SEVEN CONVENTIONS.

1776.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century two classse of colonies were connected with Great Britain-colonies by conquest, as Canada and Jamaica; colonies by settlement, those which became the United States. The political relation of the former was settled by the common consent of mankind and the usage of ages. That of the latter had not been so defined; colonies under similar conditions originated, not having before existed. The ties between Great Britain and those colonies were many and stronga common ancestry, a common religion, a common pride of race, a common language, common political traditions, and a common share in the memories of the past, the objects of the present, and the hopes of the future. As in all political connections between a stronger and a weaker, the weaker had on some subjects suffered injustice, but none so keenly felt as to weaken a sense of union with the mother-country, or to lessen loyalty to the crown or affection for the people of England. Such a condition of things might have remained unchanged for years; it could not, after either side had determined on drawing a line which would force an issue. Neighbors with adjacent open land may be careless of metes and bounds, and indulgent to occasional trespass; but, if one begins to run a fence, the other turns to his title-deed.

Great Britain, as the stronger always will, drew a line which must force an issue. The colonies accepted the challenge. The question was simple and single. Wrong must have been wholly on one side or the other. Walpole, upon a suggestion to tax the colonies, answered, "Who does must be a bolder man than I, and less a friend to the British Constitution." The bolder man appeared, and taxation was attempted. It was not heavy; its returns for a year would not have paid the cost of an army for a week. The colonies had before contributed large free-will offerings, when the equity of such contributions was manifest to them, and were ready to do so again. But, glad to give, they denied a right to take. Upon an aggression, which involved a right of aggression, they justly thought it more wise and equally safe at once to risk all in contesting it. Submission would make a precedent for, and give color of right to future aggressions. The debate which preceded an armed solution, so far from convincing either disputant of wrong, confirmed both in their sense of right. This was inevitable, for their premises differed, and consequent reasoning from those premises developed conclusions so repugnant, that one disputant must yield unreservedly, or be made to. Those premises need to be clearly stated, not only that their irreconcilable discord may be appreciated, and the merits of the controversy correctly judged, but that the subsequent history of those colonies be understood; for the opposite theories of the relation of communities politically connected survived the contest, and men in the United States have divided into parties, one of which under various names has revived and embodied the British conception, the other retaining and embodying the colonial conception. The colonists claimed rights under the contracts of their ancestors.* After the battle of Hastings,

* So that the right of colonies (to be held commonwealths or provinces) saving honor and league with their metropoles dependeth wholly on their

William of Normandy was master of England. Part of its territory he took for the crown, part he left to the vanquished race, part he divided among his followers upon feudal tenures. The feudal system was a system of contracts: if the feudal tenant kept to the bargain, his duty was performed; if the overlord did not, and sought more than the bargain gave him, he might be justly and legally resisted. If a contest ensued, it was held legitimate war. Contract recognized as the basis of relations between freemen, resistance to an invasion of rights under contract not merely legal, but demanded by manhood, and the social elevation of women, are the legacies of the feudal system to our civilization. After the Great Charter and its numerous confirmations, all free men in England were fully recognized as entitled (subject to the law) to complete mastership of person and property. If the king, for public purposes, needed more than his own domain and the feudal tenures could supply, he asked aid of his subjects. Their right of refusal, though often evaded, was never denied. "If the king stepped over the constitutional line, they claimed the right to step over it themselves, and, that failing, promptly armed and appealed to the God of battles." Subject, then, within his kingdom to some limitations, in external matters the king was supreme. Title to land in America was in him; he dealt with it as he pleased. To have value it must be peopled; therefore he gave tracts of it to emigrants upon a tenure and rental, and charters erecting them into bodies politic and corporate, which assured them the rights and privileges of Englishmen. The transaction was wholly between the king and the emigrants; England as a nation neither supplied a penny nor furnished a man, and was then as disconnected from any right of control as Spain. The emigrants were

license or letters by which their sovereign authorized them to plant.— "Leviathan," p. 240.

to form communities, of which the King of England by virtue of his office was to be the king, and the relation between him and them was as easily as it was clearly defined. Whatever rights and privileges his English subjects then had, or ever afterward should have, his American subjects should also have. The bargain was one of reciprocal advantage; a consideration passed on both sides. All political systems in the United States originated from contract; political systems in Europe, with scarcely an exception, have conquest as their basis. Inattention to this difference makes all foreigners and many Americans misunderstand our political system, and not realize that much is permissible to a man as the citizen of a State, which is forbidden to him as a subject of the Constitution of the United States. Under their charters the emigrants had organized separate societies and instituted governments. Each had its elective Legislature, a judiciary, and an executive, the king. The colonies had made war upon the natives, and conquering, enslaved them; in one colony a tribe had been exterminated, and the work of extermination was progressing in all. They had coined money, issued a paper currency, pledged public credit, raised and employed armed forces on land and at sea, and like other communities had misused power to persecute dissenters from dogma, and to hang Quakers and witches.* The conclusion they drew, when forced to a logical conclusion was, that the colonies were nations, bearing the same relation to Great Britain, as Scotland had to England before the union, when their king was the same, or Hanover at that very time; and that their citizens were subjects of the king, but not subjects of his subjects. They did not

* Salem exhibited the almost solitary instance of men, protected by public functions, making a public acknowledgment that, under a delusion, they had perpetrated grave wrongs, for which they asked the forgiveness of men and the mercy of God.