(g) The Independence of the Colonies
The seventh great epoch in the progress of the English-speaking people, conceiving them as a whole in their growth and expansion, is the separation of the colonies from the mother country and the establishment of the Republic of the United States. It constitutes one of the most important links in the chain of circumstances which makes up the history of this people. It is perhaps the greatest expansion of a kindred race that history {84} has ever recorded. It has been accompanied by such a fecundity of population; such marvellous personal and aggregate wealth; such phenomenal development of individual and national prosperity; such wonders of science, art, mechanical invention, and commercial greatness; such enormous discoveries of mineral treasures; such superabundance of agricultural resources, as to amaze the very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet it is said by some persons, because of the revolution of 1776, that this phenomenal offspring of England, whose similarity of speech, laws, literature, customs, complexion, manners, in fine, of everything vital, is so striking, should shrink from a closer union with her maternal ancestor; that overtures to push farther their onward march towards civilisation and peace should be treated either with indifference or positive scorn and contempt! And this revolution of 1776, which was in reality but a further expansion and propagation of the English race, and the principles of English liberty, laws, and government, we Americans are advised by a certain class to look upon as a barrier to closer ties between kindred people! This argument is so unnatural, so unchristianlike, so contrary to the laws of human affection; so opposed to our mutual interest and progress; so antagonistic to the good of mankind; so utterly unfounded in reason and history, that I doubt whether it does not fall by its own inherent weakness.
The Revolutionary War, in its outward form, commenced as a struggle for the right of representation, {85} and was afterwards extended to a demand for absolute liberty and independence. But, inherently, it really was the struggle of natural laws in aid of future growth. Although the immediate contest grew out of what was, in effect, an infraction of political rights and liberties, beyond all this were these natural causes operating to produce separation. The peculiar situation of the colonies, the immensity of their possessions, their remoteness from the mother country, the enormous difficulties of intercommunication, produced such isolation in space, notwithstanding much love of the "old home" and pride of ancestry, that an eventual parting between the two countries was simply inevitable.
The War of 1776 was a family quarrel, and bitter, as all family quarrels are. It had been brewing for at least ten years before open war was resorted to, and the history of those ten years, when closely studied, shows that natural conditions were accelerating and encouraging the formal demands which the colonies were to make of the mother country. There is no reason to believe that if the demands had been adjusted, the union of the countries would have been long preserved.
The truth is, that the son had arrived at full, mature age. The maternal mansion was too small for his energy and ambition, and could not accommodate his growing demands and wants. He threw off his allegiance to the mother country, and set up for himself in a separate establishment. It is doubtless true that the maternal rule, by being, in {86} some particulars, narrow, rigid, and unjust, accelerated the eventual demand for that broader national life which was opening in the domains of the new world, and I do not mean to deny that the arguments used by the colonists to justify their separation were not sound. Weaker reasons than those advanced, however, would, as circumstances were, have amply justified the steps they took to establish their independence. The inherent necessities were present, and reasons were easily found to warrant extreme measures. On this side of the Atlantic, in our historical treatment of the subject, we have confined ourselves in the main to the immediate causes and events of the unhappy quarrel, and it is a singular evidence of the candour and conciliatory spirit of the English, that their writers have, in most instances, accepted our version of them, and even enhanced upon them; nay, have even glorified in them as affording another example of the keen-sighted love of liberty inherent in the race.[10] Nothing is more complete than the national self-abnegation (if the expression may be allowed) with which the subject is treated by English authors. Might not we Americans at this time of day, in a spirit of equal fairness, find some apology for our then antagonist? As thus: that the struggle was conceived and precipitated by a handful of infatuated politicians and a narrow-minded King; that the pretext turned upon a point {87} of pure legality, such as has always been found to have a tyrannous influence over minds so constituted—a point, however, to which none of our warmest defenders were able to find a legal answer; that at every stage of the question it was contested by an opposition in Parliament composed of men of exalted talent and purity of purpose, whose speeches and writings on the subject are among the most precious gifts of political eloquence and wisdom, and who were willing to sacrifice their own political existence in proof of the sincerity of their advocacy of our cause; that a similar powerful opposition existed in the country, where the name of Pitt was still a charm to conjure by; that if we had been content to wait for a brief time, that opposition must have come into power, and, as in the case of similar reactionary movements in England herself, the broader doctrine must then have prevailed, and every vestige of tyranny, and every cause of disagreement, been swept away. We might ask ourselves whether, being human, we were altogether impeccable! England under the government of Chatham had valiantly come to our aid, and, after a vast expenditure of blood and treasure, secured