was much affliction, for it was a dangerous business. If, however, the affliction was so great, how was it that even in their darkest hours they refused all offers of compromise, even the very terms of freedom from Parliament which they had themselves proposed ?  

We can perhaps understand better how independence was secretly nourished when we remember the indomitable energy our climate produces ; how the desire to plan, to act, to do, to invent with surpassing ingenuity, and to be forever going, climbing, and achieving is uncontrollable. The patriot colonists who had been born in the country, and their fathers before them, were of this sort. Colonialism, with the essential political degradation entailed on even the best and most liberally governed colony, exasperated them. 

They may have said all sorts of things about "home'' king, and loyalty. They had been brought up under the British monarchy, and among such people such phrases became a habit. It was also important for them not to alarm the moderate or hesitating patriots by word or action that would be too direct. Those followers had to be educated and led by degrees. Thousands of them were in terrible uncertainty. At the thought of independence they trembled about the future which they could not see or fathom ; on which was no landmark or familiar ground ; and which their imaginations peopled with monsters and dragons like those with which the old geographers before Columbus filled the Western Ocean. We laugh at their fears because that future has now become the past. But their fears were largely justified by the history of the world up to that time.

They felt that the old argument with which the loyalists continually plied them might very well be true. The colonies, if left to themselves, would fight one another about their boundaries. They had been quarreling about boundaries for a century, with England for their final arbiter. What would they do when they had no arbiter but the might of the strongest? Would not Pennsylvania combine with the South to conquer New England ? or, more likely still. New England would combine with New York to conquer all the South, New York, for the sake of her old Dutch idea of trade, and New England, for the sake of improving the fox-hunting, Sabbath-breaking Southerner and freeing his slaves; for the estrangement between North and South on the slavery question was already quite obvious at the time of the Revolution. Then there would be rebellions and struggles to reform the map and straighten the lines and boundaries. If in the confusion France or Spain did not gobble them up, or England reduce them again to colonies, they would likely enough try to form a confederacy among themselves for protection against Europe. Then there would be one war to decide which section should have the commercial advantage of the seat of government in this confederacy, and another war to decide what should be the form of government of the confederacy, monarchical, aristocratic, or republican, and probably a third war to establish securely the form of government finally adopted.* 
* "A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies," p. 47, New York, 1775; " What think ye of the Congress now?" p. 25, New York, 1775; "Works of John Adams, vol. ii. p. 351; "The Origin of the American Contest with Great Britain, " ISTew York, 1775; Bancroft, " History of the United States," edition of 1886, vol. v. p. 406.
We must remember that in South America there has been much confusion and misgovernment as the result of independence, and out of it only two stable governments Chile and Brazil have as yet arisen. The monsters that the timid ones saw were unquestionably possibilities ; and the loyalist prophecies of sectional war have been largely fulfilled, We have not had quite as many sectional wars as they foretold. But we have had one great war between the North and the South, very much as they prophesied ; and in costliness, slaughter, and fierceness of contest far exceeding their warnings. 

They prophesied also that even if, with the assistance of France, a sort of independence was won, it would be an independence only on the land. Great Britain would still retain sovereignty on the sea ; and there would be another war or series of wars over this question. This happened exactly as they foretold, and thirty years after the Revolution we fought the war of 1812, often called at the time of its occurrence the Second War for Independence. 

With these monsters before their eyes the rebel colonists hesitated, deceived themselves, or resorted to shrewdness. They had mental reservations and cautious politic insincerity. They caught at every foolish straw, and the most extraordinary one of all was that the colonies should be ruled by the king alone, that by this invisible thread they would remain a part of the British empire, and always have the advantage of its steadying hand, with Parliament merely an object of outside historic interest. They would always pray for the king, as some one in New England suggested, and would kindly vote him from time to time little presents of money to help him in his wars, he in return to protect them from the ravages of the great powers, France and Spain, and possibly from their own disunion and anarchy.

