“The colony shall bear the name of Pennsylvania. William Penn, his successors and lieutenants, with the consent of a majority of the freemen, or their representatives freely assembled, shall levy taxes for public service, establish tribunals, appoint judges, &c. The laws shall be framed with reason and in such manner as not to be in opposition with those of England. The sovereign reserves to himself the right of examining private affairs, and to judge them in cases of appeal. In all cases where the positive law of the province is mute, the laws of England shall be followed. A duplicate of all the laws passed in the province shall be forwarded every five years to the Privy Council, and if in the lapse of six months afterwards, they are declared to be contrary to the royal prerogative, or to the laws of England, they shall be declared null. The proprietary shall collect such taxes as the assembly shall fix upon merchandize: they shall always have at the court of London a deputy to answer any allegations against them; and in case they shall be condemned by the courts, and shall not satisfy the award within the lapse of a year, the king shall resume the government until the demands are satisfied, nevertheless without prejudice to individual proprietors, as well as the inhabitants of the province. They may transfer the property. The property of lands already occupied by Christians shall be respected. The monarch will neither impose fines nor taxes upon the colony without the consent of the proprietary or the assembly, or without an act of the government.”
On the 11th July 1681, the proprietary, and those who were to emigrate with him, agreed “that before distributing lands to purchasers enough should be reserved for the public roads, and that all business with the Indians should be transacted in the public market; that all differences with the Indians should be settled by six emigrants and six Indians; that of every five acres one should be left in wood, in order to preserve the oaks and white walnuts for shipbuilding; and that no one should leave the province without giving three weeks previous notice at the public market.”
About the end of the same year the colonists arrived in Pennsylvania, and commenced their settlement. Penn himself arrived at the beginning of the next year, and bought of Lord Berkely, and the heirs of George Carteret, for the sum of £4,000, some parts of New Jersey, which he added to his property, and thus became possessor of all the space comprised between the 40th and 42d degree of latitude. He also bought some lands of the Indians, which he paid for with scrupulous exactness, never thinking that his title of European gave him the right of unmercifully despoiling the savage nations of their natural and legitimate possessions. This spirit of justice and moderation soon conciliated the attachment of the Indians, who from being as at first hostile to the settlements of the whites, soon became benevolent and faithful allies; Penn’s reputation soon reached Europe, and inspired a multitude of unfortunate men with the desire of seeking within his territories for peace and liberty. The first colonists, who came over with him, imitated his virtues, and the settlement flourished. In the year 1682, William Penn called a general assembly of the inhabitants, and employed their aid in drafting a constitution, the execution of which should be confided to a governor assisted by a provincial council, and the inhabitants formed into a general assembly. The council was to be composed of seventy members chosen by the inhabitants, and presided over by the governor or his representative. One third of this council was to be renewed every year.—On this occasion William Penn delivered an address in which he established this proposition, too much misunderstood by the people and governments of Europe.—
“Whatever may be the form of government, the people are always free so long as they are only governed by the laws, and they participate in the formation of these laws; that it is the sole means by which they can be free; and that beyond these conditions there is nothing but oligarchy and confusion: that the great ends of all government are, to make power respected by the people, and to guarantee the people from the abuse of power; and that thus a people is free in obeying, and the magistrates are honorable, and honored by the justice of their administration and submission to the law.”
Troubles, however ensued; they were caused by the claims of the governor of Maryland, Lord Baltimore, and William Penn was obliged to go to England to maintain his rights. During his absence he confided the government to five commissioners, who disappointed every one by abusing their authority. Under these circumstances, king James having abdicated, his successors seized on the government of Pennsylvania, but three years after, that is, in 1696, it was restored to the proprietary. In 1699 Penn returned to Pennsylvania, and resumed the management of affairs; he then proposed a new constitution which was adopted and maintained until the revolution. New vexations soon recalled Penn to England where he suddenly died of apoplexy in 1718. His death was undoubtedly a great loss to the colony, but the society of Friends, of which he was the chief, showed itself a worthy inheritor of his virtues, and continued by its liberal politics to attract to the province all the men who were disgusted by regal despotism and religious persecution in Europe. From 1729 to 1754 the colony received 30,517 emigrants, principally Irish and Germans. Then all the different doctrines arose from the bosom of the new population, which affected their consciences, and separated the colony into quakers, episcopalians, baptists, presbyterians, catholics, lutherans, calvinists, moravians, covenanters, methodists, universalists, &c. &c. Some of these sects unfortunately let loose their spirit of proselytism and persecution, of which themselves had been victims in Europe, and sometimes they were found to persecute their neighbours the Indians, to impose upon them their creeds. It was this fanaticism which led in 1763, under the execrable pretext of freeing the land from the pagans to the merciless massacre of the Conestoga tribe, which lived so peacefully and securely under the treaty of William Penn. This barbarous act destroyed the good understanding, which had existed during nearly sixty years between the Indians and colonists, and excited those wars which were only terminated in 1779 by the almost total extermination of the natives, the sad remains of which were sent to the banks of Niagara.
From the death of Penn until 1763, the good understanding between the colony and mother country appeared to have suffered no alteration; but the stamp act met with as much resistance from the Pennsylvanians as it did in New England; and in 1768 the provincial assembly protested with energy against the right which parliament wished to arrogate of taxing the colonies. In 1773, the tea imported into Philadelphia by the British was destroyed as it had been at Boston, and all Pennsylvania answered by an unanimous cry of approbation to the insurgent voice of Massachusetts. Finally it was at Philadelphia that in 1776, fifty-four representatives from thirteen states, headed by John Hancock their president, signed the immortal declaration of Independence of the United States.
Towards the end of the same year, the convention of Pennsylvania assembled at Philadelphia, adopted and proclaimed a new constitution, which was preceded by a preamble and declaration of rights.
From the time that this constitution was adopted, Pennsylvania has continually advanced in population, wealth, and prosperity. In 1790, she had but 450,000 souls, at present she contains 1,500,000, of which 41,000 are engaged in agriculture, whose flourishing condition may be compared with the most fertile parts of France. It is especially since property has become more divided by the augmentation of population, that agriculture has made such rapid advances. Ancient estates of 1200 acres, are at present generally divided into farms containing from eighty to a hundred acres, on which are erected commodious dwellings and out-houses, and rich orchards, which constantly furnish the markets with the finest fruits. Since the introduction of plaster as a manure, lands have much increased in value. It would be difficult, I believe, to purchase land in the vicinity of large towns, lower than at the rate of one hundred dollars an acre, or lower than from six to seven dollars in the least inhabited parts of the state.
The greater part of the farmers are not only cultivators, but also traders and manufacturers; they make the woollen cloths for their own use, and sell a great deal of liquor distilled from peaches, corn, rye, maple sugar, &c. They make also large quantities of cider, and for their particular occasions they make wine from currants, raspberries, &c. &c. but seldom from the grape.
The war of 1812, which paralyzed foreign commerce, largely contributed to the advancement of the manufactures of Pennsylvania, which are at present very numerous and very various. According to late estimates it appears, that they employ a capital of more than 40,000 dollars, and at least 60,000 persons.