USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Sketches of Boston, past and present, and of some places in its vicinity > Part 2
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
Liberty, whether civil or religious. is among the noblest objects of hil-
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man regard. Yet, to a being constituted like man, abstract liberty has no existence, and over him no practical influence. To be for him an effi- cient principle of action, it must be embodied in some sensible object. Thus the form of a cap, the color of a surplice, ship-money, a tax on tea, or on stamped paper, objects in themselves indifferent, have been so in- separably identified with the principle temporarily connected with them, that martyrs have died at the stake, and patriots have fallen in the field, and this wisely and nobly, for the sake of the principle, made by the cir- cumstances of the time to inhere in them.
Now in the age of our fathers, the principle of civil and religious liber- ty became identified with forms, disciplines, and modes of worship. The zeal of our fathers was graduated by the importance of the inhering principle. This gave elevation to that zeal. This creates interest in their sufferings. This entitles them to rank among patriots and martyrs, who have voluntarily sacrificed themselves to the cause of conscience and their country. Indignant at being denied the enjoyment of the rights of conscience, which were in that age identified with those sensible objects, and resolute to vindicate them, they quitted country and home, crossed the Atlantic, and, without other auspices than their own strength and their confidence in Heaven, they proceeded to lay the foundation of a commonwealth, under the principles and by the stamina of which, their posterity have established an actual and uncontroverted independence, not less happy than glorious. To their enthusiastic vision, all the comforts of life and all the pleasures of society were light and worthless in com- parison with the liberty they sought. The tempestuous sea was less dreadful than the troubled waves of civil discord; the quicksands, the unknown shoals, and unexplored shores of a savage coast, less fearful than the metaphysical abysses and perpetually shifting whirlpools of des- potic ambition and ecclesiastical policy and intrigue ; the bow and the tomahawk of the transatlantic barbarian, less terrible than the flame and faggot of the civilized European. In the calm of our present peace and prosperity, it is difficult for us to realize or appreciate their sorrows and sacrifices. They sought a new world, lying far off in space, destitute of all the attractions which make home and native land dear and venerable. Instead of cultivated fields and a civilized neighborhood, the prospect be- fore them presented nothing but dreary wastes, cheerless climates, and repulsive wildernesses, possessed by wild beasts and savages; the inter- vening ocean unexplored and intersected by the fleets of a hostile nation ; its usual dangers multiplied to the fancy, and in fact, by ignorance of real hazards, and natural fears of such as the event proved to be imagi- nary.
"Pass on," exclaims one of these adventurers, "and attend, while these soldiers of faith ship for this western world; while they and their wives and their little ones take an eternal leave of their country and kin-
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dred. With what heart-breaking affection did they press loved friends to their bosoms, whom they were never to see again ! their voices broken. by grief, till tears streaming eased their hearts to recovered speech again ; natural affections clamorous as they take a perpetual banishment. from their native soil; their enterprise scorned ; their motives derided ; and they counted but madmen and fools. But time shall discover the wisdom with which they were endued, and the sequel shall show how their policy overtopped all the human policy of this world."
Winthrop, their leader and historian, in his simple narrative of the voyage, exhibits them, when in severe sufferings, resigned; in instant ex- pectation of battle, fearless; amid storm, sickness, and death, calm, con- fident, and undismayed. "Our trust," says he, "was in the Lord of hosts." For years, Winthrop, the leader of the first great enterprise, was the chief magistrate of the infant metropolis. His prudence guided its councils. His valor directed its strength. His life and fortune were spent in fixing its character, or in improving its destinies. A bolder spir- it never dwelt, a truer heart never beat, in any bosom. Had Boston, like Rome, a consecrated calendar, there is no name better entitled than that of Winthrop to be registered as its " patron saint."
From Salem and Charlestown, the places of their first landing, they ranged the bay of Massachusetts to fix the head of the settlement. Af- ter much deliberation, and not without opposition, they selected this spot ; known to the natives by the name of Shawmut, and to the adjoin- ing settlers by that of T'rimountain; the former indicating the abun- dance and sweetness of its waters; the latter the peculiar character of its hills.