this continent for her sons; and the subject of the partial reimbursement, in behalf of which she taxed us, was the staggering debt incurred in our defence. There was a measure of truth in this, and narrow and inexpedient as was the attempt at coercion, in the eyes of statesmen, it was just one of those errors into which ordinary mortals are most apt to fall. {88} The quarrel once begun had, of course, the usual tendency to aggravate itself by intemperate speech and action. As to antecedent conditions, let comparison be made between English, and French, and Spanish methods of colonial government. In them Mr. Burke, our most ardent and enlightened advocate, could find nothing to condemn. He commends the wisdom of the general system and "the wise neglect" of previous administrations. No one who has read the speech on "Conciliation," can ever forget the magnificent tribute to the rising greatness of the colonies, and to that "Liberty" which we possessed, and which made that greatness. Even the Navigation Laws, ugly blemish as they were, were strictly in accordance with the economic ideas of the time, and as such were introduced and accepted. Compare them, again, in their practical operation, with those of France and Spain. Mr. Burke deplores them, but "as our one customer was a very rich man" he remarks that, until a very recent period, they had been scarcely felt as a disadvantage. That seems really to have been so. Franklin, in that inimitable examination before the Committee of the House of Commons, admits as much, and says further, that, in his opinion, those laws would not of themselves justify the resistance of the colonies. Upon the whole subject, in a conversation with Burke, Franklin confessed his fear that the condition of the colonies, in the new order of things, would be less happy and prosperous than in the old. It was about this time that the doctrines of Adam Smith were beginning {89} to take root, and it is certain that in less than half a generation the whole restrictive system, as applied to the colonies, would, notwithstanding the selfish opposition of the mercantile classes, have vanished like a dream. As to the kinds of government bestowed on the colonies, they were mostly of their own choosing, and in advance of the times. Mr. Lecky remarks of them that "it cannot with justice be said that they were not good in themselves, and upon the whole, not well administered." Locke, the friend of all liberal government, gave his genius and virtue to the elaboration of one of them. Penn's model of government was in advance of his times and in the forefront of ours, and it is believed that the Calverts sought to embody the ideal perfections of Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia in the Constitution of Maryland.
The truth is, that but for the natural causes impelling to separation, the whole contention might, and should, have been treated as a domestic one, in which, by virtue of the underlying principles of the British Constitution, all that was wisest and best would have triumphed, and there would have arisen out of it, for both countries, an edifice stronger and more beautiful than any which had gone before it. It was not to be. What remains to us now is the fervent wish that all that was evil in the controversy may for ever perish from the memories of men, and in aid of that wish, the consideration that, as we were the victors, to the victors belongs magnanimity, especially when the victory was over our own kith and kin.
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And in this temper of mind we may reflect that the War of the Revolution was to us, in certain vital aspects, unmistakably a blessing—it brought Union and the Constitution. Every student of our history knows how deeply seated were the diversities between the States, and what slight causes might have inflamed them into enduring antagonisms; how embarrassing such conditions were to Washington and the statesmen of the period; how, as a consequence, through what opposing forces the ideas afterwards ripening into the Constitution made their way. The Union and the Constitution, as we have them today, were, then, the direct products of that struggle. Without its impelling influence, it is more than doubtful whether they would have been realised at all. I can recall no instance in history where such peculiar results have been reached, and permanently maintained, where opposing passions existed and have been left to their natural operation. There has been some active countervailing impulse—some determining motive. We had such a motive in that war and reached the result, but even then only after "difficulty and labour huge." More fortunate, or more virtuous than the Grecian communities, after their heroic defence against Persia, we found in our successful resistance the means of security against internal dangers infinitely greater than any external ones, and along with them the opportunities of our highest achievements in the field of political wisdom.
In this capacity for turning to account a situation fraught with immense danger, do we not recognize {91} that our ancestors were in accord with their ancestors in similar situations? Do we need to be again reminded of the history of Magna Charta, of Representation and the House of Commons, of the Petition of Right, and of the English Constitutional System dating from 1688?
One other thought in this connection. The war which broke out in 1754 between France and England, was, in relation to us, a war essentially for the control of North America, and England unfalteringly sustained the colonists in that struggle. If France had been successful in that war, and had established her supremacy in the North American Continent, what would have been the fate of Americans? How long would have been deferred the establishment, by them, of a separate republican government? Would it ever have been established in its present form? The narrow escape the colonists had from the domination of French power can now be clearly seen by those who read the history of that time. The French driven out, there was nothing to counterbalance the drift towards independence.