Loe raamatut: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851»

OUR NATIONAL ANNIVERSARY

BY BENSON J. LOSSING

ON the morning of a brilliant day in October, 1760, the heir apparent to the British throne and his groom of the stole, were riding on horseback near Kew Palace, on the banks of the Thames. The heir was George, son of the deceased Frederick, Prince of Wales; the groom was John Stuart, Earl of Bute, an impoverished descendant of an ancient Scottish chieftain. The prince was young, virtuous, and amiable; the earl was in the prime of mature manhood, pedantic, gay, courtly in bearing, and winning in deportment. He came as an adventurer to the court of George the Second, for he possessed nothing but an earldom, a handsome person, and great assurance; he lived in affluence in the royal household of Frederick, because he played Lothario well not only in the amateur theatre, but in the drawing-room of the princess, and soon became her petted favorite.

The Prince of Wales died, and rumor with her half-lying tongue often whispered in the public ear the suspicion that the earl and the dowager princess were unmindful of the requirements of virtue. Public credulity believed the scandal, and the public mind became troubled because the pupilage of the future sovereign was under the guidance of the shallow earl. He was a tutor more expert in the knowledge of stage-plays, the paraphernalia of the acted drama, and the laws of fashion and etiquette necessary for the beau and the courtier, than in comprehension of the most simple principles of jurisprudence, the duties of a statesman, or the solid acquirements necessary for a reigning prince or his chief adviser. It was evident that the groom of the stole would be the prime minister of the realm when George should possess the throne of his grandfather, and this expectation made virtuous men and true patriots unhappy.

The prince and his inseparable companion had just reined up at the portal of the garden of the dowager, at Kew, when a solemn peal tolled out from the bells of London. While they were listening, a messenger came in haste to the prince and announced the sudden death of the old king. He was soon followed by William Pitt, the greatest commoner in England, the idol of the people, and, as prime minister, the actual ruler of the affairs of the empire. Pitt confirmed the sad tidings, and made preliminary arrangements for proclaiming the accession of George the Third.

EARL OF BUTE.

The earl and his pupil remained that day and night at Kew, in company with Doddington and a few other friends, and the next morning rode up to St. James's, in London, to meet the great officers of state. At that interview, Pitt presented the young king with an address to be pronounced at a meeting of the Privy Council. The minister was informed that one had already been prepared. This announcement opened to the sagacious mind of Pitt a broad and gloomy view of the future. He perceived that Bute was to be the ruling spirit in the new cabinet; that he whom he despised for his weakness and illiberality, his pedantic assumption of superior scholarship, and his merited unpopularity with the people, was to be the bosom friend and adviser of the king. Pitt well knew his unfitness, and deplored the consequences. Unwilling to be held in the least responsible for errors which were certain to abound in the administration of affairs, he soon withdrew to his mansion at Hayes, and watched, with all the interest and anxiety of a statesman and patriot, the gradual weaving of the web of difficulty in which the impotent men who surrounded the king, were soon ensnared.

By virtue of his office as groom of the stole, Bute was sworn in a Privy Councilor, and, by degrees he obtained the control of the cabinet. For nearly ten years his unwise advice and defective statesmanship, in the cabinet and in the parlor, led George the Third into many and grave errors, which finally resulted in the loss of the fairest portion of his American possessions. Had Pitt been allowed to guide the public policy and direct the honest but stubborn mind of the king at the beginning of his long reign of half a century, these United States might have remained a part of the British Empire fifty years longer. But that great man, whose genius as a statesman, eloquence and wisdom as a legislator, and whose thorough knowledge of human nature and the past history of the world, made him peerless, and whose administration of government during almost the entire progress of The Seven Years' War, had carried England to a height of prosperity and influence which she had never before approached, was superseded by a fop; his eminent worth was overlooked; his services were apparently forgotten, and he was allowed to retire from office and leave the young sovereign and his government in the hands of weak, crafty, and selfish men. The people venerated Pitt; they despised the very name of Stuart. They deprecated the influence of the king's mother as being unfavorable to popular freedom. A placard which appeared upon the Royal Exchange, bearing, in large letters, the significant expression of "No petticoat government—no Scotch minister—no Lord George Sackville," prefigured those popular tumults which soon afterward disturbed the metropolis and extended to the American colonies. That placard was the harbinger of that great Declaration, the adoption of which by a representative Congress of the Anglo-American people fifteen years afterward, is the occasion of our National Anniversary.

