Such was the character of New England's fathers: they were not perfect men; they did not claim for themselves the attributes of perfection; neither can others, their warmest panegyrists, claim it for them with any consistency. They had their errors—the errors of the age. All darkness had not passed away from their understandings, nor all obliquity from their hearts. There was an austerity, a preciseness in some points, an unaccommodating temper, which perhaps is not well suited to all times, or every state of society, but which better agreed with their circumstances as the founders of a nation, and as an example for others to follow. In the natural course of imitation from age to age, there will be apt to be a feebler resemblance of the original; so that where the conduct in the beginning was over-strict, in the lapse of years it will be apt to fall quite too far below the true standard of virtue. The founders of a nation, if they fail at all in firmness of temper or rigidness of discipline, will be very apt to bring on the sooner a dissolute state of the body politic. Our fathers, on this account, were not so much at fault as many suppose. They were fitted, by the guidance and grace of God, for the times in which they lived—for the work which they were called to perform. If some few spots or shades could have been effaced from their characters, they would have been still more fitting instruments of good to the Church and to posterity; but as the case is, no other founders of an empire probably ever possessed so large a portion of wisdom and goodness.
In respect to charges made against the fathers of New England, pertaining to superstition, enthusiasm, injustice towards the Indians, treatment of supposed witches, bigotry, persecution, and the incorporation of church and state, they are capable of a satisfactory refutation in all the material points, and have often received that refutation. While something, however, is to be laid to human imperfection in their case, yet, even in these matters, more is due to the grace of God, which preserved them so comparatively free from evils to which their natural dispositions, or their circumstances, might be supposed to lead them.
It was indeed a new order of things which was introduced by the pilgrim fathers, in their removal to America. The Mayflower came to these shores freighted with great moral principles, as well as with a precious cargo of godly men and women. Of those principles, some were the following, viz: The right of private judgment in the examination of divine truth, is to be held sacred—Conscience, enlightened by the Word of God, is a sufficient guide as to truth and duty—a majority governs in church and state—universal education is the basis of free government—the observation of the Sabbath is a moral virtue, and essential to the safety of a people. From these principles, others have been deduced; or to them others, of scarcely less importance, have been added in more recent times.
III. MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN SETTLEMENTS.[15]
New York—New Jersey—Delaware—Maryland—North Carolina—South Carolina—Georgia—Pennsylvania.
The settlement of the state of New York commenced in 1613, so far as the erection of a fort, near the present city of Albany, and a few trading-houses on the island of Manhattan (New York), may be said to constitute a settlement. The Dutch founded their claim to the soil from the discovery of the Hudson by an Englishman of that name, who was then in the employ of the Dutch; but the British king disputed the claim, from the fact of the previous discovery of the country by the Cabots. The Dutch were forced, for a short time, to yield to the demands of the English; but, the colony having increased in the course of a year, the English were required, in their turn, to yield their authority to the original occupants. For a series of years, the latter continued in peaceful possession, and, by characteristic toil and perseverance, secured the blessings of a growing settlement.