History of the United States Volume Ii Part 8

George III.'s policy was therefore wiser legally than politically. This was, in fact, his ministry's capital mistake--like Lord Salisbury's in respect to Ireland in 1888--that it had too great regard for the mere legal aspect of the question, ignoring the practical. The colonists were too numerous, powerful, and far away, longer to be governed from home, at least by the old plan. To attempt perpetuation of the old regime might be lawful, but was certainly impracticable and stupid. Hence Americans like Jefferson showed themselves consummate politicians in going beyond Pitt's contention from the const.i.tution and from precedent, and appealing to the "natural rights" of the colonists. "Our rights,"

said Otis, in substance, "do not rest on a charter, but are inherent in us as men." "The people" said John Adams in 1765, "have rights antecedent to all earthly government."

[1767]

The Stamp Act was repealed in February. Its principle, however, was immediately re-a.s.serted by the "Declaratory Act," in which Parliament claimed power over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." The repeal caused great rejoicing in America; but neither king nor Parliament had changed policy respecting colonial affairs. There soon followed, in rapid succession, that series of blundering acts of oppression which completed the work begun by the Stamp Act, and drove the colonists into rebellion.

In 1767 duties were laid upon gla.s.s, paper, painters' colors, and tea.

Ma.s.sachusetts, again taking the lead, sent a circular-letter to all the colonies, proposing a united supplication to the throne. For refusal to rescind this letter the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly was dissolved at the command of the angry king. This refusal was the first denial of the king's prerogative; only the authority of Parliament had been resisted before. The soul of the colonial cause in Ma.s.sachusetts at this time was Samuel Adams, of Boston, "the last of the Puritans," a man of powerful and logical mind, intrepid heart, and incorruptible patriotism.

America's debt to him for his work in these early years cannot be estimated. At this juncture he organized committees of safety and correspondence throughout Ma.s.sachusetts, which led to the formation of such committees in the other colonies. They did an invaluable work in binding the scattered sections together, and providing for emergencies.

[1768]

The Billeting Act, which required the colonists to lodge and feed the British troops quartered among them, added fuel to the flames. In 1768 the New York legislature refused to comply, and Parliament suspended its legislative functions.

[1770]

In the fall of the same year, seizing as a pretext two ship-riots which had occurred in the summer, the king stationed four regiments in Boston.

Public sentiment was shocked and indignant at this establishment of a military guard over a peaceable community. The presence of the soldiers was a constant source of irritation. Frequent altercations occurred between the soldiers and the lower cla.s.s of citizens. The trouble culminated in the Boston Ma.s.sacre of March 5, 1770. A squad of soldiers, set upon by a mob of men and boys, fired into the crowd, killing three persons and wounding eight others. That the soldiers had considerable justification is proved by the fact that a jury acquitted all but two, who were convicted of manslaughter, and branded. But exaggerated reports of the occurrence spread like wildfire throughout the colonies, and wrought powerfully for hatred against England.

[1772]

During the next two or three years there was comparative quiet.

Ma.s.sachusetts, it is true, under the tutelage of Samuel Adams, grew more radical in its demands. In 1772 the committee of Boston issued a statement of grievances, adding, as new complaints, the sending of persons to England for trial, restraints upon colonial manufacturers, and a rumored plan to establish bishops over America. This statement was approved by all the colonies, and was sent to Franklin in London. The country as a whole, however, was weary of the strife, and would gladly have returned to the old cordial relations with the mother-land.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Scene in the square of Boston. On the left a crowd of citizens, several of which are wounded. On the right a squad of soldiers, surrounded by gunsmoke, firing at the crowd.]

The Boston Ma.s.sacre.

From an Engraving by Paul Revere.

[1773]

But George III. could not rest without a.s.serting his supremacy over America. He made an arrangement with the East India Company by which tea could be bought in America, spite of the hated tax, cheaper than in England. Then, at the king's instigation, large shipments of tea were made to America. The colonists saw through the cunning attempt, and the tide of resistance rose higher than ever. At New York and Philadelphia the tea-ships were forced to put to sea again without unlading. At Charleston the tea was stored in damp cellars and soon spoiled. At Boston there was a deadlock; the people would not let the tea be landed; the governor would not let the ships sail without unlading. On the evening of December 16, 1773, the tax falling due on the next day, a party of fifty citizens, disguised as Indians, boarded the ships, and threw three hundred and forty-two chests of tea into the harbor.

