Part 8 (1/2)
American Independence
Drifting into War.-Although the Congress had not given up all hope of reconciliation in the spring and summer of 1775, it had firmly resolved to defend American rights by arms if necessary. It transformed the militiamen who had a.s.sembled near Boston, after the battle of Lexington, into a Continental army and selected Was.h.i.+ngton as commander-in-chief. It a.s.sumed the powers of a government and prepared to raise money, wage war, and carry on diplomatic relations with foreign countries.
From an old print Spirit of 1776 Events followed thick and fast. On June 17, the American militia, by the stubborn defense of Bunker Hill, showed that it could make British regulars pay dearly for all they got. On July 3, Was.h.i.+ngton took command of the army at Cambridge. In January, 1776, after bitter disappointments in drumming up recruits for its army in England, Scotland, and Ireland, the British government concluded a treaty with the Landgrave of Hesse-Ca.s.sel in Germany contracting, at a handsome figure, for thousands of soldiers and many pieces of cannon. This was the crowning insult to America. Such was the view of all friends of the colonies on both sides of the water. Such was, long afterward, the judgment of the conservative historian Lecky: ”The conduct of England in hiring German mercenaries to subdue the essentially English population beyond the Atlantic made reconciliation hopeless and independence inevitable.” The news of this wretched transaction in German soldiers had hardly reached America before there ran all down the coast the thrilling story that Was.h.i.+ngton had taken Boston, on March 17, 1776, compelling Lord Howe to sail with his entire army for Halifax.
The Growth of Public Sentiment in Favor of Independence.-Events were bearing the Americans away from their old position under the British const.i.tution toward a final separation. Slowly and against their desires, prudent and honorable men, who cherished the ties that united them to the old order and dreaded with genuine horror all thought of revolution, were drawn into the path that led to the great decision. In all parts of the country and among all cla.s.ses, the question of the hour was being debated. ”American independence,” as the historian Bancroft says, ”was not an act of sudden pa.s.sion nor the work of one man or one a.s.sembly. It had been discussed in every part of the country by farmers and merchants, by mechanics and planters, by the fishermen along the coast and the backwoodsmen of the West; in town meetings and from the pulpit; at social gatherings and around the camp fires; in county conventions and conferences or committees; in colonial congresses and a.s.semblies.”
From an old print Thomas Paine Paine's ”Commonsense.”-In the midst of this ferment of American opinion, a bold and eloquent pamphleteer broke in upon the hesitating public with a program for absolute independence, without fears and without apologies. In the early days of 1776, Thomas Paine issued the first of his famous tracts, ”Commonsense,” a pa.s.sionate attack upon the British monarchy and an equally pa.s.sionate plea for American liberty. Casting aside the language of pet.i.tion with which Americans had hitherto addressed George III, Paine went to the other extreme and a.s.sailed him with many a violent epithet. He condemned monarchy itself as a system which had laid the world ”in blood and ashes.” Instead of praising the British const.i.tution under which colonists had been claiming their rights, he brushed it aside as ridiculous, protesting that it was ”owing to the const.i.tution of the people, not to the const.i.tution of the government, that the Crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.”
Having thus summarily swept away the grounds of allegiance to the old order, Paine proceeded relentlessly to an argument for immediate separation from Great Britain. There was nothing in the sphere of practical interest, he insisted, which should bind the colonies to the mother country. Allegiance to her had been responsible for the many wars in which they had been involved. Reasons of trade were not less weighty in behalf of independence. ”Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe and our imported goods must be paid for, buy them where we will.” As to matters of government, ”it is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice; the business of it will soon be too weighty and intricate to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience by a power so distant from us and so very ignorant of us.”
There is accordingly no alternative to independence for America. ”Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries ”tis time to part.' ... Arms, the last resort, must decide the contest; the appeal was the choice of the king and the continent hath accepted the challenge.... The sun never shone on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a county, a province or a kingdom, but of a continent.... 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year or an age; posterity is involved in the contest and will be more or less affected to the end of time by the proceedings now. Now is the seed-time of Continental union, faith, and honor.... O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth.... Let names of Whig and Tory be extinct. Let none other be heard among us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind and of the free and independent states of America.” As more than 100,000 copies were scattered broadcast over the country, patriots exclaimed with Was.h.i.+ngton: ”Sound doctrine and unanswerable reason!”
