modern society as the American Revolution. History, it is true, exhibited a growing list of victories which freedom had gained over usurpation, but it was not an unbroken series, and the minds of men still refused to accept as an axiom the truth then established, that, with a just cause and unity of action, those who are determined to be free can be free. When, then, the world beheld communities which had been fostered solely for the purposes of peace, communities harmless, unwarlike, feeble, remote from the sympathy of friends, cut off from human aid, and encouraged only by the dangerous applause of those who would make use of them; when the world beheld such pigmies standing boldly on their defence against such odds, it washed its hands of the doom that awaited them. But when, the contest ended, it beheld arbitrary power lying in the dust, while what had been but colonial factories stood erect as free states, great was the revulsion of feeling. Pity and scorn gave way to admiration, and everywhere the oppressed took heart again; for they could see for themselves how powerless force and cunning are against the resolution of the fierce spirit of liberty, and how impotent a giant clothed in brass can be before the stripling who comes in the name of the Lord. Henceforth the lad whose days had been passed in herding flocks was accepted in the sight of all the people. Patriots have at different times and in different places astounded the world and won its admiration by achieving at a blow the independence of their country or the sanctity of their hearths, and nations have earned the respect of mankind by the patience which has at last wrung freedom from niggardly time. Not so these people they righted their wrongs too speedily to merit praise for the heroism that waits and is patient, and they valued their cause too highly to stake it upon the hazard of a single throw. What respect and admiration men gave them was given for more sober conduct: for their breadth and clearness of vision, their profound knowledge of constitutional liberty, their intense earnestness, their faith in the justice of their cause, their prudence which left nothing to chance, their endurance and selfsacrifice, their restraint in the hour of victory, and for the reason and judgment with which they rebuilded their violated temple. This is an exhibition of qualities rather than of deeds; of qualities which may not be dramatic but which certainly are heroic. Had NEGATIVE ANTECEDENTS OF THE AMERICANS. 21 these people sprung to arms from the bosom of society, and had they come before the world clothed with the traditions and manners of a past familiar to their neighbors, they could claim the sympathy of old associations, or, at least, engross the attention of the startled family of commonwealths. Or could they present such a motive as the overthrow of a foreign oppressor, the exclusion of a religion not their own, or even proclaim independence of present rule as their object, they might expect the immediate and attentive regards of mankind. But there was nothing of the sort: their present condition was as negative as their past had been, no foreigner oppressed them, their religion was their own, and independence, though a result, was not a motive. They were a remote people; the Atlantic Ocean fixed its gulf between them and their kindred blood, and thus removed from Europe, they took no part in its affairs and affected it in neither one way nor another. They did not even constitute a separate state; they were mere dependencies of a power which could number others like them in every quarter of the globe, and which power itself was not continental but insular. Scattered along an immense stretch of coast and back-lying uplands, they passed their existence in trade and in the fields, and, so far from any thing occurring in this simple life to call forth genius or heroism, hardly a bubble rose to the surface to indicate what was going on beneath. They had no literature, no great men, no ruins, no tradition, no history. Neither art nor song was beholden to them; no past glory was theirs, nor the enforced respect of acknowledged power, and, without long years of oppression to move the hearts of their fellow-men, they had not even a claim to the world's compassion. They may have added to the comfort of society, but that is all, and the history of civilization might have been written without their absence from its pages being regretted. Nor was the motive which impelled them on their glorious career much more positive. They took arms, not to gain more, but to keep what they had; their material prosperity could hardly be bettered, and greater freedom than theirs it was not possible to attain; for they governed themselves, and, exempt from imperial taxation, were yet protected by the empire. Of all people upon the earth, the Americans enjoyed the happiest lot, save in one thing,-the assurance of its continuance as a thing of right and not of grace ; they had no Declaration of Rights. Thus without the attractiveness or the misfortune which appeal alike to the sensibilities of ancient societies, devoid of antecedents, without which those organizations eye the intruder askance, and with no better reason for disturbing the common peace than the resolution to make sure what was already theirs, these little communities of planters and tradesmen betook themselves to their task, after invoking the God of Nations and appealing to the judgment of mankind. Yet, before their work was ended, the attention of the whole civilized world was riveted upon them. Humanity became moved to its deepest depths; its hopes and fears rose and fell with their successes and defeats, and people held their breath lest a sigh should disturb the balance in which the pretensions of arbitrary power and the rights of free men hung so long in equal poise. Such were, or, rather, thus appeared to the beholder, the adversaries of the most powerful empire the world has seen since the days of ancient Rome, and when the contrast between the contestants is regarded, allowance must be made for the