[1774]

The Boston tea-party aroused all the blind obstinacy of George III.

"Blows must decide," he exclaimed; "the guilty rebels are to be forced to submission," The king's anger led to the Boston Port Bill, which was pa.s.sed the next year, and closed Boston harbor to all commerce. Changes were also made in the government of Ma.s.sachusetts, rendering it almost entirely independent of the people. Town meetings were forbidden except for elections. Poor Ma.s.sachusetts, her liberties curtailed, her commerce ruined, appealed to her sister colonies for support, and they responded right heartily. In three weeks from the news of the Port Bill all the colonies had made the cause of Ma.s.sachusetts their own. Expressions of sympathy and liberal gifts of money and provisions poured into Boston from all over the country. The first Continental Congress a.s.sembled at Philadelphia in September. All the colonies but Georgia were represented. An earnest statement of grievances was drawn up, with a prayer to the king for redress. The action of Ma.s.sachusetts was approved, and an agreement entered into to suspend all commerce with England.

Things now hastened rapidly toward open war. British troops were stationed in Boston, and began fortification. Military preparations were making everywhere among the colonists. The train was laid. Only a spark was needed to bring the dreaded explosion.

CHAPTER III.

INDEPENDENCE AND THE NEW STATES

[1775]

The thought of independence in the minds of the colonists was of surprisingly slow growth. The feeling of dependence on the mother-country and of loyalty to the king was deep-rooted and died hard.

Even union, which was a pre-requisite to a successful struggle for independence, came slowly. The old New England Confederation, in 1643- 84, between Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, for defence against Indians, Dutch, and French, ended without ever having manifested the slightest vigor. In the latter half of the seventeenth century Virginia had alliances with some sister colonies for protection against Indians; but there was no call for a general congress until the French and Indian attack on Schenectady, in 1690, during King William's War. Representatives from New York, Connecticut, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Plymouth met that year at New York; letters came from Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island. But no permanent union was proposed here, nor at any of the similar meetings, seven at least, which occurred between 1690 and 1750.

The Albany Convention, which met in 1754 to prepare for the French and Indian War, adopted a plan for union presented by Franklin, providing for a president-general appointed and supported by the Crown, and for a grand council of delegates elected triennially by the colonies according to population, and empowered, within limits, to lay taxes and make laws for the common interest of English America. Franklin believed that the adoption of this scheme would have postponed the Revolution a century.

But, as it gave so much power to the king, it was rejected by the people in every colony.

Even after English oppression and the diligent agency of committees of correspondence had brought union, and delegates from the colonies had met again and again in Congress, the thought of breaking away from the mother-land was strange to the minds of nearly all. The instructions to the delegates to the first Congress, in September, 1774, gave no suggestion of independence. On the contrary, colony after colony urged its representatives to seek the restoration of "harmony and union" with England. This Congress branded as "calumny" the charge that it wished "independency." Washington wrote, from the Congress, that independence was then not "desired by any thinking man in America."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flag, a pine tree below "AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN".]

Pine Tree Flag of Ma.s.sachusetts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flag, a rattlesnake above "DON'T TREAD ON ME".]

Rattlesnake Flag of South Carolina.

The feeling was much the same in 1775. Pennsylvania "strictly" commanded her representatives to dissent from any "proposition that may lead to separation." Maryland gave similar instructions in January, 1776.

Independence was neither the avowed nor the conscious object in defending Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775. Washington's commission as commander-in-chief, two days later, gave no hint of it. And the New Hampshire legislature so late as December 25, 1775, in the very act of framing a new state government, "totally disavowed" all such aim. In the fall of 1775 Congress declared that it had "not raised armies with the ambitious design of separation from Great Britain."