The Drift of Events toward Independence.-Official support for the idea of independence began to come from many quarters. On the tenth of February, 1776, Gadsden, in the provincial convention of South Carolina, advocated a new const.i.tution for the colony and absolute independence for all America. The convention balked at the latter but went half way by abolis.h.i.+ng the system of royal administration and establis.h.i.+ng a complete plan of self-government. A month later, on April 12, the neighboring state of North Carolina uttered the daring phrase from which others shrank. It empowered its representatives in the Congress to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring independence. Rhode Island, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Virginia quickly responded to the challenge. The convention of the Old Dominion, on May 15, instructed its delegates at Philadelphia to propose the independence of the United Colonies and to give the a.s.sent of Virginia to the act of separation. When the resolution was carried the British flag on the state house was lowered for all time.
Meanwhile the Continental Congress was alive to the course of events outside. The subject of independence was constantly being raised. ”Are we rebels?” exclaimed Wyeth of Virginia during a debate in February. ”No: we must declare ourselves a free people.” Others hesitated and spoke of waiting for the arrival of commissioners of conciliation. ”Is not America already independent?” asked Samuel Adams a few weeks later. ”Why not then declare it?” Still there was uncertainty and delegates avoided the direct word. A few more weeks elapsed. At last, on May 10, Congress declared that the authority of the British crown in America must be suppressed and advised the colonies to set up governments of their own.
From an old print Thomas Jefferson Reading His Draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Committee of Congress Independence Declared.-The way was fully prepared, therefore, when, on June 7, the Virginia delegation in the Congress moved that ”these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.” A committee was immediately appointed to draft a formal doc.u.ment setting forth the reasons for the act, and on July 2 all the states save New York went on record in favor of severing their political connection with Great Britain. Two days later, July 4, Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence, changed in some slight particulars, was adopted. The old bell in Independence Hall, as it is now known, rang out the glad tidings; couriers swiftly carried the news to the uttermost hamlet and farm. A new nation announced its will to have a place among the powers of the world.
To some doc.u.ments is given immortality. The Declaration of Independence is one of them. American patriotism is forever a.s.sociated with it; but patriotism alone does not make it immortal. Neither does the vigor of its language or the severity of its indictment give it a secure place in the records of time. The secret of its greatness lies in the simple fact that it is one of the memorable landmarks in the history of a political ideal which for three centuries has been taking form and spreading throughout the earth, challenging kings and potentates, shaking down thrones and aristocracies, breaking the armies of irresponsible power on battle fields as far apart as Marston Moor and Chateau-Thierry. That ideal, now so familiar, then so novel, is summed up in the simple sentence: ”Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Written in a ”decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” to set forth the causes which impelled the American colonists to separate from Britain, the Declaration contained a long list of ”abuses and usurpations” which had induced them to throw off the government of King George. That section of the Declaration has pa.s.sed into ”ancient” history and is seldom read. It is the part laying down a new basis for government and giving a new dignity to the common man that has become a household phrase in the Old World as in the New.
In the more enduring pa.s.sages there are four fundamental ideas which, from the standpoint of the old system of government, were the essence of revolution: (1) all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; (2) the purpose of government is to secure these rights; (3) governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; (4) whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and inst.i.tute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Here was the prelude to the historic drama of democracy-a challenge to every form of government and every privilege not founded on popular a.s.sent.
The Establishment of Government and the New Allegiance
The Committees of Correspondence.-As soon as debate had pa.s.sed into armed resistance, the patriots found it necessary to consolidate their forces by organizing civil government. This was readily effected, for the means were at hand in town meetings, provincial legislatures, and committees of correspondence. The working tools of the Revolution were in fact the committees of correspondence-small, local, unofficial groups of patriots formed to exchange views and create public sentiment. As early as November, 1772, such a committee had been created in Boston under the leaders.h.i.+p of Samuel Adams. It held regular meetings, sent emissaries to neighboring towns, and carried on a campaign of education in the doctrines of liberty.
The Colonies of North America at the Time of the Declaration of Independence Upon local organizations similar in character to the Boston committee were built county committees and then the larger colonial committees, congresses, and conventions, all unofficial and representing the revolutionary elements. Ordinarily the provincial convention was merely the old legislative a.s.sembly freed from all royalist sympathizers and controlled by patriots. Finally, upon these colonial a.s.semblies was built the Continental Congress, the precursor of union under the Articles of Confederation and ultimately under the Const.i.tution of the United States. This was the revolutionary government set up within the British empire in America.
State Const.i.tutions Framed.-With the rise of these new a.s.semblies of the people, the old colonial governments broke down. From the royal provinces the governor, the judges, and the high officers fled in haste, and it became necessary to subst.i.tute patriot authorities. The appeal to the colonies advising them to adopt a new form of government for themselves, issued by the Congress in May, 1776, was quickly acted upon. Before the expiration of a year, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, and New York had drafted new const.i.tutions as states, not as colonies uncertain of their destinies. Connecticut and Rhode Island, holding that their ancient charters were equal to their needs, merely renounced their allegiance to the king and went on as before so far as the form of government was concerned. South Carolina, which had drafted a temporary plan early in 1776, drew up a new and more complete const.i.tution in 1778. Two years later Ma.s.sachusetts with much deliberation put into force its fundamental law, which in most of its essential features remains unchanged to-day.
