Part 16 (2/2)
”Facies, non omnibus una, Nec diversa tamen, qualem docet esse sororum”
But the habits, sentiments, and objects of both soon beca out of their condition in the New World; and as this condition was essentially alike in both, and as both at once adopted the salish jurisprudence, and became accustomed to the authority of representative bodies, these differences gradually diress of time, and the influence of intercourse The necessity of soainst the savage tribes, tended to excite in theether in the wars against France The great and common cause of the Revolution bound theth the present constitution of governreat republic of the world, and bound up their interests and fortunes, till the whole earth sees that there is now for them, in present possession as well as in future hope, but ”One Country, One Constitution, and One Destiny”
The colonization of the tropical region, and the whole of the southern parts of the continent, by Spain and Portugal, was conducted on other principles, under the influence of other motives, and followed by far different consequences Froovernment pushed forward its settleerness; so that long before the first perlish settlement had been accomplished in what is now the United States, Spain had conquered Mexico, Peru, and Chili, and stretched her power over nearly all the territory she ever acquired on this continent
The rapidity of these conquests is to be ascribed in a great degree to the eagerness, not to say the rapacity, of those numerous bands of adventurers, ere stimulated by individual interests and private hopes to subdue iions, and take possession of theold and silver were the inciteenerally made, and Spanish authority established iation of territory, that the native population ht be set to work by their new Spanish old, not produced by industry, nor accu from its native bed in the bowels of the earth, and that earth ravished froree of enor passion in Spanish wars and Spanish settlements in America Even Columbus himself did not wholly escape the influence of this basefroold; as if God had opened the New World to the knowledge of the Old, only to gratify a passion equally senseless and sordid, and to offer uprace of men to the destruction of the sword, sharpened both by cruelty and rapacity And yet Colue and country Enthusiastic, indeed, but sober, religious, and h sentiments, as his noble discourse before Ferdinand and Isabella, as well as the whole history of his life, shows Probably he sacrificed much to the known sentiments of others, and addressed to his followers motives likely to influence them
At the same time, it is evident that he himself looked upon the world which he discovered as a world of wealth, all ready to be seized and enjoyed
The conquerors and the European settlers of Spanish America were mainly military commanders and common soldiers The monarchy of Spain was not transferred to this heh its ordinary means, and its true representative, military force
The robbery and destruction of the native race was the achieve, and by his authority, fighting in his narandizeatives, with military ideas under arbitrary maxims,--a portion of that dreadful instruoverns a people As there was no liberty in Spain, how could liberty be translish America were of the people, and a people already free They were of the middle, industrious, and already prosperous class, the inhabitants of co whom liberty first revived and respired, after a sleep of a thousand years in the bosoes Spain descended on the New World in the arland approached it in the winning and popular garb of personal rights, public protection, and civil freedoland transplanted liberty to Aency of private companies and the efforts of individuals, colonized this part of North A their oay in the wilderness, defending theht to the soil, and with a general honest purpose of introducing knowledge as well as Christianity a them
Spain stooped on South A was force Territories were acquired by fire and sword Cities were destroyed by fire and sword Hundreds of thousands of hus fell by fire and sword Even conversion to Christianity was attempted by fire and sword
Behold, then, fellow-citizens, the difference resulting from the operation of the two principles! Here, to-day, on the summit of Bunker Hill, and at the foot of this monument, behold the difference! I would that the fifty thousand voices present could proclailobe Our inheritance was of liberty, secured and regulated by law, and enlightened by religion and knowledge; that of South A, tyrannical, military power And now look to the consequences of the two principles on the general and aggregate happiness of the huions conquered by Cortez and Pizarro, and the contrasted results here I suppose the territory of the United States hth, or one tenth, of that colonized by Spain on this continent; and yet in all that vast region there are but between one and two millions of people of European color and European blood, while in the United States there are fourteen millions who rejoice in their descent from the people of the more northern part of Europe
But we inal principle of colonization, and in its character and objects, still further We must look to moral and intellectual results; we must consider consequences, not only as they show the the increase of population and the supply of physical wants, but in their civilization, iress has been reat principles of self-governress of
I would not willingly say any thing on this occasion discourteous to the new governments founded on the demolition of the power of the Spanish monarchy They are yet on their trial, and I hope for a favorable result But truth, sacred truth, and fidelity to the cause of civil liberty, compel me to say, that hitherto they have discovered quite too much of the spirit of that monarchy from which they separated themselves Quite too frequent resort is made to military force; and quite tooarression, but for enforcing obedience to do ar the people, in the hands of hereditary and arbitrary overnment founded on mock elections, and supported only by the sword, is a rade and disastrous ular and old-fashi+oned s of republican governovern themselves by reason, by eneral interest, and by the acquiescence of the minority in the will of the majority, properly expressed; and, above all, the e of our Bill of Rights, in strict subordination to the civil authority Wherever this lesson is not both learned and practised, there can be no political freedom Absurd, preposterous is it, a scoff and a satire on free forovernht of suffrage to be exercised at the point of the sword
