The same causes which had spread the English settlements over so wide a territory now led, as an indirect result, to their partial union into a confederacy. The immediate consequence of the westward movement had been an Indian war. Several savage tribes were now interspersed between the settlements, so that it became desirable that the military force should be brought, as far as possible, under one management. The colony of New Netherlands, moreover, had begun to assume importance, and the settlements west of the Connecticut river had already occasioned hard words between Dutch and English, which might at any moment be followed by blows. In the French colonies at the north, with their extensive Indian alliances under Jesuit guidance, the Puritans saw a rival power which was likely in course of time to prove troublesome. With a view to more efficient self-defence, therefore, in 1643 the four colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven formed themselves into a league, under the style of "The United Colonies of New England." These four little states now contained thirty-nine towns, with an aggregate population of 24,000. To the northeast of Massachusetts, which now extended to the Piscataqua, a small colony had at length been constituted under a proprietary charter somewhat similar to that held by the Calverts in Maryland. Of this new province or palatinate of Maine the aged Sir Ferdinando Gorges was Lord Proprietary, and he had undertaken not only to establish the Church of England there, but also to introduce usages of feudal jurisdiction like those remaining in the old country. Such a community was not likely to join the Confederacy; apart from other reasons, its proprietary constitution and the feud between the Puritans and Gorges would have been sufficient obstacles.
As for Rhode Island, on the other hand, it was regarded with strong dislike by the other colonies. It was a curious and noteworthy consequence of the circumstances under which this little state was founded that for a long time it became the refuge of all the fanatical and turbulent people who could not submit to the strict and orderly governments of Connecticut or Massachusetts. All extremes met on Narragansett bay. There were not only sensible advocates of religious liberty, but theocrats as well who saw flaws in the theocracy of other Puritans. The English world was then in a state of theological fermentation. People who fancied themselves favoured with direct revelations from Heaven; people who thought it right to keep the seventh day of the week as a Sabbath instead of the first day; people who cherished a special predilection for the Apocalypse and the Book of Daniel; people with queer views about property and government; people who advocated either too little marriage or too much marriage; all such eccentric characters as are apt to come to the surface in periods of religious excitement found in Rhode Island a favoured spot where they could prophesy without let or hindrance. But the immediate practical result of so much discordance in opinion was the impossibility of founding a strong and well-ordered government. The early history of Rhode Island was marked by enough of turbulence to suggest the question whether, after all, at the bottom of the Puritan's refusal to recognize the doctrine of private inspiration, or to tolerate indiscriminately all sorts of opinions, there may not have been a grain of shrewd political sense not ill adapted to the social condition of the seventeenth century. In 1644 and again in 1648 the Narragansett settlers asked leave to join the Confederacy; but the request was refused on the ground that they had no stable government of their own. They were offered the alternative of voluntary annexation either to Massachusetts or to Plymouth, or of staying out in the cold; and they chose the latter course. Early in 1643 they had sent Roger Williams over to England to obtain a charter for Rhode Island. In that year Parliament created a Board of Commissioners, with the Earl of Warwick at its head, for the superintendence of colonial affairs; and nothing could better illustrate the loose and reckless manner in which American questions were treated in England than the first proceedings of this board. It gave an early instance of British carelessness in matters of American geography. In December, 1643, it granted to Massachusetts all the territory on the mainland of Narragansett bay; and in the following March it incorporated the townships of Newport and Portsmouth, which stood on the island, together with Providence, which stood on the mainland, into an independent colony empowered to frame a government and make laws for itself. With this second document Williams returned to Providence in the autumn of 1644. Just how far it was intended to cancel the first one, nobody could tell, but it plainly afforded an occasion for a conflict of claims. [Sidenote: Turbulence of dissent in Rhode Island] [Sidenote: The Earl of Warwick and his Board of Commissioners]
The league of the four colonies is interesting as the first American experiment in federation. By the articles it was agreed that each colony should retain full independence so far as concerned the management of its internal affairs, but that the confederate government should have entire control over all dealings with the Indians or with foreign powers. The administration of the league was put into the hands of a board of eight Federal Commissioners, two from each colony. The commissioners were required to be church-members in good standing. They could choose for themselves a president or chairman out of their own number, but such a president was to have no more power than the other members of the Board. If any measure were to come up concerning which the commissioners could not agree, it was to be referred for consideration to the legislatures or general courts of the four colonies. Expenses for war were to be charged to each colony in proportion to the number of males in each between sixteen years of age and sixty. A meeting of the Board might be summoned by any two magistrates whenever the public safety might seem to require it; but a regular meeting was to be held once every year.