To be continued....next
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

PART 6: THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

THE TRUE HISTORY OF 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

BY SYDNEY GEORGE FISHER

CHAPTER VII 

THE RIGHTS OF MAN

THE patriot party's definition of a colony as an independent state with its independence guaranteed and protected by the British crown was not then, and never has been, accepted by Great Britain. A protectorate is quite distinct from a colony. 

To the Romans the word colony meant a conquered province, garrisoned and controlled by military authority, governed by officials sent out from Rome, and held as the property of the empire for the benefit and profit of the Roman people, very much as crown colonies are held by England. To the Greeks it meant a separate community, planted by the mother-country, to become almost immediately self-sustaining and independent, and to be assisted at times in its wars by the mother-country. In England the term has usually meant an outlying community of people, completely under the authority of Parliament, with no self-government at all, or with a certain amount of representative or self-government, according to circumstances, but with no view to ultimate independence. 

The American idea was altogether Greek. They had approximated towards it, especially in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and in early times in Massachusetts, before the French were driven from Canada. The moderate patriots were now for independence, but wishing to avoid, if possible, the question of treason and a civil war, and many of them being uncertain as to their ability to stand alone against France and Spain, or their own disunion and sectionalism, they expressed a willingness to have a protectorate from the British crown, in return for which they would assist the king in his wars by voluntarily voting him supplies in their legislative assemblies.* 

* This doubt as to their ability to stand alone, which as time went on turned many patriots into loyalists, is well expressed in a letter from Robert E. Livingston to his son, who had been elected to the Continental Congress of 1775 : "Every good man wishes that America may remain free. In this I heartily join ; at the same time I do not desire that we should be wholly independent of the mother-country. How to reconcile these jarring principles, I confess I am altogether at a loss. The benefit we receive of protection seems to require that we should contribute to the support of the navy if not to the armies of Britain. 7 ' De Lancey's note, Jones, " New York in the Bevolution," vol. i. p. 712.

While in their documents they professed to believe that England was so good and great that she would in the end take their view of the situation, most of them were well aware that there was every probability that she would reject both their definition of a colony and their definition of loyalty. They knew 'the weakness of their argument for entire freedom from Parliament, and they sought for stronger, broader ground, an argument which would in the nature of things justify revolution, or, if you please, rebellion, under certain circumstances. 

I have already intimated that they were much influenced by certain doctrines known as the rights of man. In their pamphlets we find frequent reference to those ideas and also to certain writers who were the exponents of them, Grotius, Puffendorf, Locke, Burlamaqui, Beccaria, Montesquieu, and others. The patriots relied on these doctrines for the right which they now claimed of governing themselves independently of Parliament, with a mere protectorate from the British crown. Two years later they relied on the same doctrines for breaking off all relations with Great Britain and establishing absolute independence.

Those books and doctrines were very remarkable literature. Two of them alone, Locke's and Burlamaqui's small volumes, wrought as much harm to the cause of the British empire as the efforts of some of the patriot leaders. Beginning with Grotius, who was born in 1583, and ending with Montesquieu, who died in 1755, the writers mentioned covered a period of about two hundred years of political investigation, thought, and experience. In fact, they covered the period since the Reformation. They represented the effect of the Reformation on political thought. They represented also all those nations whose opinions on such subjects were worth anything. Grotius was a Dutchman, Puffendorf a German, Locke an Englishman, Burlamaqui an Italian Swiss, and Montesquieu a Frenchman.

Hooker, who lived from 1553 to 1600, and whom Locke cites so freely, might be included in the number, and that would make the period quite two hundred years. Hooker, in his "Ecclesiastical Polity," declared very emphatically that governments could not be legitimate unless they rested on the consent of the governed. Locke enlarged and drew out this thought so liberally that the prevailing party in England before the revolution of 1688 thought it necessary to exile him.