From the accession of Charles the Second, just one hundred years before George the Third ascended the throne, the English colonies in America struggled manfully for prosperity against the unjust and illiberal commercial policy of Great Britain. With a strange obtuseness of perception in regard to the elements of national prosperity, which the truths of modern political economy now clearly illustrate to the common mind, the British government sought to fill its coffers from the products of colonial industry, by imposing upon their commerce such severe restrictions that its expansion was almost prohibited. The wisdom and prudent counsels of men like Robert Walpole were of no avail; and, down to the accession of George the Third, the industrial pursuits of the colonists, under the regulations of the Board of Trade, were subjected to restraints and impositions which amounted to actual oppression. The Americans often petitioned for justice, but in vain. Continental wars continually drained the imperial treasury, and the inventive genius of British statesmen continually planned new schemes for the creation of a revenue adequate to meet the enormous expenditures of government. Despite the Navigation Act and kindred measures, sometimes enforced with rigor, and sometimes with laxity, the American Colonies grew rich and powerful. Despite the injustice of the mother country, they were eminently loyal. During the long war between France and England which was waged in the wilds of America, and which called into fierce action the savage tribes of the forests, the colonies contributed men and money with a lavish prodigality to sustain the honor of Great Britain, and the Gallic power on our continent was crushed, chiefly by provincial strength. The fidelity, the generosity, the prowess, and the loyalty of the Americans commanded the admiration of England, and should have excited her grateful desires to reciprocate and requite the service. On the contrary, the exhibition of the wealth and strength of the colonies during that war, excited her jealousy, led to greater exactions, and were made a pretense for more flagrant acts of injustice. She seemed to regard the Americans as industrious bees, working in a hive in her own apiary, in duty bound to lay up stores of honey for her especial use, and entitled to only the poor requital of a little treacle.

Relying upon the steady loyalty of the colonists, and their pecuniary ability, the advisers of the king looked to them for unceasing and substantial aid in replenishing the exhausted exchequer. Hitherto many of the commercial regulations had been evaded; now a rigid enforcement of the revenue laws was commenced. By the advice of Bute the king determined to "reform the American charters." Secret agents were sent to traverse the colonies for the purpose of ascertaining the temper of the people, of conciliating men of wealth and influence, and of obtaining such information as might be useful to ministers in preparing a plan for drawing a portion of the surplus wealth of the Americans into the imperial treasury. The first reform measure was the issuing of Writs of Assistance to revenue officers. These were warrants to custom-house officials, giving them and their deputies a general power to enter houses and stores where it might be suspected that contraband goods were concealed. This was a violation of one of the dearest principles of Magna Charta which recognizes the house of every Briton as his castle. The idea of such latitude being given to "the meanest deputy of a deputy's deputy" created general indignation and alarm. It might cover the grossest abuses, and no man's privacy would be free from the intrusions of these ministerial hirelings. The colonies saw in this the budding germ of despotism, and resolved to oppose its growth. The voice of James Otis the younger, a ripe scholar of six-and-thirty, and then the Advocate General of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, first denounced the scheme and declared the great political postulate which became the basis of all subsequent resistance to kingly domination, that "Taxation, without Representation, is Tyranny." Like the deep and startling tones of an alarm-bell, echoing from hill to hill, his bold eloquence aroused the hearts of thinking men from the Penobscot to the St. Mary; and his published arguments, like an electric shock, thrilled every nerve in the Atlantic provinces. "Otis was a flame of fire," said John Adams, in describing the scene in the Massachusetts Assembly, when the orator uttered his denunciations. "With a promptitude of classical allusion and a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authority, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him. The seeds of patriots and heroes were then and there sown. Every man of an immensely crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take up arms against Writs of Assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child, Independence, was born. In fifteen years, that is, in 1776, he grew up to manhood, and declared himself free."

JAMES OTIS.

Poor Otis! The bludgeon of a ministerial myrmidon paralyzed his brilliant intellect, and he was not allowed to participate in the scenes of the Revolution which ensued. Just as the white banner of peace began to wave over his country, after a struggle of twenty years to which he gave the first impulse, an electric bolt from the clouds mercifully released his wearied spirit from its earthly thrall.

The people were now fairly aroused. "Give us a just representation in the national council," they said, "and we will cheerfully submit to the expressed will of the majority." Great Britain was too proud to listen to conditions from her children; too blind to perceive the expediency of fair concession. She haughtily refused the reciprocity asked, and menaced the recusants. In the war just closed, the colonists had discovered their inherent strength, and they were not easily frightened by the mother's frown. Upon the postulate of Otis they planted the standard of resistance and boldly kept it floating on the breeze until the War of the Revolution broke out.

PATRICK HENRY.

