The Spirit of America Part 3

In 1649 the Vertoogh or Remonstrance of the Seven Men representing the burghers of Manhattan, Brewckelen, Amersfoort, and Pavonia was sent to the States General of the Netherlands. It demanded first that their High Mightinesses should turn out the West India Company and take direct control of New Netherland; second, that a proper munic.i.p.al government should be granted to New Amsterdam; and third, that the boundaries of the province should be settled by treaty with friendly powers. This doc.u.ment also called attention, by way of example, to the freedom of their neighbours in New England, "where neither patrouns, nor lords, nor princes are known, but only the people." The West India Company was powerful enough to resist these demands for a time, but in 1653 New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city.

Ten years later it pa.s.sed under English sovereignty, and the history of New York began. One of its first events was the protest of certain towns on Long Island against a tax which was laid upon them in order to pay for the repair of the fort in New York. They appealed to the principle of "no taxation without representation," which they claimed had been declared alike by England and by the Dutch republic. For nearly twenty years, however, this appeal and others like it were disregarded, until at last the spirit of self-reliance became irresistible. A pet.i.tion was sent to the Duke of York declaring that the lack of a representative a.s.sembly was "an intolerable grievance." The Duke, it is said, was out of patience with his uneasy province, which brought him in no revenue except complaints and protests. "I have a mind to sell it," said he, "to any one who will give me a fair price." "What," cried his friend William Penn, "sell New York! Don't think of such a thing. Just give it self-government, and there will be no more trouble." The Duke listened to the Quaker, and in 1683 the first a.s.sembly of New York was elected.

The charters which were granted by the Stuart kings to the American colonies were for the most part of an amazingly liberal character. No doubt the royal willingness to see restless and intractable subjects leave England had something to do with this liberality. But the immediate effect of it was to encourage the spirit of self-reliance. In some of the colonies, as in Connecticut and Rhode Island, the people elected their own governors as well as made their own laws. When Governor Fletcher of New York found the people of Connecticut unwilling to comply with his demands in 1693, he wrote back to England angrily: "The laws of England have no effect in this colony. They set up for a free state."

Even in those colonies where the governors and the judges were appointed by the crown, the people were quick to suspect and bitter to resent any invasion of their liberties or contradiction of their will as expressed through the popular a.s.semblies; and these a.s.semblies prudently retained, as a check upon executive authority, the right of voting, and paying, or not paying, the salaries of the governor and other officers.

The policy of Great Britain in regard to the American dependencies, while it vacillated somewhat, was, in the main, to leave them quite independent. Various motives may have played a part at different times in this policy. Indifference and a feeling of contempt may have had something to do with it. English liberalism and republican sympathy may have had something to do with it. A shrewd willingness to let them prosper by their own efforts, in their own way, in order that they might make a better market for English manufactures, may have had something to do with it. Thus Lord Morley tells us: "Walpole was content with seeing that no trouble came from America. He left it to the Duke of Newcastle, and the Duke left it so much to itself that he had a closet full of despatches from American governors, which had lain unopened for years."

But whatever may have been the causes of this policy, its effect was to intensify and spread the spirit of self-reliance among the people of America. A group of communities grew up along the western sh.o.r.e of the Atlantic which formed the habit of defending themselves, of developing their own resources, of regulating their own affairs. It has been well said that they were colonies only in the Greek sense: communities which went forth from the mother-country like children from a home, to establish a self-sustaining and equal life. They were not colonies in the Roman sense, suburbs of the empire, garrisoned and ruled from the sole centre of authority.

They felt, all of them, that they understood their own needs, their own opportunities, their own duties, their own dangers and hopes, better than any one else could understand them. "Those who feel," said Franklin, when he appeared before the committee of Parliament in London, "can best judge." They issued money, they made laws and const.i.tutions, they raised troops, they built roads, they established schools and colleges, they levied taxes, they developed commerce,--and this last they did to a considerable extent in violation or evasion of the English laws of navigation.

They acknowledged, indeed they fervently protested, for a long time, their allegiance to Great Britain and their loyalty to the crown; but they conceived their allegiance as one of equality, and their loyalty as a voluntary sentiment largely influenced by grat.i.tude for the protection which the king gave them in the rights of internal self-government.

This self-reliant spirit extended from the colonies into the townships and counties of which they were composed. Each little settlement, each flourishing village and small city, had its own local interests, and felt the wish and the ability to manage them. And in these communities every man was apt to be conscious of his own importance, his own value, his own ability and right to contribute to the discussion and settlement of local problems.

The conditions of life, also, had developed certain qualities in the colonists which persisted and led to a general temper of personal independence and self-confidence. The men who had cleared the forests, fought off the Indians, made homes in the wilderness, were inclined to think themselves _capable de tout_. They valued their freedom to prove this as their most precious a.s.set.