Accustomed as we are to the beauties of the place and its vicinity, and in the daily perception of the charms of its almost unrivalled scenery, - in the centre of a natural amphitheatre, whose sloping descents the riches of a laborious and intellectual cultivation adorn, - where hill and vale, river and ocean, island and continent, simple nature and unobtrusive art, with contrasted and interchanging harmonies, form a rich and gorgeous landscape, we are little able to realize the almost repulsive aspect of its original state. We wonder at the blindness of those, who, at one time, constituted the majority, and had well nigh fixed elsewhere the chief seat of the settlement. Nor are we easily just to Winthrop, Johnson, and their associates, whose skill and judgment selected this spot, and whose firmness settled the wavering minds of the multitude upon it, as the place for their metropolis ; a decision, which the experience of two centuries has irrevocably justified, and which there is no reason to apprehend that the events or opinions of any century to come will reverse.
'To the eyes of the first emigrants, however, where now exists a dense and aggregated mass of living beings and material things, amid all the accommodations of life, the splendors of wealth, the delights of taste,
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and whatever can gratify the cultivated intellect, there were then only a few hills, which, when the ocean receded, were intersected by wide marshes, and when its tide returned, appeared a group of lofty islands, abruptly rising from the surrounding waters. Thick forests concealed the neighboring hills, and the deep silence of nature was broken only by the voice of the wild beast or bird, and the warwhoop of the savage.
The advantages of the place were, however, clearly marked by the hand of nature; combining at once present convenience, future security, and an ample basis for permanent growth and prosperity. Towards the continent it possessed but a single avenue, and that easily fortified. Its hills then commanded, not only its own waters, but the hills of the vicin- ity. At the bottom of a deep bay, its harbor was capable of containing the proudest navy of Europe; yet, locked by islands and guarded by winding channels, it presented great difficulty of access to strangers, and, to the inhabitants, great facility of protection against maritime invasion ; while to those acquainted with its waters, it was both easy and accessi- ble. To these advantages were added goodness and plenteousness of wa- ter, and the security afforded by that once commanding height, now, alas ! obliterated and almost forgotten, since art and industry have lev- elled the predominating mountain of the place ; from whose lofty and im- posing top the beacon-fire was accustomed to rally the neighboring popu- lation, on any threatened danger to the metropolis. A single cottage, from which ascended the smoke of the hospitable hearth of Blackstone, who had occupied the peninsula several years, was the sole civilized mansion in the solitude; the kind master of which, at first, welcomed the coming emigrants ; but soon, disliking the sternness of their manners and the severity of their discipline, abandoned the settlement. His rights as first occupant were recognized by our ancestors ; and in November, 1634, Edmund Quincy, Samuel Wildbore, and others were authorized to assess a rate of thirty pounds for Mr. Blackstone, on the payment of which all local rights in the peninsula became vested in its inhabitants.
The same bold spirit which thus led our ancestors across the Atlantic, and made them prefer a wilderness where liberty might be enjoyed to civilized Europe where it was denied, will be found characterizing all their institutions. Of these the limits of the time permit me to speak only in general terms. The scope of their policy has been usually regard- ed as though it were restricted to the acquisition of religious liberty in the relation of colonial dependence. No man, however, can truly un- derstand their institutions and the policy on which they were founded, without taking as the basis of all reasonings concerning them, that civil independence was as truly their object as religious liberty; in other words, that the possession of the former was, in their opinion, the essen- ti il means, indispensable to the secure enjoyment of the latter, which was their great end.
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The master passion of our early ancestors was dread of the English hierarchy. To place themselves, locally, beyond the reach of its power, they resolved to emigrate. To secure themselves after their emigration, from the arm of this their ancient oppressor, they devised a plan, which, as they thought, would enable them to establish, under a nominal subjec- tion, an actual independence. The bold and original conception, which they had the spirit to form and successfully to execute, was the attain- ment and perpetuation of religious liberty, under the auspices of a free commonwealth. This is the master-key to all their policy, - this the glorious spirit which breathes in all their institutions. Whatever in them is stern, exclusive, or at this day seems questionable, may be accounted for, if not justified, by its connection with this great purpose.