Heedless of the portentous warnings already given, the British ministry conceived another scheme for taxing the Americans. The famous Stamp Act was elaborated in council, discussed in parliament, and made a law by sanction of the king's signature in the spring of 1765. That act imposed certain duties upon every species of legal writing. It declared invalid and null every promissory note, deed, mortgage, bond, marriage license, business agreement, and every contract which was not written upon paper, vellum, or parchment impressed with the stamp of the imperial government. For these, fixed rates were stipulated. In this measure the Americans perceived another head of the Hydra, Despotism. The Writs of Assistance touched the interests of commercial men; the Stamp Act touched the interests of the whole people. The principle involved was the same in each; the practical effect of the latter was universally felt. Fierce was the tempest of indignation which followed the annunciation of its enactment, and throughout the colonies the hearts of the people beat as with one pulsation. Sectional differences were forgotten. The bold notes of defiance uttered in New England and New York were caught up and echoed with manifold vehemence in Virginia. Patrick Henry, the idle boy of Hanover, had just burst from the chrysalis of obscurity, and was enchanting his countrymen with the brilliancy of his eloquence. He had been but a few days a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, when intelligence of the passage of the Stamp Act reached the Old Dominion. Upon a scrap of paper torn from the fly-leaf of an old copy of "Coke upon Littleton," he wrote those famous resolutions which formed the first positive gauntlet of defiance cast at the feet of the British monarch. The introduction of those resolutions startled the apathetic, alarmed the timid, surprised the boldest. With voice and mien almost superhuman in cadence and aspect, Henry defended them. In descanting upon the tyranny of the odious Act, he shook that assembly with alarm, and as he exclaimed in clear bell-tones of deepest meaning, "Cæsar had his Brutus—Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—" cries of "Treason! Treason!" came from every part of the House. Henry faltered not for an instant; but rising to a loftier altitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye of the most determined fire, he finished the sentence with vehement emphasis—"George the the Third—may profit by their example. If that be treason, make the most of it." The resolutions were adopted, and from that day Massachusetts and Virginia were the head and heart of the American Revolution.

We will not tarry to notice the various measures subsequently adopted by the British Government to tax the Americans without their consent, and the scenes of excitement which every where prevailed in the colonies. The taxes imposed were light, some of them almost nominal; the colonists complained only of the principle involved in the avowal of government, that it possessed the right to impose taxes without the consent of the governed. This was the issue, and both parties were unyielding. For ten years the people complained of wrongs, petitioned for redress, and suffered insults. They were forbearing, because they were fond of the name of Englishmen. The mother country was blind, not voluntarily wicked. The British ministry did not deliberately counsel the king to oppress his subjects, for he would have spurned such advice with indignation; yet the measures which they proposed, and which the king sanctioned, accomplished the ends of positive tyranny and oppression. Forbearance, at length, became no longer a virtue, and, turning their backs upon Great Britain, the Americans prepared for inevitable war. They understood the maxim of revolutionists, that "in union there is strength." A spontaneous desire for a continental council was every where manifested. Its proposition by the Massachusetts Assembly was warmly responded to. The people met in primary assemblies, appointed representatives, and on the 5th of September, 1774, forty-three delegates from twelve colonies assembled in convention, in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia. Others soon came, and the first Continental Congress began its labors.

When the preliminary organization of Congress was completed, and the delegates were assembled on the morning of the 7th, there was great solemnity. After the Rev. Mr. Duché had prayed in behalf of the assembly for Divine guidance, no one seemed willing to open the business of Congress. There was perfect silence for a few minutes, when a plain man, dressed in "minister's gray," arose and called the delegates to action. The plain man was a stranger to almost every one present. "Who is he?" went from lip to lip. "Patrick Henry," was the soft reply of Pendleton, his colleague. The master spirit of the storm in Virginia ten years before, now gave the first impulse to independent continental legislation. Day after day the interests of the colonies were calmly discussed; the rights of the people declared; the principles and blessings of civil freedom extolled, and a determination to maintain and enjoy them, at all hazards, boldly avowed. The king and parliament were petitioned; the people of England and America were feelingly addressed, and yet, during the session, from the 5th of September to the 26th of October, not a word was uttered respecting political independence. Reconciliation was the theme; and that body of noble patriots, the noblest ever assembled, returned to their constituents indulging the hope that there would be no occasion for the assembling of another Congress.