"I have some little property in America," said Franklin. "I will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend the right of giving or refusing the other shilling; and, after all, if I cannot defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless woods of America, which are sure to furnish freedom and subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." It is rather startling to think of Franklin as gaining his living as a hunter or a fisherman; but no doubt he could have done it.

The wonderful prosperity and the amazing growth of the colonies fostered this spirit of self-reliance. Their wealth was increasing more rapidly, in proportion, than the wealth of England. Their population grew from an original stock of perhaps a hundred thousand immigrants to two million in 1776, a twenty-fold advance; while in the same period of time England had only grown from five millions to eight millions, less than twofold.

The conflicts with the French power in Canada also had a powerful influence in consolidating the colonies and teaching them their strength. The first Congress in which they were all invited to take part was called in New York in 1690 to cooperate in war measures against Canada. Three long, costly, and b.l.o.o.d.y French-Indian wars, in which the colonists felt they bore the brunt of the burden and the fighting, drew them closer together, made them conscious of their common interests and of their resources.

But their victory in the last of these wars had also another effect. It opened the way for a change of policy on the part of Great Britain towards her American colonies,--a change which involved their reorganization, their subordination to the authority of the British Parliament, and the "weaving" of them, as ex-Governor Pownall put it, into "a grand marine dominion consisting of our possessions in the Atlantic and in America united into one empire, into one centre where the seat of government is." This was undoubtedly imperialism. And it was because the Americans felt this that the spirit of self-reliance rose against the new policy and stubbornly resisted every step, even the smallest, which seemed to them to lead in the direction of subjugation and dependency.

Followed ten years of acrimonious and violent controversy and eight years of war,--about what? The Stamp Act? the Paint, Paper, and Gla.s.s Act? the Tax on Tea? the Boston Port Bill?

No; but at bottom about the right and intention of the colonies to continue to direct themselves. You cannot possibly understand the American Revolution unless you understand this. And without an understanding of the causes and the nature of the Revolution, you cannot comprehend the United States of to-day.

Take, for example, the division of opinion among the colonists themselves,--a division far more serious and far more nearly equal in numbers than is commonly supposed. It was not true, as the popular histories of the Revolution used to a.s.sume, that all the brave, the wise, the virtuous, and the honest were on one side, and all the cowardly, the selfish, the base, and the insincere were on the other.

There was probably as much sincerity and virtue among the loyalists as among the patriots. There was certainly as much intelligence and education among the patriots as among the loyalists. The difference was this. The loyalists were, for the most part, families and individuals who had been connected, socially and industrially, with the royal source of power and order, through the governors and other officials who came from England or were appointed there. Naturally they felt that the protection, guidance, and support of England were indispensable to the colonies. The patriots were, for the most part, families and individuals whose intimate relations had been with the colonial a.s.semblies, with the popular efforts for self-development and self-rule, with the movements which tended to strengthen their confidence in their own powers.

Naturally they felt that freedom of action, deliverance from external control, and the fullest opportunity of self-guidance were indispensable to the colonies.

The names chosen by the two parties--"loyalist" and "patriot"--were both honourable, and seem at first sight almost synonymous. But there is a delicate shade of difference in their inward significance. The loyalist is one who sincerely owns allegiance to a sovereign power, which _may_ be external to him, but to which he feels bound to be loyal. The patriot is one who has found his own country, _of which he is a part_, and for which he is willing to live and die. It was because the patriotic party appealed primarily to the spirit of self-reliance that they carried the majority of the American people with them, and won the victory, not only in the internal conflict, but also in the war of independence.

I am not ignorant nor unmindful of the part which European philosophers and political theorists played in supplying the patriotic party in America with logical arguments and philosophic reasons for the practical course which they followed. The doctrines of John Locke and Algernon Sidney were congenial and sustaining to men who had already resolved to govern themselves. From Holland aid and comfort came in the works of Grotius. Italy gave inspiration and support in the books of Beccaria and Burlamaqui on the essential principles of liberty. The French intellect, already preparing for another revolution, did much to clarify and rationalize American thought through the sober and searching writings of Montesquieu, and perhaps even more to supply it with enthusiastic eloquence through the dithyrambic theories of Rousseau. The doctrines of natural law, and the rights of man, and the pursuit of happiness, were freely used by the patriotic orators to enforce their appeals to the people. It is impossible not to recognize the voice of the famous Genevese in the words of Alexander Hamilton: "The sacred rights of men 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."

But it still remains true that the mainspring of American independence is not to be found in any philosophic system or in any political theory.