The question has often been raised, when and by whom the idea of in- dependence of the parent state was first conceived, and by whose act a settled purpose to effect it was first indicated. History does not permit the people of Massachusetts to make a question of this kind. The honor of that thought, and of as efficient a declaration of it as in their circum- stances was possible, belongs to Winthrop, and Dudley, and Saltonstall, and their associates, and was included in the declaration, that " THE ONLY CONDITION ON WHICH THEY WITH THEIR FAMILIES WOULD REMOVE TO THIS COUNTRY, WAS, THAT THE PATENT AND CHARTER SHOULD REMOVE WITH THEM."
This simple declaration and resolve included, as they had the sagacity to perceive, all the consequences of an effectual independence, under a nominal subjection. For protection against foreign powers, a charter from the parent state was necessary. Its transfer to New England vest- ed, effectually, independence. Those wise leaders foresaw, that, among the troubles in Europe, incident to the age, and then obviously impending over their parent state, their settlement, from its distance and early insig- nificance, would probably escape notice. They trusted to events, and doubtless anticipated, that, with its increasing strength, even nominal subjection would be abrogated. They knew that weakness was the law of nature in the relation between parent states and their distant and de- tached colonies. Nothing else can be inferred, not only from their making the transfer of the charter the essential condition of their emigration, thereby saving themselves from all responsibility to persons abroad, but also from their instant and undeviating course of policy after their emi- gration; in boldly assuming whatever powers were necessary to their con- dition, or suitable to their ends, whether attributes of sovereignty or not, without regard to the nature of the consequences resulting from the exer- cise of those powers.
Nor was this assumption limited to powers which might be deduced from the charter, but was extended to such as no act of incorporation, like that which they possessed, could, by any possibility of legal construc.
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tion, be deemed to include. By the magic of their daring, a private act of incorporation was transmuted into a civil constitution of state ; under the authority of which they made peace and declared war ; erected judi- catures : coined money ; raised armies ; built fleets ; laid taxes and im- posts ; inflicted fines, penalties, and death; and in imitation of the British constitution. by the consent of all its own branches, without asking leave of any other, their legislature modified its own powers and relations, pre- scribed the qualifications of those who should conduct its authority, and enjoy or be excluded from its privileges.
The administration of the civil affairs of Massachusetts, for the sixty years next succeeding the settlement of this metropolis, was a phenome- non in the history of civil government. Under a theoretic colonial rela- tion, an efficient and independent Commonwealth was erected, claiming and exercising attributes of sovereignty, higher and far more extensive than, at the present day, in consequence of its connection with the gen- eral government, Massachusetts pretends either to exercise or possess. Well might Chalmers asserts, as in his Political Annals of the Colonies he does, that " Massachusetts, with a peculiar dexterity. abolished her charter " ; that she was always "fruitful in projects of independence, the principles of which, at all times, governed her actions." In this point of view, it is glory enough for our early ancestors, that, under manifold disadvantages, in the midst of internal discontent and external violence and intrigue, of wars with the savages and with the neighboring colonies of France, they effected their purpose, and for two generations of men. from 1630 to 1692, enjoyed liberty of conscience, according to their view of that subject, under the anspices of a free commonwealth.
The three objects, which our ancestors proposed to attain and perpetuate by all their institutions, were the noblest within the grasp of the human mind, and those on which, more than on any other, depend human hap- piness and hope ; - religious liberty, ciril liberty, and, as essential to the attainment and maintenance of both, intellectual power.
