The spirit of this commonwealth was not first conceived in the year 1787. It was strong and ripe long before the delegates from the Thirteen States assembled under Washington’s leadership in Independence Hall at Philadelphia. The history of the English colonists to the Atlantic coast shows from the very first what weight they attached to the duties and rights of the individual, and foretells as well the inevitable result, their unloosing from the mother country and final declaration of their independence.
We may consider the different lines of development which began early in the seventeenth century, after the feeble attempts at colonization from England, France and Spain in the latter half of the sixteenth century had miscarried and left socially no traces. French settlements flourished as early as 1605, chiefly however in Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada, and in 1609 settlements of Dutch, whose colony on the Hudson River, the present New York, soon passed over into English hands. The development of the Spanish colonies on the Gulf of Mexico went on outside the territory of these young United States; and so the story of the meagre years of America is comprised in the history of the English colonies alone.
These colonies began diversely but came to resemble one another more and more as time went on. There can be no greater contrast than between the pioneer life of stout-willed men, who have left their native soil in order to live in undisturbed enjoyment of their Puritan faith, seeking to found their little communities on simple forms of self-government, and on the other hand the occupation of a rich trading company under royal charter, or the inauguration of a colony of the crown. But these differences could not be preserved. The tiny independent communities, as they grew in consideration, felt the need of some protecting power and therefore they looked once more to England; while, on the other hand, the more powerful, chartered colonies tended to loose themselves from the mother country, feeling, as they soon did, that their interests could not be well administered from across a broad ocean. In spite of the protecting arm of England, they felt it to be a condition of their sound growth that they should manage their domestic affairs for themselves. Thus it happened that all the colonies alike were externally dependent on England, while internally they were independent and were being schooled in citizenship.
The desire for self-government as a factor in the transformations which went on can very easily be traced; but it would be harder to say how far utilitarian and how far moral factors entered in. Virginia took the first step. Its first settlement of 1606 was completely subject to the king, who granted homesteads but no political rights to the colonists. It was a lifeless undertaking until 1609, when its political status was changed. The administration of the colony was entrusted to those who were interested in its material success. It became a great business undertaking which had everything in its favour. At the head was a London company, which for a nominal sum had been allowed to purchase a strip of land having four hundred miles of seacoast and extending inland indefinitely. This land contained inestimable natural resources, but needed labour to exploit them. The company then offered to grant homes on very favourable terms to settlers, receiving in return either cash or labour; and these inducements, together with the economic pressure felt by the lower classes at home, brought about a rapid growth of the colony. Now since this colony was organized like a military despotism, whose ruler, however, was no less than three thousand miles away, the interests of the company had to be represented by officials delegated to live in the colony. The interests of these officials were of course never those of the colonists, and presently, moreover, unscrupulous officials commenced to misuse their power; so that as a result, while the colony flourished, the company was on the brink of failure. The only way out of this difficulty was to concede something to the colonists themselves, and harmonize their interests with those of the company by granting them the free direction of their own affairs. It was arranged that every village or small city should be a political unit and as such should send two delegates to a convention which sat to deliberate all matters of common concern. This body met for the first time in 1619; and in a short time it happened, as was to be expected, that the local government felt itself to be stronger than the mercantile company back in London. Disputes arose, and before five years the company had ceased to exist, and Virginia became a royal province. But the fact remained that in the year 1619 for the first time a deliberative body representing the people had met on American soil. The first step toward freedom had been taken. And with subtle irony fate decreed that in this same year of grace a Dutch ship should land the first cargo of African negroes in the same colony, as slaves.
That other form of political development, which started in the voluntary compact of men who owned no other allegiance, was first exemplified in the covenant of those hundred and two Puritans who landed from the Mayflower at Plymouth, in the year 1620, having forsaken England in order to enjoy religious freedom in the New World. A storm forced them to land on Cape Cod, where they remained and amid the severest hardships built up their little colony, which, as no other, has been a perpetual spring of moral force. Even to-day the best men of the land derive their strength from the moral courage and earnestness of life of the Pilgrims. Before they landed they signed a compact, in which they declared that they had made this voyage “for ye glory of God and advancement of ye Christian faith, and honour of our King and countrie,” and that now in the sight of God they would “combine ... togeather into a civil body politik for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of ye end aforesaid, and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute and frame such just and equal lawes, ordinances, actes, constitutions and offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for ye generall good of ye colonie.”
The executive was a governor and his assistants, elected annually from the people: while the power to make laws remained with the body of male communicants of the church. And so it remained for eighteen years, until the growth of the colony made it hard for all church-members to meet together, so that a simple system of popular representation by election had to be introduced. This colony united later with a flourishing trading settlement, which centred about Salem; and these together formed the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which in 1640 numbered already twenty thousand souls.
The covenant which was drawn up on board the Mayflower is to be accounted the first voluntary federation of independent Americans for the purposes of orderly government. The first written constitution was drawn up in the colony of Connecticut, a colony which repeated essentially the successful experiments of New Plymouth, and which consisted of agricultural settlements and small posts for trading with the Indians situated at Windsor and Hartford and other places along the Connecticut Valley. Led by common interests, they adopted in 1638 a formal constitution.
There was still a third important type of colonial government, which was at first thoroughly aristocratic and English, and nevertheless became quickly Americanized. It was the custom of the King to grant to distinguished men, under provision of a small tribute, almost monarchical rights over large tracts of land. The first such man was Lord Baltimore, who received in 1632 a title to the domain of Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay. He enjoyed the most complete princely prerogatives, and pledged to the crown in return about a fifth part of the gold and silver mined in his province. In 1664 Charles the Second gave to his brother, the Duke of York, a large territory, which was soon broken up, and which included what are now known as the States of Vermont, New Jersey, and Delaware. The great provinces of Georgia and Carolina—now North and South Carolina—were awarded by the same King to one of his admirals, Sir William Penn, for certain services. Penn died, and his son, who found himself in need of the sixteen thousand pounds which his father had loaned to the King, gratified that monarch by accepting in their stead a stretch of coast lands extending between the fortieth and forty-third degrees of latitude.
In this way extensive districts were turned over to the caprice of a few noblemen; but immediately the spirit of self-direction took everywhere root, and a social-political enthusiasm proceeded to shape the land according to new ideals. Carolina took counsel of the philosopher, Locke, in carrying out her experiment. Maryland, which was immediately prospered with two hundred men of property and rank, chiefly of Roman Catholic faith, started out with a general popular assembly, and soon went over to the representative system. And Penn’s constructive handiwork, the Quaker State of Pennsylvania, was intended from the first to be “a consecrated experiment.” Penn himself explained that he should take care so to arrange the politics of his colony that neither he himself nor his successors should have an opportunity to do wrong. Penn’s enthusiasm awoke response from the continent: he himself founded the “city of brotherly love,” Philadelphia; and Franz Daniel Pastorius brought over his colony of Mennonites, the first German settlers, who took up their abode at Germantown.