There were, of course, other minor writers; and the colonists relied upon them all ; but seldom troubled themselves to read the works of the earlier ones, or to read Hutchinson, Clarke, and other followers of that school, because Locke, Burlamaqui, and Beecaria had summarized them all and brought them down to date. Burlamaqui's book was particularly remarkable. To this day any one going to the Philadelphia Library, and asking for No. 77, can take in his hands the identical, well-worn volume which delegates to the Congress and many an unsettled Philadelphian read with earnest, anxious minds. It was among the first books that the library had obtained ; and perhaps the most important and effective book it has ever owned.* 

* The colonists were also fond of reading Montesquieu's " Spirit of the Laws, " but more in after years when they were framing their constitutions. He dealt more with the details of governmental administration, the legislative, executive, and judicial departments. Burlamaqui confined himself exclusively to the fundamental principles of political liberty and independence.

The rebellious colonists also read Locke's " Two Treatises on Government" with much profit and satisfaction to themselves. Locke was an extreme Whig, an English revolutionist of the school of 1688. Before that great event, he had been unendurable to the royalists, who were in power, and had been obliged to spend a large part of his time on the continent. In the preface to his "Two Treatises," he says that they will show how entirely legitimate is the title of William III. to the throne, because it is established on the consent of the people. That . is the burden of his whole argument, the consent of the people as the only true foundation of government. That principle sank so deep into the minds of the patriot colonists that it was the foundation of all their political thought, and became an essentially American idea.

Beccaria, who, like Burlamaqui, was an Italian, also exercised great influence on the colonists. His famous book, " Crimes and Punishments," was also a short, concise, but very eloquent volume. It caused a great stir in the world. The translation circulated in America had added to it a characteristic commentary by Voltaire. Beccaria, though not writing directly on the subject of liberty, necessarily included that subject, because he dealt with the administration of the criminal law. His plea for more humane and just punishments, and for punishments more in proportion to the offense, found a ready sympathy among the Americans, who had already revolted in disgust from the brutality and extravagant cruelty of the English criminal code.

But Beccaria also stated most beautifully and clearly the essential principles of liberty. His foundation doctrine, that " every act of authority of one man over another for which there is not absolute necessity is tyrannical," made a most profound impression in America. He laid down also the principle that " in every human society there is an effort continually tending to confer on one part the highest power and happiness, and to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness and misery." That sentence became the lifelong guide of many Americans. It became a constituent part of the minds of Jefferson and Hamilton. It can be seen as the foundation, the connecting strand, running all through the essays of the Federalist. It was the inspiration of the " checks and balances" in the national Constitution. It can be traced in American thought and legislation down to the present time.

Burlamaqui's book, devoted exclusively to the subject of liberty and independence, is still one of the best expositions of the true doctrines of natural law, or the rights of man. He belonged to a Protestant family that had once lived at Lucca, Italy; but had been compelled, like the family of Turretini, and many others, to take refuge in Switzerland. He became a professor at Geneva, which gave him the reputation of a learned man. He also became a counsellor of state and was noted for his practical sagacity

He had intended to write a great work in many volumes on the subject to which he had devoted so much of his life, "The Principles of Natural Law," as it was then called. Ill health preventing such a huge task, he prepared a single volume, which he said was only for beginners and students, because it dealt with the bare elements of the science in the simplest and plainest language.

This little book was translated into English in 1748, and contained only three hundred pages ; but in that small space of large, clear type, Burlamaqui compressed everything that the patriot colonists wanted to know. He was remarkably clear and concise, and gave the Americans the qualities of the Italian mind at its best. He aroused them by his modern glowing thought and his enthusiasm for progress and liberty. His handy little volume was vastly more effective and far-reaching than would have been the blunderbuss he had intended to load to the muzzle.

If we examine the volumes of Burlamaqui's predecessors, Grotius, Puffendorf, and the others, we find their statements about natural law and the rights of man rather brief, vague and general, as is usual with the old writers on any science. Burlamaqui brought them down to date, developed their principles, and swept in the results of all the thought and criticism since their day.