When the proceedings of this first general council reached the king, he was greatly offended, and, instead of accepting the loyal propositions for insuring mutual good-will, and listening to the just petitions of his subjects, he recommended coercive measures. Parliament provided for sending more troops to America to enforce submission to the new and oppressive laws. The town of Boston, the hot-bed of the rebellion, was made a garrison, and subjected to martial law. Blood soon flowed at Lexington and Concord, and two months later the sanguinary battle of Bunker Hill was fought. In the mean while another congress had assembled at Philadelphia on the 10th of May; and Ethan Allen and his compatriots had captured the strong fortresses of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, on Lake Champlain. The whole country was in a blaze. The furrow and the workshop were deserted, and New England sent her thousands of hardy yeomen to wall up the British troops in Boston—to chain the tiger, and prevent his depredating elsewhere. A Continental Army was organized, and the supreme command given to George Washington, the hero of the Great Meadows and of the Monongahela. With Titan strength the patriots piled huge fortifications around Boston, and for nine months they kept their unnatural enemy a prisoner upon that little peninsula. Then they drove him in haste out upon the broad Atlantic, and gave peace to the desolated city. And yet the patriots talked not of political independence. Righteous concession would have secured reconciliation. The dismembering blow had not yet fallen. Great Britain was blind and stubborn still.

Perplexed by dissensions in parliament, and the manifest growth of sympathy for the Americans in his metropolis, the king was desirous of making honorable concessions. Foolish ministers and ignorant and knavish politicians prated of British honor, and advised the adoption of rigorous measures for throwing back the swelling tide of rebellion in America. It was an easy thing to advise, but difficult to plan, and hard to execute the schemes proposed. The army of the empire was too much scattered at distant points to furnish efficient detachments for the American service. It would have been dangerous to send out levies raised from the home districts, because the leaven of republicanism was there at work. Material for an invading force was therefore sought in foreign markets. Petty German princes happened to have a good supply on hand, and toward the close of 1775, one of the darkest crimes recorded upon the pages of English history, was consummated. Seventeen thousand Germans, known here as Hessians, were hired by the British ministry, and sent to plunder our seas, ravage our coasts, burn our towns, and destroy the lives of our people. The king pronounced his subjects in America to be rebels, and virtually abdicated government here, by declaring them out of his protection, and waging war against them. His representatives, the royal governors, were expelled from our shores, or driven to the protection of British arms. All hope for reconciliation faded; petitions and remonstrances ceased; the sword was drawn and the scabbard thrown away. The children of Great Britain, who had ever regarded her with reverence and filial affection, and who never dreamed of leaving the paternal roof until the unholy chastisements of a parent's hand alienated their love, were expelled from the threshold, and were compelled to seek shelter behind the bulwark of a righteous rebellion. Now their thoughts turned to the establishment of themselves as an independent nation.

The precise time when aspirations for political independence first became a prevailing sentiment among the people of the colonies, can not be determined. No doubt the thought had been born in many minds, and the desire cherished in many hearts, years before they received tangible shape in explicit declarations. James Warren, Samuel Adams, Dr. Franklin, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Timothy Dwight, Thomas Paine, and others seem to have been early impressed with the idea, that a total separation from Great Britain was the only cure for existing evils. But it was only a few months before the subject was brought before Congress, that it became a topic for public discussion.

In 1773 Patrick Henry said, in conversation, "I doubt whether we shall be able, alone, to cope with so powerful a nation as Great Britain; but," he said, rising from his chair with animation, "where is France? where is Spain? where is Holland? the natural enemies of Great Britain. Where will they be all this while? Do you suppose they will stand by, idle and indifferent spectators of the contest? Will Louis XVI. be asleep all this time? Believe me, no! When Louis XVI. shall be satisfied by our serious opposition, and our Declaration of Independence, that all prospect of a reconciliation is gone, then, and not till then, will he furnish us with arms, ammunition, and clothing; and not with them only, but he will send his fleets and armies to fight our battles for us. He will form a treaty with us, offensive and defensive, against our unnatural mother. Spain and Holland will join the confederation. Our independence will be established, and we shall take our stand among the nations of the earth!" Never did seer or prophet more clearly lift the veil of the future, and yet few sympathized with him. Doctor Franklin talked of total political emancipation in 1774, and Timothy Dwight recommended it early in 1775, and yet Jay, Madison, Richard Penn, and others positively assert, that until after the meeting of the second Continental Congress, there was no serious thought of independence entertained. In reply to an intimation from a friend in 1774, that Massachusetts was seeking independence, Washington wrote, "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, or any other upon this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence." But when fleets and armies came to coerce submission to injustice and wrong; when King, Lords, and Commons became totally "deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity," the colonies were obliged to "acquiesce in the necessity" which compelled them to dissolve the political bands that united them to the parent state.