In this scheme of confederacy all power of taxation was expressly left to the several colonies. The scheme provided for a mere league, not for a federal union. The government of the Commissioners acted only upon the local governments, not upon individuals. The Board had thus but little executive power, and was hardly more than a consulting body. Another source of weakness in the confederacy was the overwhelming preponderance of Massachusetts. Of the 24,000 people in the confederation, 15,000 belonged to Massachusetts, while the other three colonies had only about 3,000 each. Massachusetts accordingly had to carry the heaviest burden, both in the furnishing of soldiers and in the payment of war expenses, while in the direction of affairs she had no more authority than one of the small colonies. As a natural consequence, Massachusetts tried to exert more authority than she was entitled to by the articles of confederation; and such conduct was not unnaturally resented by the small colonies, as betokening an unfair and domineering spirit. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the league was of great value to New England. On many occasions it worked well as a high court of jurisdiction, and it made the military strength of the colonies more available than it would otherwise have been. But for the interference of the British government, which brought it to an untimely end, the Confederacy might have been gradually amended so as to become enduring. After its downfall it was pleasantly remembered by the people of New England; in times of trouble their thoughts reverted to it; and the historian must in fairness assign it some share in preparing men's minds for the greater work of federation which was achieved before the end of the following century. [Sidenote: It was only a league, not a federal union]
The formation of such a confederacy certainly involved something very like a tacit assumption of sovereignty on the part of the four colonies. It is worthy of note that they did not take the trouble to ask the permission of the home government in advance. They did as they pleased, and then defended their action afterward. In England the act of confederation was regarded with jealousy and distrust. But Edward Winslow, who was sent over to London to defend the colonies, pithily said: "If we in America should forbear to unite for offence and defence against a common enemy till we have leave from England, our throats might be all cut before the messenger would be half seas through." Whether such considerations would have had weight with Charles I. or not was now of little consequence. His power of making mischief soon came to an end, and from the liberal and sagacious policy of Cromwell the Confederacy had not much to fear. Nevertheless the fall of Charles I. brought up for the first time that question which a century later was to acquire surpassing interest,—the question as to the supremacy of Parliament over the colonies.
Down to this time the supreme control over colonial affairs had been in the hands of the king and his privy council, and the Parliament had not disputed it. In 1624 they had grumbled at James I.'s high-handed suppression of the Virginia Company, but they had not gone so far as to call in question the king's supreme authority over the colonies. In 1628, in a petition to Charles I. relating to the Bermudas, they had fully admitted this royal authority. But the fall of Charles I. for the moment changed all this. Among the royal powers devolved upon Parliament was the prerogative of superintending the affairs of the colonies. Such, at least, was the theory held in England, and it is not easy to see how any other theory could logically have been held; but the Americans never formally admitted it, and in practice they continued to behave toward Parliament very much as they had behaved toward the crown, yielding just as little obedience as possible. When the Earl of Warwick's commissioners in 1644 seized upon a royalist vessel in Boston harbour, the legislature of Massachusetts debated the question whether it was compatible with the dignity of the colony to permit such an act of sovereignty on the part of Parliament. It was decided to wink at the proceeding, on account of the strong sympathy between Massachusetts and the Parliament which was overthrowing the king. At the same time the legislature sent over to London a skilfully worded protest against any like exercise of power in future. In 1651 Parliament ordered Massachusetts to surrender the charter obtained from Charles I. and take out a new one from Parliament, in which the relations of the colony to the home government should be made the subject of fresh and more precise definition. To this request the colony for more than a year vouchsafed no answer; and finally, when it became necessary to do something, instead of sending back the charter, the legislature sent back a memorial, setting forth that the people of Massachusetts were quite contented with their form of government, and hoped that no change would be made in it. War between England and Holland, and the difficult political problems which beset the brief rule of Cromwell, prevented the question from coming to an issue, and Massachusetts was enabled to preserve her independent and somewhat haughty attitude. [Sidenote: Fall of Charles I. brings up the question as to supremacy of Parliament over the colonies]
During the whole period of the Confederacy, however, disputes kept coming up which through endless crooked ramifications were apt to end in an appeal to the home government, and thus raise again and again the question as to the extent of its imperial supremacy. For our present purpose, it is enough to mention three of these cases: 1, the adventures of Samuel Gorton; 2, the Presbyterian cabal; 3, the persecution of the Quakers. Other cases in point are those of John Clarke and the Baptists, and the relations of Massachusetts to the northeastern settlements; but as it is not my purpose here to make a complete outline of New England history, the three cases enumerated will suffice.
The first case shows, in a curious and instructive way, how religious dissensions were apt to be complicated with threats of an Indian war on the one hand and peril from Great Britain on the other; and as we come to realize the triple danger, we can perhaps make some allowances for the high-handed measures with which the Puritan governments sometimes sought to avert it. [Genesis of the persecuting spirit]
As I have elsewhere tried to show, the genesis of the persecuting spirit is to be found in the conditions of primitive society, where "above all things the prime social and political necessity is social cohesion within the tribal limits, for unless such social cohesion be maintained, the very existence of the tribe is likely to be extinguished in bloodshed." The persecuting spirit "began to pass away after men had become organized into great nations, covering a vast extent of territory, and secured by their concentrated military strength against the gravest dangers of barbaric attack." [13]
Now as regards these considerations, the Puritan communities in the New England wilderness were to some slight extent influenced by such conditions as used to prevail in primitive society; and this will help us to understand the treatment of the Antinomians and such cases as that with which we have now to deal.