The term natural law, which all these writers used, has long since gone out of fashion. They used it because, inspired by the Reformation, they were struggling to get away from the arbitrary system, the artificial scholasticism, the despotism of the middle ages. They were seeking to obtain for law and government a foundation which should grow out of the nature of things, the common facts of life that everybody understood. They sought a system that, being natural, would become established and eternal like nature ; a system that would displace that thing of the middle ages which they detested, and called " arbitrary institution."

Let us, they said, contemplate for a time man as he is in himself, the natural man, his wants and requirements. 

"The only way," said Burlamaqui, "to attain to the knowledge of that natural law is to consider attentively the nature and constitution of man, the relations he has to the heings that surround him, and the states from thence resulting. In fact, the very term of natural law and the notion we have given of it, show that the principles of this science must he taken from the very nature and constitution of man." "Principles of Natural Law," p. 156.

Men naturally, he said, draw together to form societies for mutual protection and advantage. Their natural state is a state of union and society, and these societies are merely for the common advantage of all of the members. 

This was certainly a very simple proposition, but it had required centuries to bring men's minds back to it ; and it was not altogether safe to put forth because it implied that each community existed for the benefit of itself, for the benefit of its members, and not for the benefit of a prince or another nation, or for the church, or for an empire.

It was a principle quickly seized upon by the Americans as soon as their difficulties began in 1765. In their early debates and discussions we hear a great deal about a " state of nature," which at first seems rather meaningless to us. But it was merely their attempt to apply to themselves the fundamental principles of the Reformation. Were the colonies by the exaction's and remodeling of the mother country thrown into the "state of nature," where they could reorganize society afresh, on the basis of their own advantage ? How much severity or how much oppression or dissatisfaction would bring about this state of nature? "Was there any positive rule by which you could decide? Patrick Henry, who was always very eloquent on the subject, declared that the boundary had been passed; that the colonies were in a state of nature.

Any one who is at all familiar with the trend of thought for the last hundred years can readily see how closely this idea of going back to natural causes and first conceptions for the discovery of political principles is allied to every kind of modern progress ; to the modern study of natural history, the study of the plants and animals in their natural environment, instead of by preconceived scholastic theories ; the study of the human body by dissection instead of by supposition ; the study of heat, light, electricity, the soil, the rocks, the ocean, the stars by actual observation, without regard to what the Scriptures and learned commentators had to say. 

A large part of the American colonists were very far advanced in all the ideas of the Reformation. Burlamaqui's book, applying in clear every-day language these free and wonderful principles to politics and government, came to a large section of them as the most soul-stirring and mind-arousing message they had ever heard. It has all become trite enough to us ; but to them it was fresh and marvellous. Their imaginations seized on it with the indomitable energy and passion which the climate inspired, and some who breathed the air of Virginia and Massachusetts were on fire with enthusiasm. 

" This state of nature," argued Burlamaqui, " is not the work of man, but established by divine institution." 

"Natural society is a state of equality and liberty ; a state in which all men enjoy the same prerogatives, and an entire independence on any other power "but God. Por every man is naturally master of himself, and equal to his fellow-creatures so long as he does not subject himself to another person's authority by a particular convention." " Principles of Natural Law,' 7 p. 38. 

Here we find coupled with liberty that word equality which played such a tremendous part in history for the succeeding hundred years. And we must bear in mind that what the people of that time meant by it was political equality, equality of rights, equality before the law and the government ; and not equality of ability, talents, fortune, or gifts, as some have fancied. 

Burlamaqui not only found liberty, independence, and equality growing out of nature herself; but he argued that all this was part of the divine plan, the great order of nature and the universe. Indeed, that was what he and his Reformation predecessors had set out to discover, to unravel the system of humanity, to see if there really was a system that could be gathered from the actual plain facts ; and to see also if there was a unity and completeness in this system. 