Making all allowance for situation and clientbetween North and South Aree, to political institutions in the Old World and in the New And how broad that difference is! Suppose an assembly, in one of the valleys or on the side of one of the mountains of the southern half of the hee city;--ould be the scene presented? Yonder is a volcano, flaht, moral or intellectual At its foot is the ains to capital, but in which labor is destined to eternal and unrequited toil, and followed only by penury and beggary The city is filled with ar forth voluntarily to rejoice in a public festivity, but hireling troops, supported by forced loans, excessive i froreat there are palaces covered with gold; for the poor there are hovels of thethe wealth of princes; but there are no means of education for the people
Do public improvements favor intercourse between place and place? So far from this, the traveller cannot pass froer, every e or exaggerate this picture; but its principal features are all too truly sketched
And how does it contrast with the scene now actually before us? Look round upon these fields; they are verdant and beautiful, well cultivated, and at this moment loaded with the riches of the early harvest The hands which till thehts, and protected by law from oppression and tyranny Look to the thousand vessels in our sight, filling the harbor, or covering the neighboring sea They are the vehicles of a profitable commerce, carried on by men who know that the profits of their hardy enterprise, when they ed and regulated by wise laws, and defended, when need be, by the valor and patriotism of the country Look to that fair city, the abode of so eneral happiness and coeneral knowledge, and not undistinguished, I may be permitted to add, for hospitality and social refine from military leaders of rival factions The hundred teer of sacrilege The regular ad processions of children and youth, which you see this day, issuing by thousands from her free schools, prove the care and anxiety hich a popular government provides for the education and morals of the people
Everywhere there is order; everywhere there is security Everywhere the law reaches to the highest and reaches to the lowest, to protect all in their rights, and to restrain all fro; and over all hovers liberty; that liberty for which our fathers fought and fell on this very spot, with her eye ever watchful, and her eagle wing ever wide outspread
The colonies of Spain, fron authority of the overnment, as well as their commerce, was a strict hoe of filling important posts in the administration of the colonies exclusively by natives of Old Spain, thus cutting off for ever all hopes of honorable preferment froh rise up before us at once to account fully for the subsequent history and character of these provinces The viceroys and provincial governors of Spain were never at hoovernments in America They did not feel that they were of the people whooverned Their official character and eood deal of resemblance to those of the proconsuls of Rome, in Asia, Sicily, and Gaul; but obviously no resemblance to those of Carver and Winthrop, and very little to those of the governors of Virginia after that Colony had established a popular House of Burgesses
The English colonists in A new hoht with them their families and all that was most dear to them This was especially the case with the colonists of Plymouth and Massachusetts Many of them were educatedto their social condition, of the knowledge and attaine The distinctive characteristic of their settlement is the introduction of the civilization of Europe into a wilderness, without bringing with it the political institutions of Europe The arts, sciences, and literature of England careat portion of the coulates the social and personal relations and conduct of men, came also The jury came; the _habeas corpus_ came; the testamentary power came; and the law of inheritance and descent cahts of priave way to the rule of equal partition of estates a children But the monarchy did not come, nor the aristocracy, nor the church, as an estate of the realm Political institutions were to be fras But it could not be doubtful what should be the nature and character of these institutions A general social equality prevailed ahts seemed the natural, if not the necessary consequence After forty years of revolution, violence, and war, the people of France have placed at the head of the fundareat boon obtained by all their sufferings and sacrifices, the declaration that all Frenchmen are equal before the law What France has reached only by the expenditure of so much blood and treasure, and the perpetration of sotheir place, carrying with them the intellectual and moral culture of Europe, and the personal and social relations to which they were accusto behind their political institutions It has been said with much vivacity, that the felicity of the American colonists consisted in their escape from the past This is true so far as respects political establishht with them a full portion of all the riches of the past, in science, in art, in ion, and literature The Bible came with them
And it is not to be doubted, that to the free and universal reading of the Bible, in that age, ht views of civil liberty The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of ion, of especial revelation from God; but it is also a book which teaches nity, and his equality with his fellow-man
Bacon and Locke, and Shakspeare and Milton, also came with the colonists It was the object of the first settlers to fored to cultivated hborhood, to social relations, accompanied them In the Doric phrase of one of our own historians, ”they came to settle on bare creation”; but their settleees It was the beginning of a permanent community, the fixed residence of cultivated ood English, was spoken and written, before the axe had made way to let in the sun upon the habitations and fields of Plymouth and Massachusetts
And whatever uage is, at this day, hout England herself
But another grand characteristic is, that, in the English colonies, political affairs were left to be ed by the colonists the theuished them in fortune, from the colonists of Spain Here lies the foundation of that experience in self-governularity, aovernment was the secret of the prosperity of the North Aland colonists, with a hted reach into futurity, refused to co with the for the administration of their affairs in this country[66] They saw frooverned in the New World by a power fixed in the Old Acknowledging the general superiority of the crown, they still insisted on the right of passing local laws, and of local administration And history teaches us the justice and the value of this deterinia
The early attempts to settle that Colony failed, sometimes with the e, care, and attention on the part of those who had the charge of their affairs in England; and it was only after the issuing of the third charter, that its prosperity fairly commenced The cause was, that by that third charter the people of Virginia, for by this time they deserve to be so called, were allowed to constitute and establish the first popular representative asseinia House of Burgesses
The great eleinally introduced by the colonists, and which were early in operation, and ready to be developed, ress of events should justify or demand, were,--