On the subject of religious liberty, their intolerance of other sects has been reprobated as an inconsistency, and as violating the very rights of conscience for which they emigrated. The inconsistency, if it exist, is altogether constructive, and the charge proceeds on a false assumption. The necessity of the policy, considered in connection with their great de- sign of independence, is apparent. They had abandoned house and home, had sacrificed the comforts of kindred and cultivated life, had dared the dangers of the sea, and were then braving the still more appalling terrors of the wilderness; for what ? - to acquire liberty for all sorts of consciences ? Not so; but to vindicate and maintain the liberty of their own consciences. They did not cross the Atlantic on a crusade in behalf of the rights of mankind in general, but in support of their own rights and liberties Tolerate! Tolerate whom? The legate of the Roman Pon-
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tiff, or the emissary of Charles the First and Archbishop Laud ? How consummate would have been their folly and madness, to have fled into the wilderness to escape the horrible persecutions of those hierarchies, and at once have admitted into the bosom of their society, men brandishing, and ready to apply, the very flames and fetters from which they had fled ! Those who are disposed to condemn them on this account, neither realize the necessities of their condition, nor the prevailing character of the times. Under the stern discipline of Elizabeth and James, the stupid big- otry of the First Charles, and the spiritual pride of Archbishop Laud, the spirit of the English hierarchy was very different from that which it as- sumed, when, after having been tamed and humanized under the whole- some discipline of Cromwell and his Commonwealth, it yielded itself to the mild influence of the principles of 1658, and to the liberal spirit of Til- lotson.
But, it is said, if they did not tolerate their ancient persecutors, they might, at least, have tolerated rival sects. That is, they ought to have tolerated sects imbued with the same principles of intolerance as the transatlantic hierarchies ; sects, whose first use of power would have been to endeavor to uproot the liberty of our fathers, and persecute them, according to the known principles of sectarian action, with a virulence in the inverse ratio of their reciprocal likeness and proximity. Those who thus reason and thus condemn, have considered but very superficially the nature of the human mind and its actual condition in the time of our ancestors.
The great doctrine, now so universally recognized, that liberty of con- science is the right of the individual, - a concern between every man and his Maker, with which the civil magistrate is not authorized to interfere, - was scarcely, in their day, known, except in private theory and solitary speculation ; as a practical truth, to be acted upon by the civil power, it was absolutely and universally rejected by all men, all parties, and all sects, as totally subversive, not only of the peace of the church, but of the peace of society. That great truth, now deemed so simple and plain, was so far from being an easy discovery of the human intellect, that it may be doubted whether it would ever have been discovered by human reason at all, had it not been for the miseries in which man was involved in consequence of his ignorance of it. That truth was not evolved by the calm exertion of the human faculties, but was stricken out by the collis- ion of the human passions. It was not the result of philosophic research, but was a hard lesson, taught under the lash of a severe discipline, pro- vided for the gradual instruction of a being like man, not easily brought into subjection to virtue, and with natural propensities to pride, ambi- tion, avarice, and selfishness.
Previously to that time, in all modifications of society, ancient or mod. ern. religion had been seen only in close connection with the State. It
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was the universal instrument by which worldly ambition shaped and mouldled the multitude to its ends. To have attempted the establishment of a state on the basis of a perfect freedom of religious opinion, and the perfect right of every man to express his opinion, would then have been considered as much a solecism, and an experiment quite as wild and vis- ionary, as it would be, at this day, to attempt the establishment of a state on the principle of a perfect liberty of individual action, and the perfect right of every man to conduct himself according to his private will. Had our early ancestors adopted the course we, at this day, are apt to deem so easy and obvious, and placed their government on the basis of liberty for all sorts of consciences, it would have been, in that age, a cer- tain introduction of anarchy. It cannot be questioned, that all the fond hopes they had cherished from emigration would have been lost. The agents of Charles and James would have planted here the standard of the transatlantic monarchy and hierarchy. Divided and broken, without prac- tical energy, subject to court infinences and court favorites, New England at this day would have been a colony of the parent state, her character yet to be formed and her independence yet to be vindicated. Lest the consequences of an opposite policy, had it been adopted by our ancestors, may seem to be exaggerated, as liere represented, it is proper to state, that upon the strength and united spirit of New England mainly depend- ed (under Heaven) the success of our revolutionary struggle. Had New England been divided, or even less unanimous, independence would have scarcely been attempted, or, if attempted, acquired. It will give addition- al strength to this argument to observe, that the number of troops, regular and militia, furnished by all the States during the war of the revolution, was 238,134 Of these New England furnished more than half, viz. 147,674 And Massachusetts alone furnished nearly. one third, viz. . * 83,162
The non-toleration which characterized our early ancestors, from what- ever source it may have originated, had undoubtedly the effect they in- tended and wished. It excluded from influence in their infant settlement all the friends and adherents of the ancient monarchy and heirarchy ; all who, from any motive, ecclesiastical or civil, were disposed to disturb their peace or their churches. They considered it a measure of " self- defence." And it is unquestionable, that it was chiefly instrumental in forming the homogeneous and exclusively republican character, for which the people of New-England have, in all times, been distinguished; and, above all, that it fixed irrevocably in the country that noble security for religious liberty, the independent system of church government.