" The human understanding," he says, " is naturally right, and has within itself a strength sufficient to arrive at the knowledge of truth, and to distinguish it from error." That he announces as the fundamental principle of his book, "the hinge whereon the whole system of humanity turns," and it was simply his way of restating the great doctrine of the Reformation, .the right of private judgment. 

But he goes on to enlarge on it in a way particularly pleasing to the patriot colonists, for he says we have this power to decide for ourselves, " especially in things wherein our respective duties are concerned." 

" Yes," said the colonists ; " we have often thought that we were the best judges of all our own affairs." 

" Those who feel," said Franklin, in his examination before Parliament, " can best judge." 

The daring Burlamaqui went on to show that liberty instead of being, as some supposed, a privilege to be graciously accorded, was in reality a universal right, inherent in the nature of things.

"Let us consider the system of humanity, either in general or particular, we shall find that the whole is built upon this principle, reflections, deliberations, researches, actions, judgments ; all suppose the use of liberty." " Principles of Natural Law,' 7 p. 25.

Then appears that idea common to the great leaders of thought in that age, that man's true purpose in the world is the pursuit of happiness. To this pursuit, they said, every human being has a complete right. It was part of liberty ; a necessary consequence of liberty, This principle of the right to pursue happiness, which is merely another way of stating the right of self-development, has played as great a part in subsequent history as equality. It is one of the foundation principles of the Declaration of Independence. It is given there as the ground-work of the right of revolution, the right of a people to throw off or destroy a power which interferes with this great pursuit, " and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its power in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." 

It has been interpreted in all sorts of ways, as the right to improve your condition, to develop your talents, to grow rich, or to rise into the class of society above you. It is now in its broadest meaning so axiomatic in this country that Americans can hardly realize that it was ever disputed. 

But it was, and still is, disputed in England and on the continent. Even so liberal a man as Kingsley resented with indignation the charge that he favored the aspiration of the lower classes to change their condition. Once a cobbler, remain a cobbler, and be content to be a good cobbler. In other words, the righteousness which lie so loudly professed was intended to exalt certain fortunate individuals, and not to advance society.

This desire and pursuit of happiness being part of nature, or part of the system of Providence, and as essential to every man and as inseparable from him as his reason, it should be freely allowed him, and not repressed. This, Burlamaqui declares, is a great principle, " the key of the human system," opening to vast consequences for the world.

The consequences have certainly been vast, vaster far than he dreamed of. Millions of people now live their daily life under the shadow of this doctrine. Millions have fled to us from Europe to seek its protection. Not only the whole American system of laws, but whole philosophies and codes of conduct have grown up under it. The abolitionists appealed to it, and freed six millions of slaves. The transcendental philosophy of New England, that extreme and beautiful attempt to develop conscience, nobility, and character from within ; that call of the great writers like Lowell to every humble individual to stand by his own personality, fear it not, advance it by its own lines ; even our education, the elective system of our colleges, all these things have followed under that "pursuit of happiness" which the rebel colonists seized upon so gladly in 1765 and enshrined in their Declaration of Independence in 1776.

They found in the principles of natural law how government, civil society, or " sovereignty" as those writers were apt to call it, was to be built up and regulated. Civil government did not destroy natural rights and the pursuit of happiness. On the contrary, it was intended to give these rights greater security and a fresh force and efficiency. That was the purpose men had in coming together to form a civil society for the benefit of all, that was the reason, as Burlamaqui put it, that " the sovereign became the depository, as it were, of the will and strength of each individual." 

This seemed very satisfactory to some of the colonists.You choose your sovereign, your government, for yourself, and make it your mere depository or agent. Then as to the nature of government, the right to govern, they were very much pleased to find that the only right there was of this sort was the right of each community to govern itself. Government by outside power was absolutely indefensible, because the notion that there was a divine right in one set of people to rule over others was exploded nonsense, and the assertion that mere might or superior power necessarily gave such right was equally indefensible. There remained only one plausible reason, and that was that superior excellence, wisdom, or ability might possibly give such right.

