The People.
"The primitive land systems lasted long enough to exert a considerable influence upon the people. If we consider extreme examples this becomes evident. The inhabitant of the town community was trained to association with his fellows. Measures were taken to promote village life; laws were made in Connecticut, in 1650, against consolidating house-lots, and the dwellers in Andover were forbidden to live upon their plow-land, lest their hogs and cattle should injure the common meadows. Artisans were secured by the community. Newark, for example, reserved a lot for the miller, another for the town's tailor, another for the boatman, and so on. A town in one case kept a flock of sheep for the public benefit. The habit of coöperation promoted voluntary associations. We find one New England mill owned by seven shareholders, another by thirteen, and a third by fourteen. The towns in New England and New York made by-laws, and regulated their internal concerns in field and town meetings. The system was productive of no end of petty wrangling and neighborhood feuds, but it cultivated a democratic feeling and taught each man to maintain his right.
"On the other hand, the Southern planter lived in some isolation, but his public interests were as extensive as his county or his province. This state of society begot self-reliance, and produced more leading statesmen than the other; but the people lacked the New England cohesion and susceptibility to organization, without which the statesmanship of the Revolution would have been in vain. The Southerner, from his isolation and from other causes, became hospitable, eager for society, and in general spontaneously friendly and generous; the New England people became close-fisted and shrewd in trade, it is a trait of village life. But the benevolence of New England was more effective than that of the South, because it was organized and systematic. The village life of the extreme North trained the people to trade, and led to commercial development; and it made popular education possible. The sons of the great planters at the South were averse to commerce; they were also the most liberally educated and polished in manners of all the colonists; but the scattered common people could have no schools, and were generally rude and ignorant, even when compared with the lower class of New Englanders, who stood a chance of getting some rough schooling, besides a certain education from the meeting-house and the ever-recurring town debates."[221]