The new state const.i.tutions in their broad outlines followed colonial models. For the royal governor was subst.i.tuted a governor or president chosen usually by the legislature; but in two instances, New York and Ma.s.sachusetts, by popular vote. For the provincial council there was subst.i.tuted, except in Georgia, a senate; while the lower house, or a.s.sembly, was continued virtually without change. The old property restriction on the suffrage, though lowered slightly in some states, was continued in full force to the great discontent of the mechanics thus deprived of the ballot. The special qualifications, laid down in several const.i.tutions, for governors, senators, and representatives, indicated that the revolutionary leaders were not prepared for any radical experiments in democracy. The protests of a few women, like Mrs. John Adams of Ma.s.sachusetts and Mrs. Henry Corbin of Virginia, against a government which excluded them from political rights were treated as mild curiosities of no significance, although in New Jersey women were allowed to vote for many years on the same terms as men.
By the new state const.i.tutions the signs and symbols of royal power, of authority derived from any source save ”the people,” were swept aside and republican governments on an imposing scale presented for the first time to the modern world. Copies of these remarkable doc.u.ments prepared by plain citizens were translated into French and widely circulated in Europe. There they were destined to serve as a guide and inspiration to a generation of const.i.tution-makers whose mission it was to begin the democratic revolution in the Old World.
The Articles of Confederation.-The formation of state const.i.tutions was an easy task for the revolutionary leaders. They had only to build on foundations already laid. The establishment of a national system of government was another matter. There had always been, it must be remembered, a system of central control over the colonies, but Americans had had little experience in its operation. When the supervision of the crown of Great Britain was suddenly broken, the patriot leaders, accustomed merely to provincial statesmans.h.i.+p, were poorly trained for action on a national stage.
Many forces worked against those who, like Franklin, had a vision of national destiny. There were differences in economic interest-commerce and industry in the North and the planting system of the South. There were contests over the apportionment of taxes and the quotas of troops for common defense. To these practical difficulties were added local pride, the vested rights of state and village politicians in their provincial dignity, and the scarcity of men with a large outlook upon the common enterprise.
Nevertheless, necessity compelled them to consider some sort of federation. The second Continental Congress had hardly opened its work before the most sagacious leaders began to urge the desirability of a permanent connection. As early as July, 1775, Congress resolved to go into a committee of the whole on the state of the union, and Franklin, undaunted by the fate of his Albany plan of twenty years before, again presented a draft of a const.i.tution. Long and desultory debates followed and it was not until late in 1777 that Congress presented to the states the Articles of Confederation. Provincial jealousies delayed ratification, and it was the spring of 1781, a few months before the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, when Maryland, the last of the states, approved the Articles. This plan of union, though it was all that could be wrung from the reluctant states, provided for neither a chief executive nor a system of federal courts. It created simply a Congress of delegates in which each state had an equal voice and gave it the right to call upon the state legislatures for the sinews of government-money and soldiers.
The Application of Tests of Allegiance.-As the successive steps were taken in the direction of independent government, the patriots devised and applied tests designed to discover who were for and who were against the new nation in the process of making. When the first Continental Congress agreed not to allow the importation of British goods, it provided for the creation of local committees to enforce the rules. Such agencies were duly formed by the choice of men favoring the scheme, all opponents being excluded from the elections. Before these bodies those who persisted in buying British goods were summoned and warned or punished according to circ.u.mstances. As soon as the new state const.i.tutions were put into effect, local committees set to work in the same way to ferret out all who were not outspoken in their support of the new order of things.
Mobbing the Tories These patriot agencies, bearing different names in different sections, were sometimes ruthless in their methods. They called upon all men to sign the test of loyalty, frequently known as the ”a.s.sociation test.” Those who refused were promptly branded as outlaws, while some of the more dangerous were thrown into jail. The prison camp in Connecticut at one time held the former governor of New Jersey and the mayor of New York. Thousands were black-listed and subjected to espionage. The black-list of Pennsylvania contained the names of nearly five hundred persons of prominence who were under suspicion. Loyalists or Tories who were bold enough to speak and write against the Revolution were suppressed and their pamphlets burned. In many places, particularly in the North, the property of the loyalists was confiscated and the proceeds applied to the cause of the Revolution.