The swift change which, a little more than six months later, made the Declaration of Independence possible and even popular, has never yet been fully explained. In May, 1775, John Adams had been cautioned by the Philadelphia Sons of Liberty not to utter the word independence. "It is as unpopular," they said, in "Pennsylvania and all the Middle and Southern States as the Stamp Act itself." Early in 1776 this same great man wrote that there was hardly a newspaper in America but openly advocated independence. In the spring of 1776 the conservative Washington declared, "Reconciliation is impracticable. Nothing but independence will save us." Statesmen began to see that longer delay was dangerous, that permanent union turned upon independence, and that, without a government of their own, people would by and by demand back their old const.i.tution, as the English did after Cromwell's death. "The country is not only ripe for independence," said Witherspoon, of New Jersey, debating in Congress, "but is in danger of becoming rotten for lack of it."

Colony after colony now came rapidly into line. Ma.s.sachusetts gave instructions to her delegates in Congress, virtually favoring independence, in January, 1776. Georgia did the same in February, South Carolina in March. Express authority to "concur in independency" came first from North Carolina, April 12th, and the following May 31st Mecklenburg County in that State explicitly declared its independence of England. On May 1st Ma.s.sachusetts began to disuse the king's name in public instruments. May 4th, Rhode Island renounced allegiance almost in terms. On May 15th brave old Virginia ordered her delegates in Congress to bite right into the sour apple and propose independence. Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania took action in the same direction during the following month.

[1776]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flag; thirteen stripes, with the English cross and diagonal cross in the upper left corner.]

Union Flag. The first recognized Continental Standard, raised for the first time January 2,1776.

The king's brutal att.i.tude had much to do with this sudden change. The colonists had nursed the belief that the king was misled by his ministers. A last pet.i.tion, couched in respectful terms, was drawn up by Congress in the summer of 1775, and sent to England. Out of respect to the feelings of good John d.i.c.kinson, of Pennsylvania, who still clung to England, this address was tempered with a submissiveness which offended many members. On its being read, d.i.c.kinson remarked that but one word in it displeased him, the word "Congress;" to which Colonel Ben Harrison, of Virginia, retorted that but one word in it pleased him, and that "Congress" was precisely the word.

The appeal was idle. The king's only answer was a violent proclamation denouncing the Americans as rebels. It was learned at the same time that he was preparing to place Indians, negroes, and German mercenaries in arms against them. The truth was forced upon the most reluctant, that the root of England's obduracy was in the king personally, and that further supplications were useless. The surprising success of the colonial arms, the shedding of blood at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill--all which, remember, antedated the Declaration--the increase and the ravages of the royal army and navy in America, were all efficient in urging the colonists to break utterly and forever from the mother-country.

[1772]

The behavior of the Gaspe officers in Narragansett Bay, their illegal seizures, plundering expeditions on sh.o.r.e, and wanton manners in stopping and searching boats, ill.u.s.trate the spirit of the king's hirelings in America at this time. At last the Rhode Islanders could endure it no longer. Early on the morning of June 9, 1772, Captain Abraham Whipple, with a few boatloads of trusty aides, dropped down the river from Providence to what is now called Gaspe Point, six or seven miles below the city, where the offending craft had run aground the previous evening in giving chase to the Newport-Providence packet-boat, and after a spirited fight mastered the Gaspe's company, put them on sh.o.r.e, and burned the ship. There would be much propriety in dating the Revolution from this daring act.

[1774]

Nor was this the only case of Rhode Island's forwardness in the struggle. December 5, 1774, her General a.s.sembly ordered Colonel Nightingale to remove to Providence all the cannon and ammunition of Fort George, except three guns, and this was done before the end of the next day. More than forty cannon, with much powder and shot, were thus husbanded for service to come. News of this was carried to New Hampshire, and resulted in the capture of Fort William and Mary at New Castle, December 14, 1774, which some have referred to as the opening act of the Revolution. This deed was accomplished by fourteen men from Durham, who entered the fort at night when the officers were at a ball in Portsmouth. The powder which they captured is said to have done duty at Bunker Hill.

[1776]

Most potent of all as a cause of the resolution to separate was Thomas Paine's pamphlet, "Common Sense," published in January, 1776, and circulated widely throughout the colonies. Its lucid style, its homely way of putting things, and its appeals to Scripture must have given it at any rate a strong hold upon the ma.s.ses of the people. It was doubly and trebly triumphant from the fact that it voiced, in clear, bold terms, a long-growing popular conviction of the propriety of independence, stronger than men had dared to admit even to themselves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Thomas Paine.