lukewarmness with which society at first met their appeal. But appearances were deceptive. Obscurity is not unfriendly to the growth of manly virtues, and the remoteness of these people from the agitation of the world had permitted the silent but vigorous development of qualities which make men heroic. The seclusion of their fields induced a contemplative disposition, and their affluence preserving them from the sordidness of daily care, they could safely let the imagination wing its steady flight. Free inquiry never enjoyed better conditions of existence than among these men, and freedom of conscience was theirs by inheritance. They, therefore, did have something, though it was not striking to the eye; they had much, and, had their liberties been guaranteed by a constitution, the political philosopher would have beheld in their condition the realization of Utopia. But, so long had they been in the enjoyment of these liberties, they never contemplated their loss, and they gave themselves up to the exercise of their rights without restraint. This taught them their use, and self-government made these men law-givers and statesmen. Liberty was to them as substantial a fact as their plantations, and they estimated its value as coolly; it was certainly as essential to SPIRITUAL NATURE OF REVOLUTIONS. 23 their well-being as their possessions were. They did not approach it timidly, nor as dilettanti, but boldly and with the confidence that grows out of habitual contact; and to their familiarity with the practical working of constitutional maxims must be ascribed that mastery in the art of governing which moved Lord Chatham to direct the eyes of those who would know how to conduct states, not to the works of Greece or Rome, to the cabinets of Europe, nor yet to its parliaments, but to the little senates in the woods of America. What led these people, one after another, to throw themselves at the feet of the mother that bore them and implore her to withdraw her heavy hand; what made them rise as one man in passionate outcry against her; what they did to avert her unjust wrath; and how, one step leading to another, they at last cut themselves off from maternal rule, and started out into the world by themselves;-all this is worth the telling. Events, such as wars, which close the action of violent forces, are too apt to exclude the attention from the course of that action and from its causes. Men love to dwell upon what strikes the eye, and nothing so fills the view as the sight of warring hosts. But revolutions are not affairs of battle fields. They run their course in the hearts and minds of men where batallions cannot enter, and they are ended when they have given a community. something for it to protect against the world. Revolutions do not fight for society, but society fights to make good its revolutions; for, what they bring forth needs protection, and, as revolutions are intangible, there is no power but that of society which can give the protection required. Hence, revolutions are followed by physical conflicts (for the intruder is never welcomed by the one whose place it usurps), which must not be confounded, however, with the revolutions themselves. The real Revolution of 1688 was at an end long before the Battle of the Boyne was fought; and the real French Revolution was over when the National Guard was organized. In the same way, the Revolution in America was ended when the conflict of opinion terminated in the Declaration of Independence; it was not the Revolution of 1783, when the War for Independence came to a close, but it was the Revolution of 1776. The war was the closing scene only of a long struggle, and the real revolution was over before this began.1 The story of no successful attempt for freedom is richer in the qualities which are necessary to make men worthy of being free, in the circumstances which impel men to be free, in the means they use to attain freedom, and in the knowledge of when, where, and how to strike the blow, than that which sets forth the different stages through which the American Revolution passed to the War for Independence. This it is which is here designed to be told, and the story of the final conflict will be permitted to rest as it has already been narrated, or as it is to be again told by others. First, however, to a better understanding of the causes and the events of the American Revolution, it is necessary to observe the nature of the ground and of the actors; what relations they maintained toward each other, toward the mother-country, and toward the world; what they really were and what made them such; and then shall we better appreciate what impelled them to become something else. The history of the Caucasian tribes in America has this advantage over the history of those tribes in Europe—the tribal advent is known, and its history, unbegotten by fable and unclouded by legend, can be followed, step by step, from one recorded fact to another, and in the clear light of day. When we reflect, that the colonists were English in origin, that they remained English as long as they were subjects of the king of England, that the accessions to their number were chiefly from the British isles, and that the Anglican migration owed its impulse in a great measure to the Great Movement or Revolution, we cannot but accept the period of constitutional development in England as one which profoundly affected American character. Reviewing, then, the career of the American people, from the time they came to these shores as Britons, to the time they became Americans, as well in fact as in name, it will be found that they passed through three successive stages or eras of development : Do we mean the 1 But what do we mean by the American Revolution? The revolution was effected before the war commenced. revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their relig American war? ious sentiments of their duties and obligations. The * * * This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affection of the people was the real American Revolution."—John Adams, "Life and Works," x, 283. |