It was a vital impulse, a common sentiment in the soul of a people conscious of the ability and the determination to manage their own affairs. The logic which they followed was the logic of events and results. They were pragmatists. The spirit of self-reliance led them on, reluctantly, inevitably, step by step, through remonstrance, recalcitrance, resistance, until they came to the republic.

"Permit us to be as free as yourselves," they said to the people of Great Britain, "and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness." "No," answered Parliament.

"Protect us as a loving father," they said to the king, "and forbid a licentious ministry any longer to riot in the ruins of mankind." "No,"

answered the king. "Very well, then," said the colonists, "we are, and of right ought to be, free and independent. We have governed ourselves.

We are able to govern ourselves. We shall continue to govern ourselves, under such forms as we already possess; and when these are not sufficient, _we will make such forms as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their const.i.tuents in particular and of America in general_."

This resolution of the Continental Congress, on May 10, 1776, gives the key-note of all subsequent American history. Republicanism was not adopted because it was the only conceivable, or rational, or legitimate, form of government. It was continued, enlarged, organized, consolidated, because it was the form in which the spirit of self-reliance in the whole people found itself most at home, most happy and secure.

The federal Union of the States was established, after long and fierce argument, under the pressure of necessity, because it was evidently the only way to safeguard the permanence and freedom of those States, as well as to "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

The Amendments to the Const.i.tution which were adopted in 1791 (and without the promise of which the original doc.u.ment never would have been accepted) were of the nature of a Bill of Rights, securing to every citizen liberty of conscience and speech, protection against arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, or deprivation of property, and especially reserving to the respective States or to the people all powers not delegated to the United States.

The division of the general government into three branches--legislative, executive, and judicial; the strict delimitation of the powers committed to these three branches; the careful provision of checks and counterchecks intended to prevent the predominance of any one branch over the others; all these are features against which political theorists and philosophers may bring, and have brought, strong arguments. They hinder quick action; they open the way to contests of authority; they are often a serious drawback in international diplomacy.

But they express the purpose of a self-reliant people not to let the ultimate power pa.s.s from their hands to any one of the instruments which they have created. And for this purpose they have worked well, and are still in working order. For this reason the Americans are proud of them to a degree which other nations sometimes think unreasonable, and attached to them with a devotion which other nations do not always understand.

Do not mistake me. In saying that American republicanism is not the product of philosophical argument, of abstract theory, of reasoned conviction, I do not mean to say that Americans do not believe in it.

They do.

Now and then you will find one of them who says that he would prefer a monarchy or an aristocracy. But you may be sure that he is an eccentric, or a man with a grievance against the custom-house, or a fond person who feels confident of his own place in the royal family or at least in the n.o.bility. You may safely leave him out in trying to understand the real Spirit of America.

The people as a whole believe in the republic very firmly, and at times very pa.s.sionately. And the vital reason for this belief is because it springs out of life and is rooted in life. It comes from that spirit of self-reliance which has been and is still the strongest American characteristic, in the individual, the community, and the nation.

It seems to me that we must apprehend this in order to comprehend many things that are fundamental in the life of America and the character of her people. Let me speak of a few of these things, and try to show how they have their roots in this quality of self-reliance.

Take, for example, the singular political construction of the nation,--a thing which Europeans find it almost impossible to understand without a long residence in America. It is a united country composed of States which have a distinct individual life and a carefully guarded sovereignty.

Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, Virginia, Illinois, Texas, California, even the little States like Rhode Island and Maryland, are political ent.i.ties just as real, just as conscious of their own being, as the United States, of which each of them forms an integral part. They have their own laws, their own courts, their own systems of domestic taxation, their own flags, their own militia, their own schools and universities.

"The American citizen." Professor Munsterberg rightly says, "in daily life is first of all a member of his special State."

This distinction of local life is not to be traced to an original allegiance to different owners or lords, a duke of Savoy or Burgundy, a king of Prussia or Saxony. It is quite unlike the difference among the provinces of the French republic or the states of the German Empire. It is primarily the result of a local spirit of self-reliance, a habit of self-direction, in the people who have worked together to build up these States, to develop their resources, to give them shape and substance.

This is the true explanation of State pride, and of the sense of an individual life in the different commonwealths which compose the nation.

Every one knows that this feeling was so strong immediately after the Revolution that it nearly made the Union impossible. Every one knows that this feeling was so strong in the middle of the nineteenth century that it nearly destroyed the Union. But every one does not know that this feeling is still extant and active,--an essential and potent factor in the political life of America.