At the beginning of 1776, Thomas Paine sent forth his remarkable pamphlet, called Common Sense. Its vigorous paragraphs dealt hard blows upon the British ministry, and its plain truths carried conviction to the hearts of thousands throughout our land that rebellion was justifiable. In it he boldly proposed a speedy declaration of independence. "It matters very little now," he said, "what the King of England either says or does; he hath wickedly broken through every moral and human obligation, trampled nature and conscience beneath his feet; and by a steady and constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself a universal hatred. It is now the interest of America to provide for herself. She hath already a large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take care of, than to be granting away her property to support a power which is become a reproach to the names of men and Christians.... It may be asked, Which is the easiest and most practicable plan, reconciliation or independence? I answer generally, That independence being a single, simple line, contained within ourselves, and reconciliation a matter exceedingly perplexed and complicated, and in which a treacherous, capricious court is to interfere, gives the answer without a doubt.... Instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line, which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and 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."

"Common Sense" was printed and scattered by thousands over the land. In the army it was read by the captains at the head of their companies, and at public gatherings its strong but just language was greeted with loud acclaim. Neighbor read it to neighbor, and within three months after its appearance a desire for absolute independence of Great Britain glowed in almost every patriot bosom, and found expression at public meetings, in the pulpit, and in social circles.

The Colonial Assemblies soon began to move in the matter. North Carolina was the first to take the bold, progressive step toward independence. By a vote of a convention held on the 22d of April, 1776, the representatives of that State in the Continental Congress were authorized "to concur with those in the other colonies, in declaring independence." Eleven months earlier than this, a meeting at Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, forswore allegiance to the British crown.

On the 10th of April, the General Assembly of Massachusetts requested the people of that colony, at the approaching election of new representatives, to give them instructions on the subject of independence. Pursuant to this request, the people of Boston, in town meeting assembled on the 23d, instructed their representatives to use their best endeavors to have their delegates at Philadelphia "advised, that in case Congress should think it necessary for the safety of the united colonies, to declare themselves independent of Great Britain, the inhabitants of that colony, with their lives and the remnants of their fortunes, would most cheerfully support them in the measure."

The Convention of Virginia passed a similar resolution on the 17th of May, and then proceeded to the establishment of a regular independent government for the colony. In its instructions the Virginia Convention directed its representatives to propose a declaration of independence. The General Assembly of Rhode Island adopted a similar resolution the same month, and also directed the usual oath of allegiance, thereafter, to be given to the State of Rhode Island, instead of to the King of Great Britain.

On the 8th of June the New York delegates in Congress asked for special instructions on the subject, but the Provincial Assembly, deeming itself incompetent to instruct in so grave a matter without the previous sanction of the people, merely recommended the inhabitants to signify their sentiments at the election just at hand. The New York delegates were never instructed on the subject, and those who signed the Declaration did so upon their own responsibility. But when a copy of the Declaration reached the Provincial Assembly of New York, then in session at White Plains, that body passed a resolution of approval, and directed their delegates to act in future, as the public good might require.

The Assembly of Connecticut, on the 14th of June, instructed their delegates "to give the assent of the colony to such Declaration, when they should judge it expedient." On the 15th the New Hampshire Provincial Congress issued similar instructions; and on the 21st the new delegates from New Jersey were directed to act in the matter according to the dictates of their own judgments.

THE STATE HOUSE, OR INDEPENDENCE HALL, AS IT APPEARED IN 1776.

In the Pennsylvania Assembly, several months previously, the subject of independence had been hinted at. The Conservatives were alarmed, and procured the adoption of instructions to their delegates, adverse to such a measure. In June these restrictions were removed, and they were neither instructed nor officially permitted to concur with the other colonies in a declaration of independence. But a convention of the people, held in Philadelphia on the 24th of June, expressed their willingness and desire to act in concert with those of the other colonies, and requested the representatives of that province to vote affirmatively.

The Convention of Maryland, by a resolution adopted at about the close of May, positively forbade their delegates voting for independence; but through the influence of Carroll, Chase, Paca, and others, the prohibition was recalled on the 28th of June, and they were empowered to give a vote for Maryland concurrent with the other provinces. Delaware, South Carolina, and Georgia refrained from action on the subject, except such as occurred at small district meetings, and their delegates were left free to vote as they pleased. So rapid was the change in public opinion after the British troops were driven out of Boston, that within the space of sixty-five days, the representatives of ten of the thirteen colonies were specially instructed by their constituents to sever the political tie which bound them to Great Britain.