The principle of the independence of the churches, including the right of every individual to unite with what church he pleases, under whatever
. See " Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, " Vol. I.
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sectarian auspices it may have been fostered, has through the influence of time and experience, lost altogether its exclusive character. It has be- come the universal guaranty of religious liberty to all sects without dis- crimination, and is as much the protector of the Roman Catholic, the Episcopalian, and the Presbyterian, as of the Independent form of wor- ship. The security, which results from this principle, does not depend upon charters and constitutions, but on what is stronger than either, the nature of the principle in connection with the nature of man. So long as this intellectual, moral, and religious being, man, is constituted as he is, the unrestricted liberty of associating for public worship, and the in- dependence of those associations of external control, will necessarily lead to a most happy pumber and variety of them. In the principle of the independence of each, the liberty of individual conscience is safe un- der the panoply of the common interest of all. No other perfect security for liberty of conscience was ever devised by man, except this independ. ence of the churches. This possessed, liberty of conscience has no dan- ger. This denied, it has no safety. There can be no greater human secu- rity than common right, placed under the protection of common interest.
It is the excellence and beauty of this simple principle, that, while it secures all, it restricts none. They, who delight in lofty and splendid monuments of ecclesiastical architecture, may raise the pyramid of church power, with its aspiring steps and gradations, until it terminate in the despotism of one, or a few ; the humble dwellers at the base of the proud edifice may wonder, and admire the ingenuity of the contrivance and the splendor of its massive dimensions, but it is without envy and without fear. Safe in the principle of independence, they worship, be it in tent, or tabernacle, or in the open air, as securely as though standing on the topmost pinnacle of the loftiest fabric ambition ever devised.
The glory of discovering and putting this principle to the test, on a scale capable of trying its efficacy, belongs to the fathers of Massachu- setts, who are entitled to a full share of that acknowledgment made by Hume, when he asserts, " that for all the liberty of the English constitu- tion, that nation is indebted to the Puritans."
The glory of our ancestors radiates from no point more strongly than from their institutions of learning. The people of New England are the first known to history, who provided. in the original constitution of their society, for the education of the whole population out of the general fund. In other countries, provisions have been made of this character in favor of certain particular classes, or for the poor by way of charity. But here first were the children of the whole community invested with the right of being educated at the expense of the whole society ; and not only this, - the obligation to take advantage of that right was enforced by severe supervision and penalties. By simple laws they founded their common- wealth on the only basis on which a republic has any hope of happiness
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or continuance. the general information of the people. They denomina. ted it ". barbarism " not to be able " perfectly to read the English tongne and to know the general laws." In soliciting a general contribution for the support of the neighboring University, they declare that " skill in the tongues and liberal arts is not only laudable, but necessary for the well being of the conunonwealth " And in requiring every town, having one hundred householders, to set up a Grammar School, provided with a master able to fit youth for the University, the object avowed is, " to en- able men to obtain a knowledge of the Scriptures, and by acquaintance with the ancient tongues to qualify them to discern the true sense and meaning of the original, however corrupted by false glosses." Thus hb- eral and thus elevated, in respect of learning, were the views of our an- cestors.
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