The Civil War settled once for all the open and long-disputed question of the nature of the tie which binds the States together. The Union may be a compact, but it is an indissoluble compact. The United States is not a confederacy. It is a nation. Yet the local sovereignty of the States which it embraces has not been touched. The spirit of self-reliance in each commonwealth guards its rights jealously, and the law of the nation protects them.

It was but a little while ago that a proposal was made in Congress to unite the territories of Arizona and New Mexico and admit them to the Union as one State. But the people of Arizona protested. They did not wish to be mixed up with people of New Mexico, for whom they professed dislike and even contempt. They would rather stay out than come in under such conditions. The protest was sufficient to block the proposed action.

I have been reading lately a series of recent decisions by the Supreme Court, touching on various questions, like the right of one State to make the C.O.D. shipment of whiskey from another State a penal offence, or the right of the United States to interfere with the State of Colorado in the use of the water of the Arkansas River for purposes of irrigation. In all of these decisions, whether on whiskey or on water, I find that the great principle laid down by Chief Justice Marshall is clearly admitted and sustained: "The Government of the United States is one of enumerated powers." Further powers can be obtained only by a new grant from the people. "One cardinal rule," says Justice Brewer, "underlying all the relations of the States to each other is that of equality of right. Each State stands on the same level with all the rest. It can impose its own legislation on none of the others, and is bound to yield its own views to none."

Now it is evident that this peculiar structure of the nation necessarily permits, perhaps implies, a constant rivalry between two forms of the spirit of self-reliance,--the local form and the general form.

Emphasize the one, and you have a body of public opinion which moves in the direction of strengthening, enhancing, perhaps enlarging, the powers given to the central government. Emphasize the other, and you have a body of public opinion which opposes every encroachment upon the powers reserved to the local governments, and seeks to strengthen the whole by fortifying the parts of which it is composed.

Here you have the two great political parties of America. They are called to-day the Republican and the Democratic. But the names mean nothing. In fact, the party which now calls itself Democratic bore the name of Republican down to 1832; and those who were called successively Federalists and Whigs did not finally take the name of Republicans until 1860. In reality, political opinion, or perhaps it would be more correct to say political feeling, divides on this great question of the centralization or the division of power. The controversy lies between the two forms of the spirit of self-reliance; that which is embodied in the consciousness of the whole nation and that which is embodied in the consciousness of each community. The Democrats naturally speak for the latter; the Republicans for the former.

Of course in our campaigns and elections the main issue is often confused and beclouded. New problems and disputes arise in which the bearing of proposed measures is not clear. The parties have come to be great physical organizations, with vested interests to defend, with an outward life to perpetuate. Like all human inst.i.tutions, both of them have the instinct of self-preservation. They both try to follow the tide of popular sentiments. They both insert planks in their platforms which seem likely to win votes. Sometimes they both hit upon the same planks, and it is very difficult to determine the original ownership.

At present, for example, the great industrial and commercial trusts and corporations are very unpopular. The Democrats and the Republicans both declare their intention to correct and restrain them. Each party claims to be the original friend of the people, the real St. George who will certainly slay the Dragon of Trusts. Thus we have had the amusing spectacle of Mr. Bryan commending and praising Mr. Roosevelt for his conversion to truly Democratic principles and policies, and adding that the Democrats were the right men to carry them out, while Mr. Taft insisted that the popular measures were essentially Republican, and that his party was the only one which could be trusted to execute them wisely and safely.

But, in spite of these temporary bewilderments, you will find, in the main, that the Republicans have a tendency towards centralizing measures, and therefore incline to favour national banks, a protective tariff, enlargement of executive functions, colonial expansion, a greater naval and military establishment, and a consequent increase of national expenditure; while the Democrats, as a rule, are on the side of non-centralizing measures, and therefore inclined to favour a large and elastic currency, free trade or tariff for revenue only, strict interpretation of the Const.i.tution, an army and navy sufficient for police purposes, a progressive income tax, and a general policy of national economy.

The important thing to remember is that these two forms of the spirit of self-reliance, the general and the local, still exist side by side in American political life, and that it is probably a good thing to have them represented in two great parties, in order that a due balance may be kept between them.

The tendency to centralization has been in the lead, undoubtedly, during the last forty years. It is in accord with what is called the spirit of the age. But the other tendency is still deep and strong in America,--stronger I believe than anywhere else in the world. The most valuable rights of the citizen (except in territories and colonies), his personal freedom, family relations, and property, are still protected mainly by the State in which he lives and of which he is a member,--a State which is politically unknown to any foreign nation, and which exists only for the other States which are united with it!

A curious condition of affairs! Yet it is real. It is historically accountable. It belongs to the Spirit of America. For the people of that country think with Tocqueville that "Those who dread the license of the mob, and those who fear absolute power, ought alike to desire the gradual development of provincial liberties."