As to this "superior excellence" theory, if you admitted it you denied man's inherent right to liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness ; you denied his moral accountability and responsibility; you crippled his independent development, his self-development, his individual action; in a word, you destroyed the whole natural system. 

Because a man is inferior to another is no reason why he should surrender his liberty, his accountability, his chance for self-development, to the superior. We do not surrender our property to the next man who is an abler business manager. Our inferiority does not give him a right over us. On the contrary, the inferiority of the inferior man is an additional reason why he should cling to all those rights of nature which have been given to him, that he may have wherewithal to raise himself, and be alone accountable for himself. Or, as Burlamaqui briefly summarized it.

"The knowledge I have of the excellency of a superior does not alone afford me a motive sufficient to subject myself to him, and to Induce me to abandon my own will in order to take his for my rule ; . . . and without any reproach of conscience I may sincerely judge that the intelligent principle within mo is sufficient to direct my conduct" "Principles of Natural Law," p. 86. :

Moral obligation, moral responsibility, codes, conduct, life, happiness, development, and progress, he again shows, grow out of this right of private judgment, this right of individualism, the great protestant principle, which within the last one hundred and fifty years has brought such vast advancement and comfort to all nations that have adopted it.

No one has a natural inherent right to command or to exercise dominion. It is merely a privilege which may be granted by the people. They alone have inherent inalienable rights ; and they alone can confer the privilege of commanding. It had been supposed that the sovereign alone had rights, and the people only privileges. But here were Burlamaqui, Puffendorf, Montesquieu, Locke, and fully half the American colonists, undertaking to reverse this order and announcing that the people alone had rights, and the sovereign merely privileges.

True sovereignty was then, in a word, a superior and wise power accepted as such by reason ; or, as the Americans afterwards translated it in their documents, " a just government exists only by consent of the governed/' All men being born politically equal, the colonies, as Dickinson and Hamilton explained, are equally with Great Britain entitled to happiness, equally entitled to govern themselves, equally entitled to freedom and independence.* 
* "Dickinson's "Works," vol. i. p. 202.
It is curious to see the cautious, careful way in which some of the colonists applied these doctrines by mixing them up with their loyalty arguments. This is very noticeable in the pamphlets written by Alexander Hamilton. He gives the stock arguments for redress of grievances, freedom from internal taxation, government by the king alone, and will not admit that he is anything but a loyal subject. At the same time there runs through all he says an undercurrent of strong rebellion which leads to his ultimate object. "The power," he says, " which one society bestows upon any man or body of men can never extend beyond its own limits."

This he lays down as a universal truth, independently of charters and the wonderful British Constitution. It applied to the whole world. Parliament was elected by the people of England, therefore it had no authority outside of the British isle. That British isle and America were separate societies.  

"Nature," said Hamilton, " has distributed an equality of rights to every man." How then, he asked, can the English people have any rights over life, liberty, or property in America. They can have authority only among themselves in England. We are separated from Great Britain, Hamilton argued, not only by the ocean, by geography, but because we have no part or share in governing her. Therefore, as we have no share in governing her, she, by the law of nature, can have no share in governing us ; she is a separate society.

The British, he said, were attempting to involve in the idea of a colony the idea of political slavery, and against that a man must fight with his life. To be controlled by the superior wisdom of another nation was ridiculous, unworthy of the consideration of manhood ; and at this point he used that sentence which has so often been quoted, " Deplorable is the condition of that people who have nothing else than the wisdom and justice of another to depend upon." * 
* "Works, Lodge edition, vol. i. p. 70. 
Charters and documents, he declared, must yield to natural law and the rights of man.

" The sacred rights of man are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of divinity itself and can never be erased by mortal power.".

The Declaration of Independence was an epitome of these doctrines of natural law applied to the colonies. The Declaration of Independence originated in those doctrines, and not in the mind of Jefferson, as so many people have absurdly supposed. In order to see how directly the Declaration was an outcome of these teachings, we have only to read its opening paragraphs.

