Patrician and Plebeian / Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion

by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

Alexander Spotswood was guilty of a theft even greater than that of Ludwell. In 1722, just before retiring from the governorship, he made out a patent for 40,000 acres in Spotsylvania County to Messrs. Jones, Clayton and Hickman. As soon as he quitted the executive office these men conveyed the land to him, receiving possibly some small reward for their trouble. In a similar way he obtained possession of another tract of 20,000 acres. Governor Drysdale exposed the matter before the Board of Trade and Plantations, but Spotswood's influence at court was great enough to protect him from punishment.[102]

The commonness of fraud of this kind among the Virginia planters of the earlier period does not necessarily stamp them as being conspicuously dishonest. They were subjected to great and unusual temptations. Their vast power and their immunity from punishment, made it easy for them to enrich themselves at the public expense, while their sense of honor, deprived of the support of expediency, was not great enough to restrain them. The very men that were the boldest in stealing public land or in avoiding the tax collector might have recoiled from an act of private dishonesty or injustice. However, it would be absurd in the face of the facts here brought forth, to claim that they were characterized by an ideal sense of honor.

But in this as in other things a change took place in the course of time. As the self-respect of the Virginian became with him a stronger instinct, his sense of honor was more pronounced, and he gradually came to feel that deceit and falsehood were beneath him. Used to the respect and admiration of all with whom he came in contact, he could not descend to actions that would lower him in their estimation. Certain it is that a high sense of honor became eventually one of the most pronounced characteristics of the Virginians.

Nothing can demonstrate this more clearly than the "honor system" that came into vogue in William and Mary College. The Old Oxford system of espionage which was at first used, gradually fell into disuse. The proud young Virginians deemed it an insult for prying professors to watch over their every action, and the faculty eventually learned that they could trust implicitly in the students' honor. In the Rules of the College, published in 1819, there is an open recognition of the honor system. The wording is as follows, "Any student may be required to declare his guilt or innocence as to any particular offence of which he may be suspected.... And should the perpetrator of any mischief, in order to avoid detection, deny his guilt, then may the Society require any student to give evidence on his honor touching this foul enormity that the college may not be polluted by the presence of those that have showed themselves equally regardless of the laws of honour, the principles of morality and the precepts of religion."[103]

How potent an influence for good was this sense of honor among the students of the college is shown even more strikingly by an address of Prof. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker to his law class in 1834. "If," he says, "There be anything by which the University of William and Mary has been advantageously distinguished, it is the liberal and magnanimous character of its discipline. It has been the study of its professors to cultivate at the same time the intellect, the principles, and the deportment of the student, labouring with equal diligence to infuse the spirit of the scholar and the spirit of the gentleman. As such we receive and treat him and resolutely refuse to know him in any other character. He is not harrassed with petty regulations; he is not insulted and annoyed by impertinent surveillance. Spies and informers have no countenance among us. We receive no accusation but from the conscience of the accused. His honor is the only witness to which we appeal; and should he be even capable of prevarication or falsehood, we admit no proof of the fact. But I beg you to observe, that in this cautious and forbearing spirit of our legislation, you have not only proof that we have no disposition to harrass you with unreasonable requirements, but a pledge that such regulations as we have found it necessary to make will be enforced.... The effect of this system in inspiring a high and scrupulous sense of honor, and a scorn of all disingenuous artifice, has been ascertained by long experience."[104]

A society in which grew up such a system as this could have no place for the petty artifices of the trader nor the frauds of leading men in public affairs. It is clear that at this period the old customs had passed away; that there was a new atmosphere in Virginia; that the planter was no longer a merchant but a Cavalier. The commercial spirit had become distinctly distasteful to him, and he criticised bitterly in his northern neighbors the habits and methods that had characterized his own forefathers in the 17th century. Governor Tyler, in 1810, said in addressing the Legislature, "Commerce is certainly beneficial to society in a secondary degree, but it produces also what is called citizens of the world—the worst citizens in the world." And In public affairs honesty and patriotism took the place of deceit and fraud. Even in the Revolutionary period the change is apparent, and long before the advent of the Civil War the very memory of the old order of affairs had passed away. The Virginia gentleman in the 19th century was the soul of honor. Thomas Nelson Page says, "He was proud, but never haughty except to dishonor. To that he was inexorable.... He was chivalrous, he was generous, he was usually incapable of fear or meanness. To be a Virginia gentleman was the first duty."[105] The spirit of these men is typified in the character of Robert E. Lee. To this hero of the Southern people dishonesty was utterly impossible. After the close of the Civil War, when he was greatly in need of money he was offered the presidency of an insurance company. Word was sent him that his lack of experience in the insurance business would not matter, as the use of his name was all the company desired of him. Lee politely, but firmly, rejected this proposal, for he saw that to accept would have been to capitalize the homage and reverence paid him by the people of the South.

Along with the instinct of pride and the spirit of chivalry in the Virginia planters developed the power of commanding men. Among the immigrants of the 17th century leadership was distinctly lacking, and during almost all the colonial period there was a decided want of great men. Captain John Smith, Governor William Berkeley, Nathaniel Bacon and Alexander Spotswood are the only names that stand out amid the general mediocrity of the age. If we look for other men of prominence we must turn to Robert Beverley, Philip Ludwell, William Byrd II, James Blair. These men played an important part in the development of the colony, but they are practically unknown except to students of Virginia history.

What a contrast is presented by a glance at the great names of the latter part of the 18th century. The commonplace Virginia planters had then been transformed into leaders of men. When the Revolution came it was to them that the colonies looked chiefly for guidance and command, and Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Mason, the Lees and many other Virginians took the most active part in the great struggle that ended in the overthrow of the sway of England and the establishment of the independence of the colonies. Washington was the great warrior, Jefferson the apostle of freedom, Henry the orator of the Revolution. And when the Union had been formed it was still Virginia that furnished leaders to the country. Of the first five presidents four were Virginia planters.

This transformation was due partly to the life upon the plantation. The business of the Virginia gentleman from early youth was to command. An entire community looked to him for direction and maintenance, and scores or even hundreds of persons obeyed him implicitly. He was manager of all the vast industries of his estate, directing his servants and slaves in all the details of farming, attending to the planting, the curing, the casing of tobacco, the cultivation of wheat and corn, the growing of fruits, the raising of horses, cattle, sheep and hogs. He became a master architect, having under him a force of carpenters, masons and mechanics. Some of the wealthiest Virginians directed in every detail the construction of those stately old mansions that were the pride of the colony in the 18th century. Thus Thomas Jefferson was both the architect and builder of his home at Monticello, and gave to it many months of his time in the prime of his life.

The public life of the aristocrat also tended to develop in him the power of command. If he were appointed to the Council he found himself in possession of enormous power, and in a position to resist the ablest of governors, or even the commands of the king. In all that he did, in private and public affairs, he was leader. His constant task was to command and in nothing did he occupy a subservient position. No wonder that, in the course of time, he developed into a leader of men, equal to the stupendous undertaking of shaking off the yoke of England and laying the foundations of a new nation.