THE NEW LEAF, AND THE BLOT ON IT
Popular liberty is one thing; political independence is another. The latter cannot be securely and lastingly established until the former has fitted the nation to use it intelligently. When the component individuals have thrown off the bondage of superstition and of formulas, their next step must be, as an organization, to abrogate external subordination to others, and, like a son come of age, to begin life on a basis and with an aim of their own.
But such movements are organic, and chronologically slow; so that we do not comprehend them until historical perspective shows them to us in their mass and tendency. They are thus protected against their enemies, who, if they knew the significance of the helpless seed, would destroy it before it could become the invincible and abounding tree. Great human revolutions make themselves felt, at first, as a trifling and unreasonable annoyance: a crumpling in the roseleaf bed of the orthodox and usual. They are brushed petulantly aside and the sleeper composes himself to rest once more. But inasmuch as there was vital truth as the predisposing cause of the annoyance it cannot thus be disposed of; it spreads and multiplies. Had its opponents understood its meaning, they would have humored it into inoffensiveness; but the means they adopt to extirpate it are the sure way to develop it. Truth can no more be smothered by intolerance, than a sown field can be rendered unproductive by covering it with manure.
When Christ came, the common people had no recognized existence except as a common basis on which aristocratic institutions might rest. That they could have rights was as little conceived as that inanimate sticks and stones could have them; to enfranchise them—to surrender to them the reins of government—such an idea the veriest madness would have started from. Philosophy was blind to it; religion was abhorrent to it; the common people themselves were as far from entertaining it as cattle in the fields are to-day. Christ's sayings—Love one another—Do as ye would be done by—struck at the root of all arbitrary power, and furnished the clew to all possible emancipations; but their infinite meaning has even yet been grasped but partially. A thousand years are but as yesterday in the counsels of the Lord. The early Christians were indeed a democracy; but they were common people to begin with, and the law of love suggested to them no thought of altering their condition in that respect. The only liberty they dreamed of claiming was liberty to die for their faith; and that was accorded to them in full measure. Indeed, an apprenticeship, the years of which were centuries, must be served before they could be qualified to realize even that they could become the trustees of power.
Their simple priesthood, beginning by sheltering them from physical violence, ended by subjecting them to a yet more enslaving spiritual tyranny. Philosophers could frame imaginative theories of human liberty; but the people could be helped only from within themselves. Wiclif, giving them the Bible in a living language, and intimating that force was not necessarily right, began their education; and Luther, in his dogma of justification by faith alone, forged a tremendous weapon in their behalf. Beggars could have faith; princes and prelates might lack it; of what avail was it to gain the whole world if the soul must be lost at last? The reasonings and discussions to which his dogma gave rise called into existence two world-covering armies to fight for and against it. Peace has not been declared between them yet; but there has long ceased to be any question as to who shall have the victory.
When the battle began, however, the other side had the stronger battalions, and there would have been little chance for liberty, but for the timely revelation of the western continent. And, inevitably, it was the people who went, and the aristocrats who stayed behind; because the new idea favored the former and menaced the latter. Inevitably, too, it was the man who had the future in him that was the exile, and the man of the past who drove him forth. And whenever we find a man of the aristocratic order emigrating to the colonies, we find in him the same love of liberty which animates his plebeian companion, graced by a motive even higher, because opposed to his inherited interests and advantages. Thus the refuge of the oppressed became by the nature of things the citadel of the purest and soundest civilization.
Luther, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards were in the line of succession one from the other; each defined the truth more nearly than his predecessor, but left it still in the rough. The whole truth is never revealed at one time, but so much only as may forge a sword for the immediate combat. Faith alone was a good blade for the first downright strokes of the battle; predestination had a finer edge; and Edwards's dialectical subtleties on the freedom of the will sharpen logic to so fine a point that we begin to perceive that not logic but love is the true weapon of the Christian: the mystery of God is not revealed in syllogisms. But each fresh discrimination was useful in its place and time, and had to exist in order to prepare the way for its successor. The Puritans would have been less stubborn without their background of spiritual damnation. That awful conscience of theirs would have faltered without its lake of fire and brimstone to keep out of; and if it had faltered, the American nation would have been strangled in its cradle.
America, then, having no permanent attractions as a residence for any of the upper classes of European society, became the home of the common people, in whom alone the doctrine of liberty could find a safe anchorage, because in them alone did the need for it abide. The philosophy, the religion, the tolerance, the civil forms, which are broad enough to suit the common people, must be nearly as broad as truth itself, and therefore as unconquerable. But the broader they appear, the more must they be offensive to the orthodox and conventional, who by the instinct of self-preservation will be impelled to attack them. There was never a more obvious chain of cause and effect than that which is revealed in the history of the United States; and having shown the conditions which led to the planting in the wilderness of the elements which constitute our present commonwealth, we shall now proceed to trace the manner in which they came to be wrought into a united whole. They were as yet mainly unconscious of one another; the opportunity for mutual knowledge had not yet been presented, nor had the causes conducive to crystallization been introduced. Oppression had awakened the colonists to the value of their religious and civic principles; something more than oppression was requisite to mold them into independent and homogeneous form. This was afforded, during the next eighty years, by their increase in numbers, wealth, familiarity with their country, and in the facilities for intercommunication; and also, coincidently, by the French and Indian wars, which apprised them of their strength, trained them in arms, created the comradeship which arises from common dangers and aims, and developed vast tracts of land which had otherwise been unknown. A country which has been fought for, on whose soil blood has been shed, becomes dear to its inhabitants; and the heroism of the Revolution gathered heart and perseverance from the traditions and the graves of the soldiers of the Intercolonial wars.
The English Revolution benefited the colonies, though to a less extent than might have been expected. William of Orange was the logical consequence, by reaction, of James II. The latter had so corrupted and confused the kingdom, that William, whose connection with England arose from his marriage with Mary, James's daughter, was invited to usurp the throne by Tories, Whigs and Presbyterians—each party from a motive of its own. The people were not appealed to, but they acquiesced. The Roman Catholics were discriminated against, and the nonconformists were not requited for their services; but out of many minor injustices and wrongs, a condition better than anything which had preceded it was soon discernible. The principle was established that royal power was not absolute, nor self-continuing; it could be created only by the representatives of the people, who could take it away again if its trustee were guilty of breach of contract. The dynastic theory was disallowed; kings were to come by election, not succession. The nobility were recognized as the medium between the king and the people, but not before they had conceded to the commons the right to elect a king for life; and presently there came into existence a new power—that of the commercial classes, the moneyed interest, which, in return for loans to government, received political consideration. Ownership of land ceased to be the sole condition on which a candidate could appeal to the electors; and merchants were raised to a position where they could control national policies. Merchants might not be wiser or less selfish than the aristocracy; but at all events they were of the people, and the more widely power is diffused, the less likely is any class to be oppressed. It was no longer possible for freemen to be ruled otherwise than by governments of their own making, and subject to their approval. Freedom of the press, which means liberty to criticise all state and social procedure, was established, and public opinion, instead of being crushed, was consulted. The aristocracy could retain its ascendency only by permitting more weight to the middle class, whose influence was therefore bound gradually to increase. Popular legislatures were the final arbiters; and the advantages which the English had obtained would naturally be imparted to the colonies, which, in addition, were unhampered by the relics of decaying systems which still impeded the old country.
[Illustration: Arresting a Woman Charged with Witchcraft]