 "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal  that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ; and, accordingly, all experience hath, shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

By understanding the writings of Burlamaqui, Locke, and Beccaria, which the colonists were studying so intently, we know the origin of the Declaration, and need not flounder in the dark, as so many writers have done, wondering where it came from, or how it was that Jefferson could have invented it. Being unwilling to take the trouble of examining carefully the influences which preceded the Declaration, historical students are sometimes surprised to find a document like the Virginia Bill of Rights or the supposed Mecklenburg resolutions,* issued before the Declaration and yet containing the same principles. They instantly jump to the conclusion that here is the real origin and author of the Declaration, and from this Jefferson stole his ideas.
* Magazine of American History, vol. xxi. pp. 31, 221.
Jefferson drafted the Declaration ; but neither he, John Adams, Franklin, Sherman, nor Livingston, who composed the committee which was responsible for it, ever claimed any originality for its principles. They were merely stating principles which were already familiar to the people, so familiar that they stated them somewhat carelessly and took too much for granted. It would have been better, instead of saying, "all men are created equal," that they had said all men are created politically equal, which was what they meant, and what every one at that time understood. By leaving out the word politically they gave an opportunity to a generation unfamiliar with the doctrines of natural law to suppose that they meant that all men are created, or should be made, equal in conditions, opportunities, or talents.

British writers, and some Americans, anxious to secure the favorable regard of Englishmen, have in recent years been fond of asserting that the patriot colonists took their ideas of liberty and the principles of the Declaration of Independence from the writings of Rousseau. But after reading hundreds of pamphlets and arguments of the Revolutionary period, I cannot find Rousseau or any French writer of his sort cited with approval by any of the colonists. They confine themselves entirely to the school of writers already mentioned.

In the pamphlets written by loyalists there is no charge that the colonists were influenced by Rousseau. Peter Van Schaack, the loyalist whose memoirs and letters have come down to us, followed the arguments of the patriot portion of the colonists very closely. He notes the books which they were reading and which influenced them. He would have been very quick to notice and comment on Rousseau, if the colonists had been reading him. But he nowhere mentions such influence.* 
* In the " Address of the People of Great Britain to the Inhabitants of America," published in London in 1775, the author complains that the colonists are influenced by Montesquieu, and wishes that they would study, instead, the condition of the Greek states in the Peloponnesian War. In " A Letter from a Veteran to the Officers of the Army," published in 1774, the author, a very stout Tory, says that the colonists were too much influenced by Locke and Harrington. There is no mention of Rousseau. See, also, "The Constitutional Eight of the Legislature of Great Britain to tax the British Colonies," p. vii., London, 1768. Few Englishmen studied the colonies more closely than Dean Tucker, and he would have quickly commented on any influence from Rousseau. In Cui Bono," p. 20, he says, " The great grievance of the colonies and their bitter complaints against the mother-country were that they were not governed a la monsr Locke : for to give them their due they hardly made any objection to anything besides. ' ' The authorities the patriot colonists relied on and their way of citing them are well exhibited in Dickinson's " Essay on the Constitutional Power of Great Britain," pp. 43, 44, 56, 76, 81, 101, 102, 106, etc. See, also, : { Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament," pp. 3, 5, 9, etc., Philadelphia, 1774; Works of John Adams, vol. ii. p. 388.
Writers who are out of sympathy with American ideas very naturally want to fasten the influence of Rousseau upon us ; and connect our principles in some way with the horrors of the French revolution. Rousseau was an immoral, eccentric, and violent man, and his view of liberty colonists seem to have been totally uninfluenced by these Frenchmen, who were carrying liberty to a ridiculous extreme in their attack on the corrupt and loathsome social system of France. The Americans, on the other hand, had no such problem to deal with. They had nothing against their own social system. On the contrary, they liked it so well that they were*' fighting for the independence of it.

TO BE CONTINUED...